HAMLET

PLOT

After the death of the King of Denmark, the Queen Gertrude, mother of the heir to the throne Prince Hamlet, marries the king's brother, Claudius, who comes to the throne. The king's ghost appears to his son and tells him the truth about his death: he was killed by Claudius, the new king of Denmark, poisoned by treachery while he was sleeping in the garden. His father ghost wants Hamlet to revenge him killing the murderer. The Prince pretends to be mad so that Claudius thinks Hamlet does not represent a menace for him. Hamlet refuses Ophelia, even if he loves her, and represents a play whose plot is like his father's murder, to test Claudius' reaction; from his behaviour his guilt emerges. After this, Gertrude sends for Hamlet who kills Polonius, Ophelia's and Laertus' father and King's counsellor, by mistake because he was hiding to listen to their conversation. Suddenly the king's ghost appears to Hamlet and orders him not to kill his mother. She is struck by remorse and decides to support her son's apparent madness. So Hamlet goes to England to be killed but he secretly returns. At the end all the major characters of the tragedy die.

CHARACTERS

Hamlet is a person of high rank, a noble man; in fact he is a prince, son of the king of Denmark. The latter is dead and his brother Claudius wants to marry the King's wife, Gertrude, in order to become king. Hamlet sees his father's ghost that tells him that Claudius has killed him with a poison and that wants him to revenge his death. Nobody knows the truth, in fact only the dead king and his son are aware of the betrayal.

The king was a good and humane person and the order of the nature has been upset by the king's murder. This causes a terrible disorder both in Denmark and in Hamlet: in fact in the nation it leads into chaos, while Hamlet is in a total confusion because he is shocked by these events which make him suffer. On the one hand he suffers for his father's death; on the other hand he is annoyed because her mother does not repulse Claudius' courtship, in fact there's sexual attraction between them. Many scholars has discussed about the Oedipus Complex in Hamlet, in fact he maybe suffers of this psychic problem which follows a tragic myth by Sophocles. This complex regards little boys that are jealous of their mother, need in an unconscious way her and want her only for them. For this reason they refuses their father's ure. This complex is frequent in children's childhood but it provokes a following remorse.

Hamlet identifies himself with Claudius because he has killed Hamlet's father and has married his mother. On the one hand Hamlet wants to kill Claudius, because he has committed a serious crime but he isn't able to kill him because Claudius is part of him. From this, the theme of indecision and delay: Hamlet is lingering and doesn't know what to do. There is a famous verse that expresses this mood and this situation of stillness: "to be or not to be, that is the question".

Another important character in the tragedy is Ophelia, the girl in love with Hamlet. He loved her but when she knows that Hamlet doesn't love her anymore, she is driven mad. So there is a contrast between Hamlet, who pretends to be mad, and Ophelia, who becomes really mad. She is the daughter of Polonius and sister of Laertus, who goes away to France.

The traditional image of the iconography sees her lying on the river waters, in fact she goes to her death in this way. She appears onto the stage with a white night-dress throwing flowers to the audience and saying "Good night". She won't appear anymore on the stage because she'll commit suicide.

"Hamlet" is considered the tragedy of the delay. Moreover it is a "revenge tragedy", a kind of play which derived from Greek and Roman tragedies and was popular in the Renaissance theatre for such features as the presence of ghosts and the violent death of most of characters. But in "Hamlet", the theme of revenge is linked to other themes often in Shakespeare's plays, in particular the nature of order and the nature of the good ruler.