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Moana Poyer

Mrs. Priest

IB English

21 February 2018

Hamlet Essay

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare is a narrative of a

prince who has suffered the loss of his father and has to face many turmoils and self discovery

when contemplating the course of revenge to take against the betrayal of a family member.

Shakespeare utilizes motifs of acting and plays to portray the corruption in humanity and that

manipulation will not always obtain the result you want.

Act 2 consists of Hamlet devising a plan to “ catch the conscience of the King”

(2.622.73) in the murder of his father, which is evident in Hamlet’s soliloquy “O, What a

Rogue”. The Mousetrap scene is a play within a play used to portray a parallel between two

stories both used to expose some sort of a corruption within their walls. When Hamlet sees the

guilt on his uncles face which sets Hamlet on an even more determined path of revenge now that

he knows for sure of the part that his uncle played in his father's death. This revelation gave him

the means for revenge and a person to place blame on but not enough for the rest of the kingdom

to be convinced or even his own mother, so instead of his plan exposing Claudius as a murderer

, he more so exposed himself to the kingdom as a delusional, crazed being, which was not the

intent or goal of the plan at all. In Hamlet's attempts to unmask his uncles bad intentions he lost

the trust of his loves father, Polonius, resultign in the loss of his love, Ophelia. In his crazed and

outrageous mission he kills Polonius, resulting in the enemy and disappointment of his mother,
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Gertrude, and Laertes. Leaving Hamlet with no friends or family to rely on because everyone

who surrounded him had some type of ulterior motives, leaving everyone untrustworthy and

corrupt, except for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were the only

characters to not manipulate anyone , be untruthful or to put on an act for anyone and they end

up being the only main characters to survive in the end.

By Hamlet and every other character putting on some kind of act to achieve their goal

they all ended up losing except the truthful characters portraying shakespeare's theme tat

manipulation and acting can't always get you want.