The purpose of this research is to examine Shakespeare's Hamlet. The plan of the research will be to set forth Hamlet's appeal in our own age and then to discuss the play's language, four major characters in the play, and modern adaptations and interpretations of Hamlet, including methods of staging the plays and presenting Shakespeare's scenes.
Hamlet is appealing to our own age because we can identify with his complex personal situation. At the start of the play, Hamlet's home and family have been turned upside down--and against social convention. This is true of many people of our own age. Hamlet views Uncle Claudius unfavorably, "no more like my father / Than I to Hercules" (I.ii). He does not understand how Gertrude could forget memories of the marriage with his father. That was a love match. Gertrude "would hang on him, / As if in crease of appetite had grown / By what it fed on: and yet, within a month-- / Let me not think on't--Frailty, thy name is woman!" (I.ii). It turns out Hamlet's father was murdered by the new hus band. Hamlet must fix this evil. But he is torn between action and thinking about consequences. Because he delays, there are many casualties and tragedies --including Hamlet himself.
Despite Shakespeare's language, the characters' psychology makes them surprisingly modern. By mere facts of the case, Ham let's mental turmoil makes perfect sense. He comes home to mourn his father. But here is Claudius criticizing his "unmanly grief" (I.ii). And he obtains no comfort from his mother Gertrude. Emo tional betrayal is obvious in any language. That betrayal also gives the Ghost emotional credibility. This is true even though Hamlet is unsure whether the Ghost "May be the devil; and the devil hath power / To assume a pleas ing shape, yea, and perhaps / . . . Abuses me to damn me" (II.ii).
Believable psychology connects Hamlet to the universal human condition. In I.ii, he is so confused and angry to consider "se...