Hamlet's Use Of The Word Son In Hamlet

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Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s tragedies said to have been written between 1599 and 1602. The play has three known versions which are known as the first quarto, the second quarto and the folio. In Hamlet, the title character fakes insanity to avenge his father’s murder by his uncle, Claudius. The use of the word “son” is being extremely significant for many reasons, one of which being to establish the relationship between the two opposing characters, Claudius and Hamlet. In the play, the word “son” typically means “a boy or man in relation to either or both of his parents”.
The word son, or a variation of the word appears nine times in Two Gentlemen of Verona, thirty times in King Lear, twice in Othello and fifty-two times in Richard III. This indicates that the word is more important in Shakespeare’s historical plays rather than in his tragedies or comedies. This may be due to the importance of the relationships in said plays.
The word is used twenty-three times in the first quarto and is said by King Claudius, Hamlet, Polonius and Queen Gertrude, respectively. However, in the second quarto and the first folio editions, there is not much variation and the word is used twenty-two times throughout the play. This would show that even though the play’s lines were drastically cut from four thousand lines to around two thousand lines, the word …show more content…
It can be said that Claudius uses the noun “son” as a veiled insult towards the protagonist, and addresses him with “But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son- “ . Here is a clear indication of Claudius’s manipulative and calculating nature as he is stating his dual relationship with Hamlet as a distant relative and now son, therefore advertising the relationship he has with Hamlet’s mother, Queen Gertrude. In addition to this, he is also attempting to charm Hamlet in a tasteless manner by referring to the mourning prince as a

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