Hamlet

"To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscover'd country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pith and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.--Soft you now! The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins remember'd."
Hamlet is the one play that I had heard of and read before this class that we have discussed. The quote above is one of Hamlet's famous soliloquies. We know that Hamlet was the rightful heir to the throne after his father, the late King Hamlet, was killed. But his mother remarried his uncle Claudius and he became the new King. Denmark is preparing for war with Norway because before the late King Hamlet died he fought and defeated the King of Norway and in turn took all his land. Now the new King of Norway is preparing to attack Denmark and reclaim the land that his grandfather lost. The ghost of King Hamlet shows himself to Hamlet and tells him of how his death came to be. After absorbing this new knowledge Hamlet decides to take revenge on Claudius. He forms a plan to act insane so that no one will take him seriously and he plays the part so well that everyone believes him to be mad. Hamlet succeeds in getting revenge on Claudius but ends up dying shortly after as well.
I really liked the play of Hamlet. It was different from all the other plays that I have read so far. It has a lot of different elements to it such as murder, insanity, love, great friendship, deceit and cunning. I found it much easier to follow due to the fact that I had read this play in high school and I was able to decode it better.