Fazal Khaliq ENG 125 Ethan Edwards Hamlet Essay

Hamlet
Hamlet, being one of Shakespeares most popular play has many individual subplots within a main plot. Shakespeare combined many aspects of our daily life situations such as envy, ambition, betrayal, revenge, and love in this play. All of these subplots eventually meet with the main plot and run with it simultaneously, moreover we have different characters in the play, some major and some minor. Characters that appear the most are obviously the major ones and the others are just secondary to help us understand the plot better. Hamlet is mainly about a young man, Hamlet, whose father, the king, was poisoned by his own brother, King Claudius, in greed of the throne. Hamlet comes to know of the truth by an apparition of his own father, and decides to avenge his fathers unnatural death. Hamlet ends up killing more than just Claudius in this fiasco as many obstacles come in his way; he has his mother, Queen Gertrude, his lover, Ophelia, and many others that link to them. The following subplots were interesting because the same characters have a different role in each, the subplot between Hamlet and Laertes, and the subplot between Hamlet and Claudius. In these subplots we see different sides to Hamlet in particular; it is truly unique to see different sides to the same coin at the same time. In this subplot of Hamlet and Claudius, we see Hamlet being the protagonist as he is the main character and he is the one whose father was killed for the throne. Claudius,

obviously is the antagonist and the villain in this case, who planned and carried out the murder of his own brother. Hamlet and Claudius are not very fond of each other, especially when Hamlet comes to know of the truth. Hamlets dead fathers ghost tells him that everyone was told that I was stung by a serpent. The Ghost states The serpent that did sting thy fathers life now wears his crown. The Ghost makes it clear here that King Claudius was the murderer. This murder by a brother of a brother because of the throne is seen in this world today, it seems to be human nature, and we tend to envy our loved ones and usually are betrayed by our loved ones. Now obviously, Hamlet wasnt going to just ignore the words he heard, he was certainly going to take action and he did, like a true son he avenged his father. Moreover, thats not the only thing Hamlet is angry about with Claudius. Claudius also married Hamlets mother and left Hamlet all in the dark. Hamlet later on organizes a play that shows the murder of his father, which causes Claudius to panic and when Claudius asks Hamlet what the name of the play was, his reply was The Mouse-trap, this alarms Claudius and he knows something must be done about Hamlet. They are both in it for their lives, Claudius wants safety of his throne and his secret to remain hidden and Hamlet wants revenge and justice. An uncle and nephew clash for what seems to be right to one another. Hamlet eventually wins this battle and avenges his father. Here, thou incestuous, [murdrous], damned Dane, / Drink [off] this potion! Is [thy union] here? / Follow my mother! Hamlet kills the king in the same way his father left this world. What goes around, comes around, karma. The second main subplot is the one between Laertes and Hamlet. In this subplot Laertes is the protagonist and Hamlet is the antagonist and can be classified as a villain.

Laertes is the brother to Ophelia, who is Hamlets lover. Laertes, just like Hamlet wants to avenge his fathers death, who was killed by Hamlet and his sister who went insane because of that. Hamlet is the villain here as he destroys Laertes loved ones; therefore, Laertes becomes his enemy. Laertes himself is a good man and he becomes the protagonist in this subplot. And When Laertes is dying he says He is justly served, / It is a poison temperd by himself. / Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet. / Mine and my fathers death come not upon thee, / Nor thine on me! Laertes confirms in his last lines that he is a very noble person as he forgives Hamlet for all his loss and eventually his own life. He calls Hamlet noble and blames everything on the King Claudius. These were truly unique subplots because they have the same two sides of Hamlet, and the readers see that Hamlet is all alone fighting with many people at the same time. Hamlet has Ophelia, his mother, Claudius, Laertes, Horatio, Ghosts words (his mission) and his final plan. Hamlet struggles throughout the play, he has to sacrifice everything and his own life for his own father. This was truly a tragedy in which more than necessary people were killed, Hamlet carried out his plan very poorly. Hamlet couldnt just battle Claudius on its own and take his life as he was battling his own sanity throughout the play. A rational human being cannot take so many lives and his own at the end for even such a goal. Hamlet let his inner savage to take charge and let him made sacrifice after sacrifice throughout the play. Hamlet lost his love from his lover, father and mother and therefore he acted the way he did and felt no sentiment. Hamlets life was a tragedy and he took everyone with him and eventually himself.

A remarkable play by Shakespeare, a lot to learn from plays like Hamlet as they basically discuss human nature. Shakespeare uses dark elements that exist in humans and how we can be very ugly. Humans love violence, and we are too another creature just like other animals. Sometimes this savage comes out of us and this is what we see in Hamlet. Claudius killed his own brother for a throne. Humans value a throne more than a loved one, this happens in todays world too and we have seen it in history repeatedly.