The Character of Hamlet
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The character of Hamlet expresses his inner grief in this passage in a way that reiterates the sense of doom and foreboding from the first scene, prepares the viewer for what is to come, and shapes the character of Hamlet so we can better understand his actions later in the play. Hamlet is a play in which a son has to avenge his father, and from the beginning of the play it is clear that the loss of the father has been a devastating blow to this young man. In the passage under discussion (I.ii.76-86), Hamlet is answering his mother as to why he is so unhappy and why he cannot put aside his grief for his father as she tells him he should. The passage presages much of what is to come, offers some of the underlying motivation for Hamlet's subsequent actions, and demonstrates from the first that there is something wrong in the kingdom and that it has something to do with the king's death. The first scene has set the mood for the play, and this second scene carries forth ideas and images created in that first scene. The fate of kings is tied to the order of the universe, and dissension and tension in one is reflected in the other. In Hamlet the disorder in the kingdom derives from the fact that the natural order has been challenged--a king has been murdered by his wife and brother, and Hamlet is to act to restore the natural order by avenging his father. The appearance of the Ghost at the beginning of the play shows the degree to which the natural order has been sundered
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hout the play that Hamlet is telling the truth--he cares more for what he really feels than he does for how others perceive him. One can take off the "trappings and suits of woe" (I.ii.86), but Hamlet cannot remove his grief.
This passage is the first statement made by Hamlet in the play, and it helps present his character and situation in an immediate way while also linking with what has already happened and presaging much of what is to come.
The moral of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "the Rime of the Ancient Mariner" is embodied in the passage under discussion in a way that relates to the immediate situation of the Mariner talking to the Wedding Guest, that connects directly to the story told by the Mariner, and that extends the moral of the tale to a more general audience and to a more general idea of life. The story told by the Mariner is the story of his own harrowing experience brought about because of the death of an albatross. The story shows how the crew was punished because they did not heed the portents of the sea and because they placed their lives above that of a protected creature, the bird that serves as an omen and so that has a more direct connection with the universe than do human beings. The killing o
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Approximate Word count = 1657
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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