Poor Prince Hamlet

Sarah Walker
Mrs. Markovich
ENG4Uh
26 February 2013
Poor Prince Hamlet The dearly depressed Prince Hamlet, featured in William Spakespeare’s Hamlet, reveals his true and deeper feelings of sorrow and grief for himself and his father but also the hatred and revulsion masked beneath his quick and unkind words, directed more to his mother and Claudius. Hamlet, being the only person to see through to the true character of Claudius, dares to question as to why his mother would betray him and his “poor” (1, 2, 48) dead father. For this reason, Hamlet’s vile words of truth are spoken because of the wrong doing of his mother leading to deeper devastation and despair for the loss of his father. Consequently, the result of the death of Hamlet Sr., the father of Hamlet Jr. and former King of Denmark, would be true misery and heartbreak for the “so excellent king” (1, 2, 139) that he once knew. To begin with, Hamlet grieve over the loss putting it upon himself to commit “self-slaughter” (1, 2, 132) seeing as how the world is turning to be “an unweeded garden” (1, 2, 135), as Denmark is falling apart before him. Similarly, the new addition to his family is to blame for the inner and outer conflicts submerging within Hamlet causing question to his life. Gertrude also generates an increase of stress and grieve for the loss of his father particularly because of the remarriage. After Hamlet realizes that he cannot bear to live with such arrangements of having worse than “…a beast” (1, 2, 150) for a mother and a foul king that is “…no more to my (his) father – than I (he) to Hercules…” (1, 2, 152-153), he begins to construct a conclusion that is it is not he who is at fault but his mother. In particular Hamlet recurs “within the month” (1, 2, 145) (1, 2, 153) representing the time period of Hamlet Sr. death but also the time period of when the marriage of Gertrude and Claudius occurred. The repeat of the time period supports the reason of Hamlets theory being that, although his mothers earlier cries were “all tears” (1, 2, 149), her cries are “of most unrighteous tears,” because the sorrow she utters is insincere. Further more, Hamlet claims, “Frailty, thy name is woman!” (1, 2, 146) and his mother include, that all woman are weak, being that she does not have the capability to be a widow and have human feelings of sorrow and grief. He also makes a referral to his mother’s grieve comparing her to “a beast that wants discourse of reason” and how it “would have mourn’d longer” than she, representing the short episode of lament. All in all, the dear Prince Hamlet remains in his sorrowful and depressed state from the works of his more than beastly mother and newly wed, “within the month” of Hamlet Sr. death (1, 2, 145) (1, 2, 153), step father/king controlling his raw emotion of despair and hurt for his own blood father.