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Throughout Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, loss is a fundamental concept that is present throughout the whole play. There are a variety of losses that the characters of the play suffer from, where this essay will be used to discuss the vast variety of losses. The motif scales from the loss of sanity, to the loss of self-righteousness, to the loss of beloved ones. To begin with, there are many ways in which someone can lose their sanity. Ophelia and Hamlet convey the message of how easily one may lose their sanity. Throughout the entirety of the play, Ophelia is seen to be as fair-minded and pure. As the play progresses, she starts to lose her mind and starts to develop madness. Notably, by the end of the play, her mental state is demolished, as everything would remind her of her father as she said that, “[she] would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died. They say a made a good end.” (IV,V,180-181).
Ultimately, she is driven to madness through three acts. First, her father and brother deny her from being with her love. Second, by seeing Hamlet crazy. Third, her father being murdered. The use of the hyperbole emphasizes her madness, as she believes that no flower will ever bloom after her father’s death. As the play develops, she slowly starts to lose her mind, as it all begins by her listening to Laertes and Polonius by not allowing her to be in a relationship with Hamlet, as Laertes asks her to “Be wary then; best safety lies in fear: Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.” (I, III,45-46). To sum up, Ophelia is in love with Hamlet, which is why her insanity is encouraged by Hamlet dehumanizing her. The verbal abuse that struck Ophelia, makes her vulnerable as she is being walked over by the man she loves and her own family. The final act, pushing her to her suspected suicide, has been her father’s death. She takes the news of his death very harshly, where she loses her mind. Therefore, her grievance towards her father’s death pushes her to insanity, as she takes her own life by drowning herself. Moreover, the main character — Hamlet— seemingly lost his rationale due to his love Ophelia.
Seeing Ophelia in her grave, he speaks of his pain: “whose phrase of sorrow, Conjures the wandering stars, and makes them stand like wonder-wounded hearers?” (I, V,233-235). As a result of seeing the woman he loves in her grave and hearing the sorrows of her brother, he jumps into the grave. His use of imagery, of something with the size of the stars stopping as a result of her death, and the use of the question mark highlight his insanity. Evidently, his jumping into the grave symbolizes the death of his sanity as it died with her. Finally, Ophelia’s suicide and Hamlet’s suicidal thoughts demonstrate the loss of one’s sanity through the play. Adjacent to real life, everyone has a conscience, but as the play progresses, Hamlet sacrifices his self-righteousness for revenge and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern for the misplacement of loyalty. Firstly, Hamlet is a well-educated man, he is someone that shows intelligence, as his plan to get his revenge is meticulous and made with precision. The reason behind Hamlet being the only one able to speak to the ghost is because of his loss of rationale, where the ghost says, “Murder most foul, as in the best it is. But this most foul, strange and unnatural” (I, V,27-28).
Briefly, the murder of the king is unnatural and horrible, but the ghost claims that all murder is heinous. The ghost is seen to be the embodiment of Hamlet’s thoughts, where Hamlet is the only person that can speak to the ghost of his dead father. The ghost states that murder is always ghastly, but he then loses his righteousness over the act of revenge. After Hamlet kills Polonius, he feels awful and says that “ [He] repent[s]. But heaven hath pleased it so, To punish me with this and this with me” where he knows that murder is wrong and he will be punished for it. As brilliant as he is, he loses all his morals for the sake of retribution in the name of his father and mother by murdering Claudius.
Secondly, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern surrender their integrity after the betrayal of their close friend from the past for a king that has betrayed their friend, Hamlet. Hamlet feels betrayed as he talks about, “letters sealed, and my two schoolfellows, Whom I will trust as I will adders fanged” (III.IV.206-207). Nevertheless, Guildenstern and Rosencrantz are Hamlet’s school friends, yet he doesn’t trust them, where they have sold him out and are spying on him for the king. They lose their self-righteousness as they do not just betray a man that they should be loyal to, they do it with a man that causes an abundance of pain to their friend. Loyalty is a code written within one from the day they are born, where betraying Hamlet allows them to lose their self-righteousness throughout the play, as Hamlet loses his by murdering Claudius.
The play Hamlet displays the effect of loved one’s losses on oneself. As displayed, Hamlet and Gertrude are two different examples of how loss can cause a change in character. Hamlet lost a lot during the play, and each loss alters who he is. At the beginning of the play, he knows that “Thou know’st ’tis common; all that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity” (I.II.72). To reach to him saying, “Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I, Hamlet the Dane.” (V.1.234). As he leaps into Ophelia’s grave. Furthermore, he loses more throughout the play and is seen to change who he is, allowing grief to get to him. This pushes him to lose his innocence as well. Consequently, Losing his father and mother, pushes him towards murder, then strays from his virtue as he is unfazed by his killing of Polonius, who is the father of the woman he loves, which then pushes for Ophelia’s suicide which drives him to insanity.
Additionally, the loss of the king pushes Gertrude to place her lust and desire for power over her love and loyalty. Notably, the ghost of the king speaks on behalf of Claudius taking Gertrude, where he claims that he is “[an] adulterate beast… virtuous queen” (I.V.42-46). Indeed, she is someone who committed incest. She is one to have her interests over anyone else’s. She puts her lustful desires and her aspiration to stay queen before her loyalty to her son and her dead husband.
In contrast, Hamlet’s losses result in the loss of himself.To summarize, loss has been a central theme of Hamlet. The characters in the play lose loved ones, which generates damages with their sanity and morals. To sum up the play, Horatio speaks on how one should release the worry of the world to have a peaceful afterlife. Ordinarily, when one is served with loss and pain, they should persevere for the sake of eternal peace.
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