"Hamlet defies the conventions of revenge tragedy by departing from them" (Sydney Bolt, 1985)Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essayThe typical Elizabethan theatergoer attending the first production of “Hamlet” in 1604 would have had clear expectations. The conventions of the Elizabethan revenge tragedy were already well established, drawn initially from the Senacan model of revenge tragedy, which combined bloody and treacherous actions with sententious moralizing, and later developed by Thomas Kyd, who established the "Kydian formula ". This setting, including all the typical elements of an Elizabethan revenge tragedy, appears in "The Spanish Tragedy" and begins with a murder, committed by a later king, who is therefore beyond the reach of the law. The victim's ghost, returning from Purgatory to order his son to avenge his death, serves as a chorus during the play. His vengeful son pretends to be crazy and puts on a stupid show in court in order to be sure of the murderer's guilt. The play, full of melodrama and rhetoric, ends with the death of almost all the characters, including the murderer, the avenger, and the avenger's accomplice. In “Hamlet,” Shakespeare assures that he adheres to all the salient elements of Kyd. Therefore, Sydney Bolt's claim that Shakespeare departs from the conventions of revenge tragedy is highly questionable. In fact, Shakespeare transcends these conventions, producing something far more powerful than a traditional revenge tragedy. However, by relying on the structure of a conventional revenge tragedy to create what appears to be a psychological drama, the playwright instead focuses on the protagonist's tortured personality and his motivation, rather than on the act of revenge him -even. Shakespeare uses Hamlet's soliloquies. to convey to the audience his instability and depression. In Act I, Scene II, he exclaims "Oh, that this too-soiled flesh would melt", because he sees all ordinary ways of life simply as "tired, stale, flat and unprofitable". Shakespeare uses the image of a "garden without weeds" as a metaphor for Hamlet's own existence, full of worthless things that, in their grossness, choke his life. From this tortuous despair and self-doubt arises his indecision, even concerning his own despair; “To be or not to be, that is the question.” Hamlet's dilemma over whether or not to end his life is followed by a sequence of rhetorical questions: Is it nobler in the spirit to suffer the slings and arrows of scandalous fortune? , or to take up arms against a sea of ​​unrest, and oppose putting an end to it? These further emphasize his philosophy on suicide and his uncertainty about his situation, and almost make it seem as if Hamlet is conducting a rhetorical exercise as part of a philosophical debate. Significantly, Hamlet does not use the first person "I", but further abstracts the speech through the accumulation of infinitives; “Be”, “die”, “sleep”. While Hamlet clearly appears to be talking about suicide, the impersonal impression this suppression creates actually distances the speech from the character and the audience, and the metatheatrical effect prompts not only the individual Hamlet but also the audience to consider the nature of life and reality. .Indeed, there seems to be very little coherence in Hamlet's life; his father was murdered and his own mother married the murderer shortly after the funeral, and his lover, Ophelia, "denied him access", at his father's request. The fact that bothwomen in his life seem to have rejected him obviously fuels his ardent misogyny: “Fragility, your name is woman! (I, II). What is clear is Shakespeare's focus on the nature of the protagonist, rather than the subject of revenge, as in Act III, Scene I, the tension between Hamlet and Ophelia is evident from the start. She addresses him by saying "Good, my lord", but what dominates the conversation is Hamlet talking about his loss of confidence in women. Abandoning verse for wild prose, Hamlet's rambling speech communicates to the audience that he believes all women (significantly, he uses the address "yourselves") are treacherous deceivers who "jitter", “wander”, “lisp”, “nickname God’s creatures”. and make their “carelessness” their “ignorance”. Hamlet later develops his hatred of women when he confronts Gertrude with her sins; “Like killing a king and marrying his brother.” Hamlet attacks the queen: he will only flay and film the ulcerous place, while the widespread corruption, undermining everything within, infects without being seen. With his violent and repulsive images of what he considers to be incest, he not only greatly upsets his mother ("O Hamlet, you have split my heart in two") but, implicitly, also condemns the whole woman . Shakespeare therefore inserts a psychological aspect into the play, and while the typical avenger places himself outside the normal moral order of things, becoming more and more isolated as the play progresses, such a noisy debate over something which is not immediately related to the subject of revenge is unusual. Act I, Scene VI, Hamlet speaks to Horatio and despises not only Claudius but also the Danish nation for their "custom" of throwing great "parties." He disapproves of the Danes' way of celebrating because he considers that this fault alone lets the country down, giving it a bad reputation. Hamlet compares this idea to a man, saying that if a