The Curpose Of Revenge In Hamlet In William Shakespeare's Hamlet

Improved Essays
In the play Hamlet, written by William Shakespeare, Hamlet is not mad. He is just acting insane in order to get revenge on Claudius. After the ghost of his father confirms that the culprit is Claudius, Hamlet decides to get revenge. The purpose of his acting crazy is to prevent anyone from knowing about his plan to get revenge. Additionally, Hamlet doesn’t show his love for Ophelia because he wants to appear abnormal. Yet, in reality he adored Ophelia. Moreover, when Ophelia dies, Hamlet confesses that he always loved Ophelia. In addition, Hamlet doesn’t kill Ophelia’s brother, he dies from the poison that Laertes put on the sword for Hamlet. Therefore, Hamlet made right decision to take revenge of his father on Claudius, by acting crazy. …show more content…
When Laertes find out about his father 's death, Laertes immediately returned home and confronted the king with accusations of the murder of his father. When Claudius tells Laertes that Hamlet is responsible for his father 's death, Laertes decides to kill Hamlet to avenge the death of his father. Laertes and King Claudius make a plan to kill Hamlet by having Laertes putting poison on sword. Laertes was really mad at Hamlet for killing his father and being the reason why his sister was put down in the grave. Before he dies, Laertes begs for forgiveness from Hamlet. Also, Laertes is mad because he lost his father and his sister, whom he loved so much. He tells the king and queen that I will take revenge because I a noble father lost; A sister driven into desperate terms, Whose worth, if praises may go back again, Stood challenger on mouth of all the age for her perfections: but my revenge will come”. Therefore, Laertes fights Hamlet and wounds him once with the poisoned tipped sword; but unfortunately, their swords were exchange, and Hamlet also wounds Laertes with the sword. Because Laertes did not think clearly when fashioning his plan with Claudius, it brought about his downfall and

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Of course, Claudius would take this chance to kill Hamlet because he knows what he did. So he encourages Laertes to kill hamlet with poison and tells him “Hamlet’s so careless, high-minded, and unsuspecting that he won’t examine the swords beforehand, so you can easily choose one with a sharpened point and in one thrust avenge the death of your father”. When Laertes and Hamlet begin fencing, Hamlet starts to notice what Claudius is planning to do and avoids his drinking the cup of water he offered. In the end, all three die from the poison because Laertes and hamlet, both cut each other and Hamlet makes Claudius drink out of the Poisonous cup. Revenge is not the answer in this part of the book because the end solution is that they all died.…

    • 1384 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Theme Of Revenge In Hamlet

    • 1187 Words
    • 5 Pages

    “No place indeed should murder sanctuarize; / Revenge should have no bounds” (IV.vii.140-141). Here, King Claudius justifies the act of revenge while he is ironically oblivious to Hamlet’s plans of vengeance. In Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, the theme of revenge closely surrounds each character, whether the character is one to deliver it or feel the consequences of it. In this particular story, the characters directly involved in vengeance reside in close father-son relationships and therefore seek to exact revenge on their fathers’ offenders. Fortinbras’s direct actions are mainly unseen until the final scene but end in a sorrowful acceptance of great fortune.…

    • 1187 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Although this changes for a moment after the death of Polonius, once Laertes is exposed to the truth of the murder, the two men go back to getting along. While these relationships hold true throughout most of the play, at the end, Hamlet and Laertes both find a reason to be angry at Claudius. Hamlet hated him all along, and Laertes blames the King for the deaths that happened that day. Laertes declares, “The King, the King’s to blame,” (V, ii, 328) and he remarks that the King is “justly served” (V, ii, 334) for the mere idea of the poison. Laertes’s initial fondness of the King accentuates Hamlet’s hatred toward him.…

    • 1138 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Laertes is very angry and reacts by wanting to kill Hamlet for taking the life of his father. Laertes says, “ Let come what comes, only I’ll be revenged Most thoroughly for my father” (4.4.148-149). This is proof as he is mad over Hamlet taking his father’s life. He seeks revenge for his father’s death and gets that but also gets killed as well. Both Hamlet and Laertes wanting to kill and get revenge for their father’s death sets up the destructive ending.…

    • 619 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Flaws can emerge in the most honourable individuals when following a perilous path. Often times, members of society become ignorant to their own imperfections, thus turning into their own enemy. In the play, Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, the flaws of characters lead to their demise. Three characters that become victims of their own shortcomings include, Hamlet, Ophelia, and Laertes. Firstly, Hamlet is a tragic hero, who is caught in the turmoil of his personal vendetta against his uncle Claudius.…

    • 1190 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Revenge in Shakespeare’s Hamlet William Shakespeare 's, Hamlet, is one of the greatest tragedies ever written. Applying Aristotle 's view of a tragedy, Shakespeare creates an ideal tragic hero through his main character, Hamlet. According to Aristotle, a tragic hero must be of a high stature, possess a tragic flaw, and this flaw must ultimately lead to their own downfall. These characteristics of an Aristotelian tragic hero are all present within the protagonist, Hamlet. Hamlet is a prince, thus having a high position within society.…

