Aubrie Faville
Hamlet’s Demise
It is believed that everything happens for a reason. People change so that things can be learned to let go, things go wrong so that they can be appreciated when they go right, lies are believed so eventually people learn to trust no one but themselves. Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together. In the book, Hamlet, by William Shakespeare he recognizes that people change, and often, they become the person they said they’d never be.
Shakespeare illustrates Hamlet as a respectable dignified human although, as the play progresses he alters Hamlet’s mindset, making him obsessed with back stabbing and betrayal, to establish that betrayal becomes an addictive cycle by showing that once betrayed by someone you must then betray them. Hamlets obsession with betrayal comes from his father’s murder and his mother’s incest. These are the main problems that lead to his decline and insanity throughout the play. Hamlet is introduced as very straightforward in his actions and his role. When his mother questions him, he is blunt and is honest about his grief. "All that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.” (I.II.) By saying things like this, Hamlet lets Gertrude know that he is what she sees, torn over his father’s death. Later, he makes a clear statement about his state of mind when he commits himself to revenge. "I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records, all saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, that youth and observation copied there, and thy commandment all alone shall live within the book and volume of my brain" (I.V.100-104).
Hamlet is declaring that he will be committed to nothing else but the revenge of his father’s death. This makes him dignified and respected because of how he promises to avenge his father.
There is no confusion about Hamlet’s character in Act One. He has said earlier that he is what he appears to be, and there is no reason to doubt it.
Hamlet’s struggle to exact revenge is first revealed when he examines the words of the ghost. Before the confrontation with the ghost Hamlet’s intentions were clear and his motivation was at its highest. Hamlet’s interaction with the ghost leads him to question its intentions. He says to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, “There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.” (II.ii.239) Hamlet then faces the internal struggle of if he is making the right decision by avenging his father and if it attends to his moral beliefs. He reveals to his fellow men that he struggles with thought and determining if what the ghost bestowed him is morally true or deception. "It is not, nor it cannot come to good.”(I.II) This is the beginning to the change in his personality and moral character. Hamlet is able to see that the information contained in what the ghost has told him is most likely true, but his sense of morality still needs concrete proof of his
Uncle’s guilt. He is no longer the once self motivated, persistent Hamlet he was at the beginning of the story.
After Hamlet’s conversation with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, he is thrown into a state of confusion. This lack of trust in them, then propels Hamlet into a lack of trust in society. "This above all: to thine own self be true” (I.III)He constantly fears he is being watched, he hears rumors and knows of wrongs done by royalty, over all, he is shoved into a life full of lies and corruption. If that alone isn't enough
