Hamlet

Hamlet was written in the early 1600's, and is still one of William Shakespeare’s most popular works. Hamlet is about a prince by the name of Hamlet, named for his father, the King of Denmark. In this story, Hamlet mourns the death of his father and his mother, Queen Gertrude’s marriage to Claudius. Hamlet's father appears to him as a ghost to tell him that he was poisoned by Claudius. Hamlet swears that he will kill Claudius and avenge his father. On the way to getting his revenge he is forced to kill Polonius, a councilor to the king who was suspicious of Hamlet. Polonius' son comes to avenge his father's death by killing Hamlet even though Ophelia, Polonius' daughter, was in love with him. In the end a duel breaks out and ends in the death of Gertrude, Claudius, and Hamlet.

Moral lesson

In Shakespeare's tragedy of Hamlet we see the main character Hamlet set out on a mission of revenge. Hamlet is faced with the decision of weather or not to kill Claudius, because he knows that his soul will be eternally damned for what he plans to do. Hamlet not only decides that it is worth giving his own soul to his cause, but he even rationalizes that his father's name is at steak because Hamlet was visited by the ghost of his father. He chooses to listen to his father's ghost even though there is no proof of Claudius actually murdering his father at all, and he chooses to risk his own life because he thinks that there is very little meaning to life because everyone inevitably dies. Hamlet's pride takes precedence over his life, and there is a duel to the death in which Hamlet is able to do what he has set out to do. The moral lesson that we can take from Shakespeare's tragedy of Hamlet is the idea of pride getting in the way of our lives, also we can see the evil of revenge and the costs it has on everyone around us.



Another summary of Hamlet from Wikipedia.

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