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Hamlet is not assailed by doubts: was the apparition really the ghost of his father, or was it a
device of the devil to lure him to violent action? Is this uncle really guilty? To satisfy himself on
this score Hamlet devices a plan: a company of travelling actors is to perform before the king and
Hamlet instructs them to act out in a play the precise circumstances of the later kings murder as
revealed to Hamlet by the ghost. When the actors come to the murder scene, the king can stand it no
longer and leaves the room. Hamlet is now convinced of the kings guilt. In a stormy scene with his
mother he reproaches her bitterly for her part in the affair. Hearing someone behind the curtains
Hamlet stabs through them thinking it is the king. But it is instead Ophelias father, who thus meets
his death. The death of her father added to her lovers supposed madness is too much for Ophelia.
The poor girl is subsequently drowned in a brook.
A poisoned weapon through the machinations of the king wounds Hamlet. But before he dies
he slays the murderer. The queen also meets her death y accidentally drinking a cup of poisoned
wine, which had been prepared for Hamlet.
The character of Hamlet recalls the titans of the Renaissance. Hamlet is a man of genius,
highly educated, a man of searching mind and sparkling wit. Hamlet is the pride of all Denmark.
The common people of the country love him. Hamlet is a humanist, a man who is free from
medieval prejudices and superstitions. Shakespeare makes him a student of the Wittenberg
University, a seat of learning, associated with the famous doctor and destiny find expression in the
following speech: What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty!
In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In
apprehension how like a God! The beauty of the world. The paragon of animals!
This enthusiastic exclamation could have come only form a man of Renaissance. Such is
Hamlet, who opposes a cruel hypocritical and treacherous world.
Bright hopes and aspirations of his youth come to a clash with crude reality. The infidelity of
his mother, the servility of the courtiers who bowed and cringed to the unworthy king, the falsehood
of his friends and, finally, the crime committed by his uncle, made him realise how wicked and
unjust the world he lived in was. He understood that he was not the only sufferance in the country:
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time
The oppressors wrong, the proud mans contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the laws delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,?
This indignation at what he sees is summed up in bitter and condemnatory words: Denmark
is a prison.