Revenge

Hamlet:
● Revenge should be accomplished by any means
● Since its hamlets ability to carry out the revenge, it becomes his duty
● Revenge = natural obligation , inaction is foolish
Laretes:
● Laretes is okay with sacrificing his own ideals in his pursuit for revenge
● Rage-filled revenge
● Reckless actions
Fortinbras:
● Willing to go to great lengths to get revenge on Denmark
● strong /urgent desire for revenge
● Uses grudge as top priority
● Fortinbras wants the land for his country
● His drive for revenge is different from hamlet and laretes
● Doesn’t let sentiment get in his way
Pyrrhus:
● Players speech depicts the trojan war
● Revenge as a constant thread
● Driving actions and emotions

Nature of revenge:
● Revenge is preceded by some wrongs
● Leaning into anger and recklessness
● Different responses
● Force of destruction

Is justice served?
● Dead are avenged but many pay the price
● Collateral damage
● Cost too high

Love
Types of love:
● Romantic love
● Love of family
● Love of country

● Polonious wants to protect Ophelia from heartbreak

● Laretes loves his father
● Laretes wants to avenge his father
● Different type of love, the origin
● Morality in question
● Nobody can truly understand his emotions (hamlets)
● His intentions are to protect ophelia
● Laretes wants Ophelia to have a future which can only be attained through clean
reputation
● Platonic love: horatio and hamlet
● Romantic love: ophelia and hamlet
● Horatio wants to die with hamlet but hamlet wants him to live
● Ready to die beside his best friend
● Love of country: gertrude and claudius
● Health of denmark is respondent to royal family
●

Power
● King hamlet: manipulation and authority
● “Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder” (1.5.25)
● Claudius: royalty, deceit, manipulation (4.7.24)
● Ophelia: innocent and submissive\
● Desire to be loved by hamlet
● “I shall obey my lord” (1.3.131.36)
● Lack of power. Power is submerged
● Gertrude: royalty, passive, submissive
● Prince hamlet: manipulation, public, knowledge, royalty
● Revenge led him on a path towards madness
● Hotspot of revenge within the kingdom
● Intelligence and ability to get through anything in his way
● Known and loved by the people so cant be persecuted by claudius
● Protected by denmark
● Horatio: superiority, friendship with hamlet
● Guards already respect horatio
● Hamlet respects horatio which gives him some power
● Horatio doesn’t use his power to be advantageous
● Shift in power after polonious dies from ophelia

Death
● (1.5.15–23) ghost explains he is stuck in purgatory and establishes that he wants revenge
● Showing immoral intentions after death
● Uses own death to justify his want for revenge
● His death was taken away by another person so death is unfair
● Can’t move on with his negative mindset
● (3.1.77–81)
● Hamlet doesn’t trust the after life
● Suicide isn’t an option for him, doesn’t want to suffer in the after life
● (4.3.20–27) hamlet is taunting claudius on the whereabouts of polonius’s body
● We all suffer the same fate
● (4.7.160–166) sees death as a way to hold power and stay in power but his plan doesn’t
work out
● Its cost claudius’s life to take hamlets
● (5.1.241–248) hamlet talks about how alexander the great died and makes a connection of
his foundation
● Death is something we can’t stop
● In a way, the events of life are meaningless because of death
● Maggots, animals, cycle of death
● Build something upon the death
● Even though death occurs, its still significant because we can build upon it
● Views death as more meaningful than life itself
● Death is inevitable
● Mystery of death
● Revenge
● Death is the ending

The purpose of art

● Wants to have an expression on claudius’s death
● Formulates a play to see if his uncle is guilty
● (2.2.663–666) Night before the play, hamlet tries to compose a scene that might get a
reaction out of the king
● reaction= understanding of players performance
● Helps criticize the players
● (3.2.225–229) hamlet facilitates the play explaining the story line
● Evoke emotion of guiltyness
● Wants more music in the play to further along his intent
● Hamlets plan was successful and the king showed emotion

Thoughts, feelings, and actions

● Both thoughts and feelings have impacts
● Feelings and thoughts don’t have impacts without actions
● Hamlets choice to wait is an (in)action itself?
● Hamlets actions led him to madness
● Grave diggers- action of digging ophelia’s grave without any feelings or some sort of
connection
●