Illustrating the Duality of Hamlet's Character
Illustrating the Duality of Hamlet's Character
It is often noticed that people have more than one side to their personality at the same time. The character of Hamlet is a perfect example of the duality of human nature as Hamlet’s character is both noble and wicked at the same time.
At the beginning of the book the reader sees “normal” Hamlet as he grieves for the death of his father, Hamlet is still in shock over his fathers death and the quick remarriage of his mother, he is not sure of what is really going on, thus the duality is not yet present in his character. Not long after the ghost of old Hamlet appears to young Hamlet, when he meats the ghost of his father and finds out a different version of his father’s death his attitude and perspective changes. Hamlet attitude changes in a heartbeat and gives himself the challenge to find out the truth and prove it. This is when the duality starts to appear in Hamlet’s character.
One part of Hamlet’s character is noble as he grieves for his father and despises the situation that his mother, Gertrude has left him in. During some parts of the play the reader might be under the impression that Hamlet dislikes his mother but on the contrary he still loves her even though she seems to have left him cornered. Hamlet is aggressive towards his mother hoping to make her understand the actions and consequences that she has invoked.
The second part of Hamlet’s character is seen as wicked as he seeks and plans ways to avenge his father‘s death. The first plan that Hamlet devises is the Mouse Trap play that helps Hamlet find out the truth and turns out proving Claudious guilty, witch is what Hamlet was hoping for. This leads Hamlet to his next step, to plot revenge against the guilty king and bring him down. With this a new duality is born in Hamlet’s character as he fakes insanity or madness. So this leaves Hamlet with about three personalities, normal Hamlet that the reader sees at the beginning, noble Hamlet and wicked Hamlet, mad Hamlet is part of the wicked Hamlet.
In his duality Hamlet’s character portrays the perfect portrait of noble and wicked. While noble Hamlet loves...