Hamlet

4 Pages 1047 Words

Hamlet, The Confused Son


In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, a prince of Denmark, for whom the play is named, is forced to cope with the sudden loss of his father. This, as well as a series of other tragic events occurs, all of which complicate Hamlet’s increasingly confused state of being. Hamlet’s confusion lies in his relationships with his deceased father, Queen Gertrude, and Claudius. As a good son, should he quickly get over his father’s death and move on with his life? Or should he be infuriated with his mother for moving so hastily to replace her dead husband, with none other than the dead king’s own brother! Ought he embrace his mother’s decision and view Claudius as his father? Upon learning of his father’s “unnatural murder,” these questions become so deeply troubling that Hamlet turns mad. Prior to leaving the realm of the living for an eternity in hell, the spirit of his father left Hamlet with the charge of avenging his death by taking the life of Claudius, the man who poisoned him while he was sleeping in the orchard. This scenario, along with reinforcing characterization on Shakespeare’s part, places Hamlet into the role of a confused son.
The untimely marriage of Queen Gertrude to Claudius makes it difficult for Hamlet to mourn the passing of his father while simultaneously celebrating a marriage he views as ill timed and incestuously disgraceful. He states his disapproval of the close proximity of the two events to his most trusted confident, Horatio, when he says “Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral bak’d meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.”
Hamlet’s madness and confusion is partially the result of his inability to end his mourning over the death of his father. So long as the task of killing Claudius was clouding his thoughts, Hamlet would never be able to be fully at peace with his father’s passing. In John F. Andrew’s “Shakespeare’s Tragedies-Hamlet,” A...