In the play hamlet by william shakespeare hamlet's character is revealed through death. His indecisive nature is evident in his view of death his unstable state contributes two themes of death in that is dominant in hamlet suicide or revenge. Life seems unimportant to hamlet and he is seeking the answer to life and wonders about the mystery of what comes after it a peaceful slumber or an everlasting nightmare.

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Norwood, ma the author's comments: response to a prompt in english class about characters being pulled in conflicting directions and how it shows the meaning of the work. In the play hamlet by william shakespeare, the main character that the play was named after, was being pulled in conflicting directions by two compelling desires. Throughout the play and particularly in his famous to be or not to be soliloquy, we see that hamlet is in a constant struggle with himself over the conflicts of a terrible life compared to the enigma of death. We see him range from one side of the spectrum to the other over the poplar topic, and through his self conflict we see more clearly perhaps the biggest of shakespeare’s intended themes and the overall meaning of the work: the worth of life and the mystery of death. Specifically in his most popular soliloquy, hamlet discusses with himself if a life full of pain is even worth living.

As we see from the rest of the play and eventually its conclusion, life has little victory in this essay. Hamlet’s only arguments to himself for continuing his life are to finally attain revenge for his father’s murder and that he is too scared to face the unknown of death. He contemplates whether or not death is a black nothingness or whether it is filled with dreams as in sleep. Because he does not know, and because he says that he cannot ask someone because people do not return from this endless sleep , he decides that the unknown is worse than present pain. Throughout the story it is also evident that he only continues his life in order to end another’s. He seeks revenge for the murder of his father at the hands of his uncle claudius, now king claudius. As we see at the finish of the play, death has overcome all of the major characters, except for horatio, who is talked out of it by the dying hamlet.

Later in the play, when he goes to the graveyard, he again confronts this enigma of death. In this scene he finds the skeletal remains of his childhood friend yorick, the equivalent of a court jester or castle fool, who has been reduced to nothing but dust and bones. Hamlet has a profound revelation in this moment, realizing that everyone dies, regardless of what they have conquered or accomplished in this life. He references alexander the great and julius caesar, two of the most powerful rulers in all of history. Both of these mighty people had conquered countries, fought wars, gained wealth and fame and power, but just like yorick were reduced to dust. This epiphany served to end hamlets fear of death, and also see the uselessness of this current life. Even though death was still just as mysterious to him, he did not fear it because every man had to face it.

Through this experience which was quickly followed by fighting on top of a dead body he learned that no matter what a man accomplished, death would ultimately have the victory. Through this confliction between life and death, not only in hamlet but also in the story as a whole, the reader will easily identify one of shakespeare’s greatest meanings for this play: the worth of life and the unknown of death. It can be concluded through hamlet’s thoughts, actions and words, that life, and what is done in it, has little worth when all roads lead to death. The fact that death conquers everything overpowers the unknown that frightens most people. The play ends with the death of all of its major characters, symbolizing that death has once again conquered all: the murderer, the innocent, the traitors, the lovely, the ugly, the strong and the weak.

Hope its handy for anyone else studying: ideas and superstitions surrounding the mystery of death permeate the timeless story of hamlet, a tale that can even to this day chill its every reader and compel us to question our own faith and spirituality. From the very first scene we are propelled into a world in which the line between the living and the dead has become very fine, as one of the first characters we are introduced to is the ghost of the former king of denmark, hamlet’s father. In this opening scene a certain fascination with the dead is established, although horatio, bernardo and marcellus are quite terrified by the ghost as he appears to them, they are also overcome with curiosity and a longing to know why he has revisited the mortal world of the living ‘stay! speak, speak! i charge thee, speak!’. This curiosity is contagious and quickly sucks the audience into a morbid fascination with the untimely death of the king that sets the tone for the rest of the play. Hamlet’s character is one consumed with the idea of death after the murder of his father.

He is overcome by a grief that plunges him into a deep contemplative depression, in which he even considers suicide, wishing that his ‘too too solid flesh would melt’ but never acts on these considerations. He is a great procrastinator, wallowing in his own pain and simple plots to avenge his father, but almost never following these plans through. Where hamlet is our protagonist, death even more than claudius is our antagonist in the play, as it is in reality. Hamlet is driven by the knowledge that he too will some day perish, and this death drive is what compels him to plot revenge, to create when he directs the play within the play and to think so deeply about his own mortality and the meaning of life. Deathly imagery cements the theme of mortality firmly in the audiences mind throughout the play. The word ‘rank’ appears repeatedly in hamlets descriptions of both the world which he compares to an unkempt and overgrown garden , and his mothers relationship with claudius ‘things rank and gross in nature possess it merely’, and ‘in the rank sweat of an un seamed bed’ are examples.

�rank’ is used here as a word to describe things that seem rotten and festering, and it lends itself to the subtle suggestion again of deathly images surrounding our protagonist. The violets symbolise faithfulness, which she feels has been destroyed since her father was murdered. This image represents the feelings of hopelessness and the loss of faith that many feel when confronted with death and grief, and contemplations of their own mortality. Some more obvious imagery relating to death is of course evident throughout the play, for example, when hamlet discusses the whereabouts of polonius’ dead body ‘he is at supper .

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Not where he eats, but where he is eaten: a certain convocation of politic worms are een at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots’. This grim imagery is a comment on the fact that even humans are part of the circle of life, that as we eat animals to survive some day maggots and worms will feed on our dead bodies to survive.

Hamlet’s ‘inky cloak’ of black which he wears throughout the play is another image that acts as a constant reminder of hamlets relationship and obsession with death. He never changes from these black clothes throughout the play, suggesting that he is in constant mourning it would seem for his father, but the further we are drawn in to hamlet’s psyche the more we realise that he is also mourning his own eventual death, which he becomes wholly obsessed with in the course of the play. He cannot escape the thought of death, his fathers death and the revenge he must seek for it weighs heavy in his mind, the woman he loves, ophelia, drowns suspiciously and forces hamlet to further contemplate suicide. The seemingly ‘accidental’ nature of ophelia’s death presents another idea to hamlet and the audience, a hint at the absolute fragility of life and the uncertainty that surrounds it when it is impossible to know what state a persons mind was in as they died. We never truly know whether ophelia killed herself in a fever of madness and grief, or if her untimely death as many of the deaths in the play are was purely an accident.

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In one of hamlets most thought provoking musings on death he concludes that fear is what stops people from committing suicide, and those who can kill themselves must no longer be afraid of death, and do so to escape the complete pain of living. It is hamlet’s uncertainty and fear about the afterlife that stops him from killing himself. This is perfectly illustrated in the iconic grave digging scene in which the most famous deathly image in hamlet is found, the skull of yorick, a man who was once his fathers jester and whom hamlet was fond of.