Grief In Hamlet

It is more than coincidental that Kubler Ross’s theory on the five stages of grief is apparent in the story “Hamlet”. In “Hamlet”, the protagonist, which is Hamlet, goes through the 5 stages of grief throughout the story. Kubler Ross constructed and used a theory based on how she believes the stages of the acceptance of death should go. “The 5 stages of grief and loss are: 1. Denial and isolation; 2. Anger; 3. Bargaining; 4. Depression; 5. Acceptance. People who are grieving do not necessarily go through the stages in the same order or experience all of them.” (Axelrod, 2016) Although Hamlet goes through these stages more than once and is involved in multiple stages at the same time, he still experiences them. The death of his father causes Hamlet to experience a lot of adversity and leaves him with some milestone like decisions to make. The only thing he struggles with is not the death of his father, but also the marriage his mother got into which is between his uncle. He feels betrayed by his mother and …show more content…
Horatio and the watchmen bring some news to Hamlet, and the news is that they have seen the ghost of his father. Hamlet wants to see for himself what exactly is going on so he wanders into the woods to discover the ghost of his father, and his father tells Hamlet that Claudius killed him. The ghost then pursues to persuade Hamlet to take revenge against the man who took his life, wife, and throne.
After the death of the former King of Denmark, Hamlet’s father, not only do those related to the great Dane undergo the five stages of grief, but the whole kingdom does as well. It is clear that through the many examples from the play that the kingdom participates in the experience of grief by losing their king. Also, others throughout the play both as one broken family and individually, show signs of experiencing grief. The characters in this broken family live in the kingdom and it includes, Hamlet, Gertrude, Claudius, Polonius, Laertes, and