Polonius-Laertes, Fortinbras And Family Bonds In William Shakespeare's Hamlet

Throughout Hamlet, family ties have a tendency to cause a ruckus in the kingdom of Denmark as well as around the world. The relation between fathers and sons in Hamlet might prove to be the most disastrous of these family ties. The three prominent father-son duos in this story are Polonius-Laertes, Fortinbras-old Fortinbras, and Hamlet-old Hamlet. As all characters do, these pairings all had some similar features as well as other stark differences in character. One such similarity was that all of these sons were commanded, either directly by their fathers or indirectly by assumptions about what their fathers would have wanted, to avenge their fathers’ deaths. In Hamlet, the relationship between father and son is seen as a relationship where …show more content…
From this passage we can see that they clearly had a great deal of respect towards the late old Hamlet. Even the word choices by Shakespeare in this passage show that he wanted this idea to be reinforced in the reader’s mind. When Horatio says “Dared to combat” there is extra emphasis on the word “dared”. He could have just as easily said that old Hamlet was challenged to combat or confronted with battle, but he decided upon “dared to combat” because it paints an image of a brave king going into battle only because he needs to defend his kingdom. It helps to preserve the morality of the king even though he has killed somebody. The next line of this passage explicitly says that old Hamlet was held in high esteem by people from Denmark’s side of the world. The important part of this line is that it shows that not only people of Denmark have this view of their leader, but people of other kingdoms feel this way as well. At this point in Hamlet it is easy to imagine old Hamlet as a brave and honorable king, but so far the only people to talk about him have been his soldiers, who might have a bit of a bias. The next example of old Hamlets moral standing comes directly from his …show more content…
It brings into question whether Hamlet would have been a better person if he had simply refused to listen to the ghost of his father. If he had not be caught up in the plot of murdering his uncle, it is likely that life in Denmark would have slowly returned to normal after his father’s death. With the new king stepping in so quickly, most of the citizens would probably not have had any trouble adjusting if not for the royal bloodbath that eventually ensued. The only downside to Hamlet not acting on the ghost’s wishes would be that he would have to live knowing that the man who was now married to his mother and in charge of his country was the murderer of his father. I believe that had Hamlet shown the selflessness to be able to live with this knowledge while saving the kingdom from facing more loss, he would have been seen as a more moral character than he was by choosing to follow his father’s