It is easy to argue that Hamlet poses a range of important questions, from the nature of life to the human responsibility to act when circumstances promote action. There are as well critical questions about how love should be honored or denied, and where a child’s loyalty should exist. At...

In the late middle ages, it was common to imprison or even execute those with mental illnesses.1 The Tragedy of Hamlet: Prince of Denmark takes place in the fourteenth or fifteenth century, where one would be severely punished for acting in an insane manner;² Hamlet, however, goes unpunished for his...

William Shakespeare’s magnum opus Hamlet, set in Denmark, is an Elizabethan revenge tragedy that has endured through the centuries. One of Shakespeare’s prominent dramatic features is that of the soliloquy, wherein characters reveal their thoughts and motivations directly to the audience. In one of the many soliloquies in which Prince...

Of all of Shakespeare’s characters within Hamlet, there is none of more interest to the audience than the title character himself. Hamlet represents the very essence of the play’s story, in that he is the mechanism of calculated vengeance against the play’s several antagonists. It is not his role in...

If one is to consider the role of the unexpected in Hamlet, it is necessary to consider the manner in which unexpected events relate to the wider themes of the play. If one considers the play as a whole, it is possible to argue that its plot is constructed via...