    • 1216 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Laertes’ grief proves that and like Hamlet, he becomes consumed by the need for revenge and, in the end it causes his own destruction. It is clear that his purpose in life, like Hamlet is blurred by this hunger for revenge. Laertes’s grief over the death of his father and dedication to his revenge is best shown when he is talking to Claudius “To hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devil! Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!…

    • 1248 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Is Hamlet Crazy

    • 842 Words
    • 4 Pages

    After careful consideration and much thought I have come to the idea that Hamlet was not crazy, but more fueled by revenge than anything. At first glance it’s easy to assume that hamlet acts the way he does because he is mentally unstable and his grief has taken a toll, but ultimately it was his determination to get even with Claudius for killing his father. Nevertheless, Hamlets procrastination leads to his unfortunate demise. In the end both Claudius and Hamlet received the ultimate consequence for their sins. When Hamlet learns that that his mother has married his uncle he decides that he needs to share his feelings for her.…

    • 842 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Hamlet Essay Characters who parallel, yet contrast one another are said to act as foils. Ophelia and Laertes act as foils for Hamlet, as they develop the theme: The murder of a loved one corrupts a person in a way that it triggers acts of irrational behaviour. In the play Hamlet, we are able to see the actions that Ophelia and Laertes take once they experience a murder similar to Hamlet 's. Ophelia and Hamlet experience the same feelings of grief and despair towards their fathers. After the death of Polonius, Ophelia becomes robbed of her sanity. As Claudius explains, “... Oh, this is the poison of deep grief, it springs all from her father 's death, and now behold!...…

    • 1101 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Laertes is straightforward and just in his initial course of action, but his plan for vengeance becomes more convoluted and treacherous as Laertes becomes more desperate. Upon learning of his father´s death, Laertes storms the castle, demanding to be ¨revenged most thoroughly for [his] father.¨(IV.v.152-153) Laertes wants justice because he wants to face Hamlet in a head on fair fight. He wants to confront Hamlet and get a full understanding of the situation before fighting him. Unfortunately, Laertes gets desperate enough to be manipulated by Claudius, causing the deaths of many people. Laertes wants to get revenge so badly that he attempts to kill Hamlet with a poisoned, sharpened foil unknowingly during a fencing match.…

    • 1430 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Ophelia In Hamlet

    • 1105 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Whether this is because of her father, or Hamlets own madness is unclear but nonetheless show that Hamlet means something to her and is related to her downfall. If she didn’t love someone would it matter if they themselves were mad? Why would it matter if Hamlet was insane, how would that affect her if she didn’t care for him? For whatever reason that Ophelia did not love hamlet, he began to think of her less and less. In the beginning of the play Hamlet’s love is rejected by Ophelia, and then through the play “she has become for him simply a stimulus for his disgust with women and sex, and he no longer really sees her as an actual person” (Boyce 1).…

    • 1105 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    He did this by acting like he does not love Ophelia, even though he really does to portray himself as insane, in order to carry out his revenge. Hamlet was trying to protect her all along by denying his love, only to shield her from the dangers that could potentially come her way. Hamlet shows his love for Ophelia when he confesses to her that he loves her, sends her his letter and poems of affection, and when he comes to terms with the fact she is no longer alive. Many can argue that Hamlet did not love Ophelia, but he was only trying to protect her in the end. There is a great deal of evidence proving that his love for her was true, even at times it was over casted by his own plots.…

    • 1013 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Claudius on the other hand was starting to catching onto what Hamlet was starting to do so he needed to find a way to get rid of him so he took control of the anger of Laertes to use him to kill Hamlet. Mistrust and Distrust was shown by twos way in this period of the story, one being by Laertes not trust Hamlet that his father's death was caused because he was spying. Second way was that he trusted Claudius by telling how he should go about his father's death in which caused him to make a very bad choice in which bring regret and…

    • 750 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Hamlet's Revenge

    • 725 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Hamlet is not so sure his uncle really killed his father despite him appearing in a ghost manifestation and instead puts his uncle to the test by having traveling actors put on a play that involved what he thought to how Claudius murdered his father and if he reacts in upsetting manner than Hamlet shall kill him. Claudius does react and he races to the church to ask God for forgiveness and Hamlet is there to put a finishing blow when he decides that it would not be in his favor as God has forgiven him and justifies he would go to heaven so he allows him to live to sin again. At this moment in the play Hamlets supposed madness backfires on him and will lead to his grave, when the king orders hamlet to be taken to England, Hamlet goes and confronts…

    • 725 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The Importance Of Heroism In Hamlet

    • 1151 Words
    • 5 Pages
    • 1 Works Cited

    He frightens Ophelia, speaks in riddles to Polonius, and walks around the castle with no apparent purpose. His mother gets so worried that she sends for his friends to come. She hoped they could figure out what was wrong with him. Hamlet is putting on a good show to distract everyone from the real problem. Upon meeting his friends Hamlet makes them admit the true reason they have come to Denmark.…

    • 1151 Words
    • 5 Pages
    • 1 Works Cited
    Superior Essays