How To Read Hamlet

In High School, we were assigned to read Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. We had a month to cover the play ourselves, after which we’d be tested. An entire month to read a book, like, less than half an inch thick. A Speech tournament later, I had three full weeks to begin. A swim meet … it’s cool. Two more weeks. Scouts, choir, church, math tutoring, another TV marathon, I’m sure people have read Hamlet in a weekend. I was going to be fine. I could still get an A—Easy. Sunday. 10:38 PM. A thin layer of dust settled on my unopened copy of Hamlet … tragic, not only because everyone dies, but because it’s Shakespeare’s biggest play. Act 1, Scene 1. Enter Bernardo. I’m never going to finish. There has got to be an easier way to do this. So, like many times before, I checked out Wikipedia. It gave me a full plot summary, interpretations from religious, philosophical, and feminist viewpoints, and a D on my final. Well, I had things that needed to be done. I’m a really busy guy. I mean, I lived on an island, so swimming was a necessity. So was Netflix. But, really, when am I going to use Hamlet? And my brother said he read the book in a day when he was in sixth grade, so I should’ve gotten an A -- easy!
It’s this “easy A” mentality, though, that we encounter …show more content…
We generally accept the fact that hard work is good for us. It’s not that we’re necessarily lazy either. In fact, Harvard researcher Dr. Juliet Schor estimates that today’s employed work a month more than their counterparts did 20 years ago. But a strange paradox occurs. While we recognize the value of hard work, we also value what appears effortless. He does it so naturally! Look at how simple that is! Is that all?! I mean, no one says, “hey, that looks hard, sign me up!” This is where we get confused. Why is it when we see something that appears effortless, we equate that with less