Interpreting The Theme Of Revenge In Hamlet's Tragedy

Improved Essays
Macie johnson

Ms. Walter

LA 12

1 APR.2016

Hamlet 's Revenge

In William Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet, multiple characters use revenge causing irrational behaviors. In Hamlet the main character Hamlet is seeking revenge on his uncle for the death of his father. Claudius killed Hamlet 's father because he was jealous of him having the throne and all the power. Claudius took the action of killing Hamlet’s father in secrecy. Hamlet finds out by the ghost of his father. After finding out what had truly happened to him he took revenge on Claudius and also tried framing him. Hamlet created a play to represent the storyline of how Claudius killed his father to see if he got a rise out of claudius. Hamlet would show strange behavior to throw Claudius
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Hamlet returned home, then there was a fight between Hamlet and Polonius 's son Laretes. Claudius tried to kill Hamlet by poisoning his drink but, the queen drank it instead killing her. Also the sword Laretes was using had poison on the tip to kill Hamlet. But after Hamlet was stabbed and fatally wounded he managed to stab Claudius and kill him. So Hamlets whole family including Claudius all died. Claudius and Hamlet 's irrational behaviors which stem from there devilish revenge for each other, can be explained using principles of behavioral economics.

In Hamlet the main character Hamlet is seeking revenge and he starts to do that by staging a play. “The play 's the thing,

Wherein I 'll catch the conscience of the king” (2.2.633-634)

The play is a storyline of how Claudius killed the king. How he poisoned the king while he was asleep in the field. The play just has a change of characters to not give away what really happened to the king. Hamlet had to catch Claudius guilty before he could seek his
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Hamlet always believed Claudius was evil, then his father 's spirit came to him and gave him the details about his death resulting in more details about Claudius creating a bigger opinion about Claudius. This is known as thin slicing. Since Hamlet got more information he was able to begin thin slicing and created an image about Claudius. This also happens with Claudius and Polonius with there opinion of Hamlet. They see how hamlet is lashing out on people, acting very strange and they create this opinion that Hamlet is crazy. They took the little bit they 've been seeing and thin sliced it to create this story to tell everyone he 's crazy. Another book that displays other behavioral economics, is Predictably Irrational. A irrational behavior that is illustrated in this book is money versus morals. In Hamlet it is shown a little differently, power versus morals. Claudius becomes power hungry and does whatever it takes to receive the power. As mentioned in the book predictably irrational money makes people do crazy things. Power did the same thing to Claudius. People only want the finer things in life and that is all that matters to

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