man is born of nature, he will have a fundamental flaw that will cause him to fall as he gradually develops and increases. Looking back, the audience realizes that Hamlet is describing himself when he talks about this man. In keeping with the traditions of revenge tragedy, Shakespeare presents Hamlet with a fatal flaw, but ironically, that flaw is an inability to accomplish what his father's ghost asks him to do: if the avenging hero did not take revenge, it would have been a considerable surprise to him. the Elizabethan public. In Act III, Scene III, Hamlet is given a perfect opportunity to kill Claudius, when he apparently finds him praying in the chapel ("Now I could do it, pat") but he ultimately decides to not to do so, a decision can be confirmed. from his purse. Student Hamlet's fatal flaw comes from his thinking about the consequences of committing murder now: "it would be scanned." The belief that if he were killed while praying, Claudius would go straight to heaven and not purgatory like Old Hamlet would certainly be the reason why Hamlet chose not to kill Claudius in the chapel. However, if Hamlet had been the conventional avenger expected by his Elizabethan audience, he would not have paused long enough to fully understand the consequences of his actions; he would have killed Claudius as soon as he had the chance. Hamlet's awareness of his fatal flaw makes him even less of a conventional revenge hero; in his soliloquy in Act III, Scene I, he resolves: “Thus conscience makes cowards of us all.” He describes himself as a "thug slave and peasant" who, although the player is distressed simply for starring in this stupid show ("And all that for nothing!"), he himself is incapable evento evoke the same emotion. He speculates: What would he do, if he had the motive and the signal of passion that I have? He would drown the scene with tears. Hamlet feels guilty that his inability prevents him from doing this, calling himself "unpregnant of my cause." He questions himself; “Am I a coward?”, interrupting his soliloquy, already punctuated by exclamations such as “O vengeance!”, broken sentences and verses that dissolve into the single syllable “Ha!” His focus on his own failure also manifests through the language itself. If its first lines, centered on the player, also charged with emotion - "monstrous", "passion" and "Tears" - are nevertheless controlled, anchored in the regular structure of the iambic pentametric verse. However, as soon as he begins to consider himself, the organization of Hamlet's speech begins to break down again; “Yet I” disrupts the regular rhythm of the lines. Despite maintaining regular heroic verse, Shakespeare punctuates the flow of Hamlet's speech with semicolons or periods, colloquialisms ("I should be fattened"), and short questions and exclamations ("Am I a coward ? », 'Who is doing this to me?', 'Damn debauched villain!'). While Hamlet violently curses Claudias, his diatribe, which has finally lost all order and form, focuses on self-loathing: "A dull, muddy rascal" and "Why, what a bastard am I!" Here, his explosive insults are ironic; although Hamlet criticizes his lack of true passion, he actually displays fiery emotion, but the audience is forced to recognize that even his more restrained comparison between real passion and theatrical passion at the beginning of his soliloquy actually does not nothing accomplished. his inability to act is made more powerful when Shakespeare juxtaposes his protagonist's situation with two similar situations, in which the heroes actively seek revenge. In Poland, Fortinbras fights to reclaim a tiny, worthless “little piece of land,” and Hamlet compares himself unfavorably and accuses himself (rightly) of “thinking too precisely about the event.” He considers it a mark of greatness to "find a quarrel in a straw" (over a trivial matter) "when honor is at stake" and realizes that his own honor is much more at stake than that of Fortinbras, and yet he is ready to do it. “let everyone sleep”. Fortinbras' activity seems to spur Hamlet into action: "My thoughts be bloody, or be worth nothing!" – but there is no more evidence in the play after this point to suggest that he is plotting to kill the king than before. The second foil that Shakespeare presents to Hamlet is Laertes. After Hamlet kills his father, Polonius, and is indirectly responsible for Ophelia's madness ("desperate terms") and death, Laertes desperately seeks revenge, led by the Machiavellian Claudius. . Laertes' fury, initially directed against Claudius, when he learned of his father's death, pushed him to immediately return to Denmark in order to avenge the terrible insult made to his honor. Shakespeare introduces us to the powerful symbolism of "The ocean, surpassing its list" - the rising tide of Laertes' "rabble" quickly covering the seashore, and continues the tense sense of urgency with Laertes' aggressive dialogue: “This drop of blood is calm,” the bastard proclaims to me. . Laertes refuses to be calmed, protesting that to do so would be to deny him his status as his father's son. When Claudius tells Laertes of his desire that Hamlet be killed "by accident" to ensure that Gertrude suspects nothing, Laertes immediately presents himself as the "organ" of Hamlet's death. Although Claudius manipulates him, Laertes plays an active role in formulating the plot, conceiving the idea of ​​poisoning himself..