Revenge and Vengeance in Shakespeares Hamlet - Beyond...

Revenge in Hamlet There is an old saying, The sins of the fathers are visited upon the sons. When the sons in question are Hamlet, Laertes, and Fortinbras - pivotal characters in Shakespeares Hamlet - one might wonder how each mans father affects their particular natures - their particular sins. While Hamlet could be considered a story in the vein of Cain and Abel; a jealous man who slays his brother, an allusion which Claudius himself makes during his prayer at the climax of the play - O! my offense is rank, it smells to heaven,/It hath the primal eldest curse upon t;/A brothers murder! . . . (III, iii, 36-39) - the greatest sum of miseries in the play are caused by the paths taken by Hamlet, Laertes, and Fortinbras†¦show more content†¦To those he loves - his mother Gertrude and his lady Ophelia - Hamlet adopts a different tact; his belief that he must go alone and confide in no one, save his friend Horatio, results in his terrible mistreatment of his mother and Ophelia. Between speaking da ggers to Gertrude and imparting to Ophelia that she should get to a nunnery, Hamlet makes miserable the lives of the women who love him. That need for detachment from love is grounded in Hamlets self-doubt, which manifests itself throughout the play in Hamlets various soliloquies. Even as he prepares to set a trap for Claudius by use of the play within-the-play, Hamlet finds his thoughts florid and his doubts numerous, he admires First Players capacity to convincingly portray false emotions: O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I! Is it not monstrous that this player here, But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, Could force his soul so to his own conceit (II, ii, 503-507) Even when he discovers Claudius guilt, Hamlet finds himself bound by conscience. He comes across Claudius in the Kings chamber, but as Claudius is in prayer (or so Hamlet perceives him to be), he cannot bring himself to kill the King, lest Claudius meet with a better end than his own father: . . . And so a goes to heaven, And soShow MoreRelated Revenge and Vengeance in Shakespeares Hamlet - Going Beyond Revenge1851 Words   |  8 PagesGoing Beyond Revenge in Hamlet      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The simplest and superficially the most appealing way to understand Shakespeare’s Hamlet is to see it as a revenge tragedy. This genre was well established and quite popular in Shakespeare’s time, but it was precisely part of his genius that he could take old forms and renew them by a creative violation of their standards. 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