Hamlet's Ambition Research Paper

Improved Essays
The road to achieve ambitions and desires is often a difficult one; sometimes the individual faces difficult dilemmas that force them to reflect on their choices and morality. Sometimes they have to ask themselves how far they are willing to go in order to get what they want. William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a good example of how two seemingly different people can follow the path of corruption to achieve their goals. Both Hamlet—who seeks revenge for his father’s murder—and Claudius—who killed King Hamlet for the throne—do questionable and immoral actions in order to fulfill their corresponding goals; both men are manipulative, uncaring of the innocents they hurt by their actions, and willing to kill to get what they want. The play shows

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Hamlet's Central Idea

    • 107 Words
    • 1 Pages

    In Hamlet by Shakespeare, Hamlet's act three scene one soliloquy develops a central idea. That central idea is that thought causes one to be fearful of solving an issue. This is shown when Hamlet says "The undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveler returns, puzzles the will, and makes [one] rather bear those ills [one has] than fly to others that [they] know not of" (Shakespeare 79-82). By this he means that instead of doing something one doesn't know about, one would rather suffer where they are. Therefore, the central idea is that fearful thoughts causes one to not go to the unknown and solve a…

    • 107 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Adversity In Hamlet

    • 724 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Shakespeare has Hamlet act increasingly obsessed with his task to the point where he makes a conscious decision to enact vengeance at any cost. He uses the character to explain how the growth of adversity is the direct cause of this obsession and subsequent distraction from morals. He also describes how the eventual overcoming of said adversity will result in the re-emergence of one’s ethics. This comment on the negative effects of hardship demonstrates how one will eventually be capable of disregarding the wellbeing of others to defeat…

    • 724 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Westby Caspersen January 25, 2016 Hamlet Personal Essay “Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth to dust; the dust is earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that loam whereto he was converted might they not stop a beer barrel? Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay, might stop a hole to keep wind away. O, that earth which kept the world in awe should patch a wall t’expel the winter’s flaw!”…

    • 1721 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As of 2016, you can type into the Google search bar “Am I good person” and almost immediately 430,000 quizzes are available. Although the quizzes aren’t genuine, it is entertaining and ensuring to know that you are not completely evil. Unfortunately, in the 1600’s these quizzes weren’t available to Laertes, a character in Shakespeare 's play Hamlet. Laertes would have left the computer program puzzled because of his contradictory actions. The once wise and compassionate Laertes, became hasty and revengeful at the discovery of his father’s homicide.…

    • 836 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Deception plays a pivotal part in Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. Deception appears most significantly in Claudius and Hamlet. Hamlet faked being crazy in order to Trick others and to prove that Claudius is guilty of killing his father the Ex Kings. Other characters such as Polonius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern. All took part of the trickery as well to uncover the source of Hamlet’s so called madness and report back to the dishonorable king who is Claudius.…

    • 766 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dean Koontz once said that “When a liar became too skilled at deception, he could lose the ability to discern truth, and could himself be more easily deceived”. There’s nothing but deception all around the world people are constantly being deceived if they like it or not. Citizens are being deceived by others, even by themselves and once one becomes a professional deception artist that individual won’t be able to decipher what is true and what’s plain lies. In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare deception is one of the major themes. Characters in this play are constantly trying to make someone believe something that isn’t true in order to gain some sort of personal advantage.…

    • 986 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Mankind for all intents and purposes has been fascinated by the concept of Destiny and particularly free will for centuries, or so they definitely thought. The theme for the most part was incorporated into art and culture since the kind of early ages, which mostly is fairly significant. At the center of every very great tragedy laid the struggle between the inclination to generally welcome fate absolutely and the particularly natural desire to control destiny, and Shakespeare particularly is no exception, which really is fairly significant. His play, “Hamlet”, for all intents and purposes is an epitome of the forces of destiny and actually human fairly free will clashing and fighting for control over actually human life, particularly contrary…

