Revenge and Vengeance in Shakespeares Hamlet - Going...

Going Beyond Revenge in Hamlet The simplest and superficially the most appealing way to understand Shakespeare’s Hamlet is to see it as a revenge tragedy. This genre was well established and quite popular in Shakespeare’s time, but it was precisely part of his genius that he could take old forms and renew them by a creative violation of their standards. As this essay will explore, Hamlet stands the conventional revenge tragedy on its head, and uses the tensions created by this reversal of type to add depth to its characters and story. The revenge tragedy of Shakespeare’s age, as exemplified in such productions as The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd and The Tragedy of Hoffman by Henry Chettle was gruesome to a†¦show more content†¦In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, of course, it would be quite different. I would contend, in fact, that Hamlet is not a revenge tragedy at all, but a drama on self-discovery and the consequences of deception. In Hamlet, for the title character and others, death comes from being false to oneself and others. Nevertheless, this death is purely physical: at the same time he is moving towards death as the consequence of the deception of himself and others, Hamlet is moving away from it in his mind, from death towards life, or at least a mature acceptance of what life might bring. Revenge, or to be more precise the struggle over when and how to take revenge, deepens him and make him fully aware and appreciative of life, even as he is about to be deprived of it. Let us briefly trace Hamlet’s progress through the play to illustrate these two movements. In the first act, Hamlet meets the ghost of his father, who commands him to kill his uncle and stepfather, but not to harm his mother (Act One scene 5, Shakespeare: 952). We should note here that even before this confirmation of the unnatural death of his father, his mother’s hasty remarriage had thrown Hamlet into a deep depression, to the point where only his religious sentiments prevented him from making away with himself: â€Å"How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable / Seem to me all the uses of this world!† (Shakespeare: 948). The revenge mission is thus initiallyShow MoreRelatedHamlet as So Much More Than a Traditional Revenge Tragedy Essay1713 Words   |  7 PagesHamlet as So Much More Than a Traditional Revenge Tragedy Although Shakespeare wrote Hamlet closely following the conventions of a traditional revenge tragedy, he goes far beyond this form in his development of Hamlets character. Shakespeares exploration of Hamlets complex thoughts and emotions is perhaps more the focus of the play rather than that of revenge, thus in Hamlet Shakespeare greatly develops and enhances the form of the traditional revenge tragedy. 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