Certainly, you’ve heard of Shakespeare, but did you understand one of his most famous works, Hamlet? The play begins with
guards discussing unusual (and unnatural) occurrences. The main one of these is the appearance of a ghost that looks like the dead king Hamlet (not the one who is the protagonist of the play). They talk to Horatio, who suggests that Hamlet should be brought to see the ghost. The ghost tells Hamlet that he is Hamlet’s father, the dead king, and that Hamlet’s uncle Claudius (who has since married the dead Hamlet’s
wife Gertrude and become king) killed the king. Pressed to take revenge, Hamlet agrees. Gradually, the elite around Hamlet descend into various forms of unpleasant futures. Polonius, a sycophantic idiot and father of Laertes and Ophelia, is the first to die when he is trying to spy on Hamlet to get into favor with Gertrude. Ophelia, who loved Hamlet to the extent that she would endure the criticism of everyone around her, is scorned by her love, goes quite insane, and drowns. Gertrude, queen, wife of Claudius, wife of the dead king, and mother of Hamlet, becomes paranoid. Claudius begins to fear the consequences of his actions, and wish for the
forgiveness of heaven, but only if he can keep the spoils of his treachery.
Claudius decides that he needs to get rid of Hamlet. To do this, he enlists Laertes, who is so bereaved by his sister’s death that he would do anything to hurt Hamlet, who he sees as the cause of Ophelia’s madness and death. Laertes poisons the rapier he will use in a fencing contest with Hamlet, and Claudius poisons a glass of wine. In the contest, Laertes wounds Hamlet after quite a while (in which Hamlet proves the better fighter). Hamlet obtains the rapier, and wounds Laertes. Gertrude drinks from the poisoned goblet. Gertrude dies first, and Hamlet realizes the treachery of Laertes and Claudius. Laertes, dying, asks Hamlet’s forgiveness in exchange for his forgiveness of Hamlet. Before Hamlet dies, he leaves the crown to Fortinbras (another noble who had been threatening attack since the beginning of the play) and kills his uncle. So in the end, everyone close to Hamlet ends up dead.By the way, make sure to note the historical context of the novel: Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon’s marriage was claimed to be illegitimate because Catherine had been married to Henry’s dead older brother. Therefore, Shakespeare is making a commentary on marriages to a brother’s widow in the marriage of Gertrude and Claudius. Plus, in Act V, Scene I, Shakespeare’s two comic characters (essential parts in a tragicomedy) discuss whether Ophelia should be buried in sanctified ground just because she was rich (Ophelia may have committed suicide, which would make her ineligible for sanctified ground). It is also interesting to note the phrases originally used in this play that are used in modern speech and the misuse of them. For example, “sweets for the sweet” could be interpreted as wishing the person dead since Gertrude used the phrase at Ophelia’s grave.