    • 2200 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The passage mainly discusses on his revenge for Claudius in addition to how he must hurry up with the act. This develops the theme of seeking revenge due to the fact that Hamlet will ensure this time he will be violent with his revenge and kill him. Throughout the play, he was unable to attain his retaliation, but from this speech he proves that he has the power to make sure this time he serves justice for his father. The theme of attaining power is also developed through the use of this passage. Hamlet states that he was given a greater power to live in this world and pursue his righteousness.…

    • 135 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Deception is a common theme among literature as it creates drama, tension, and suspense within a story. It can have positive outcomes, such as sparing the feelings of a character, or negative outcomes, such as trying to carry out a crime. Shakespearean plays often contain the theme of deception because many of the characters have a conflict that is resolved through the use of deception. Whether it be telling lies or misleading others, Shakespeare’s literature is packed full of deception. In Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet, due to the aftermath of the death of King Hamlet, Hamlet is a character who clearly deceives King Claudius, but also ends up deceiving Queen Gertrude as well as Ophelia and as a result he goes mad.…

    • 633 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Shakespeare’s Hamlet revolves around the titular prince after the recent passing of his father, the king. Quickly into the play, it is revealed that the king’s brother murdered the king and ascended to the throne. Hamlet learns of this information, and he prepares to take vengeance on the evil that was done to his father. As the play progresses, though, the audience must consider whether Hamlet’s commitment to destroying evil has turned him evil. One comes to the conclusion that a man that sets out to destroy evil inevitably becomes evil himself.…

    • 771 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Annotated Bibliography Working Thesis: In the complex and intertwined themes of the revenge tragedy, Hamlet, William Shakespeare effectively expresses what it means to be human through Hamlet’s struggle to explore the human conditions of mortality, deception and morality, social expectations, and contemplation versus impulsive actions. MacNamara, Vincent. “The Human Condition.” The Call to be Human: Making Sense of Morality.…

    • 1170 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The lust for power In the play “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark” by William Shakespeare the drama of conflict between Prince of Norway Hamlet and his uncle the king Claudius takes center stage. The Prince of Denmark seeks revenge after the ghost of his father revels to him that his uncle king Claudius was the one who murdered him. Claudius is a king who is an ambition and cunning political figure that will do anything to stay in power. He is the essential figure that causes so much pain and despair throughout the play.…

    • 764 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Internal Vices To be human is to be at a constant mental battle between being moral or succumbing to personal desire. People are naturally embedded with emotions that often dictate our decisions and thoughts; therefore, people’s minds are often completely ruled by this internal struggle. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the theme of morality versus desire presents itself in its characters such as Hamlet, Claudius and Ophelia; Hamlet who is completely trapped in his own hatred, Claudius who is envious enough to commit murder, and Ophelia who is merely trying to obey orders. All of these characters are overcome with emotions that inevitably lead to their downfalls, indicating that Shakespeare’s message was that to be human means to be consumed by…

    • 1122 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Why is it that we read? We read to learn new things, whether that is a life lesson or simply new vocabulary. We can take two lessons from Hamlet. The first one is that if people let anger and revenge get the best of them, they can cause damage. The second one is in life you will be able to get away with something for long but not forever.…

    • 1346 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Hamlet 's indecision and continuous delay of Claudius 's murder until the end is explained through several concepts of psychology, delving into his innermost thoughts which act as the driving forces behind his behavior, actions, and attitude towards other characters. From a psychological perspective, Hamlet’s lack of action towards his intended goal is not surprising, especially from a person who shows many symptoms of major depressive disorder including inactivity, thoughts of suicide, frequent or recurrent thoughts of death, agitation, anxiety, and hopelessness. Despite being dead set on getting revenge for his father after he met 'his ghost ' in act 1 scene 4, Hamlet soon began contemplating suicide in his ‘to be or not to be’ soliloquy…

    • 1427 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays