Is Revenge a Necessary Element in Shakespeare's Hamlet?

[blimkie]

im no big fan of english anyone want to read my intro for an essay on revenge in hamlet and put there 2 cents in. I am brutal with this stuffm, more of a maths and science guy

Vengeance is often the first instinct one may desire when he or she is faced with offence or atrocity towards themselves or someone they love. Revenge is a crucial element for developing the plot and central conflicts in Shakespeare’s, Hamlet. Three of the main characters in the play are all forced to deal with deaths of there fathers. Whether the death being from murder, or a duel between two kings young Hamlet, young Fortinbras and Laertes are all abundant with rage and strongly believe they must seek out the guilty and avenge there fathers deaths. Revenge involved in the play leads to many unnecessary deaths which deem the play a tragedy.

go on don't be shy ... let me have it

 

[DaveC426913]

Just a grammatical proof:

Vengeance is often the first instinct one may (desire) (better word) when he or she is faced with offence or atrocity towards themselves or someone they love. Revenge is a crucial element for developing the plot and the central conflicts in Shakespeare’s(,) Hamlet. Three of the main characters in the play are all forced to deal with deaths of (there) (wrong word) fathers. Whether the death (being) is from murder, or a duel between two kings, young Hamlet, young Fortinbras and Laertes are all (abundant) (better word?) with rage and strongly believe they must seek out the guilty and avenge (there) (wrong word) father's deaths. Revenge involved in the play leads to many unnecessary deaths which (deem) (wrong word) the play a tragedy.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Vengeance is often the first instinct one may desire when he or she is faced with offence or atrocity towards themselves or someone they love.

Is it normal to say someone "desires" an instinct?

 

[blimkie]

thanks for the input its grealty apreciated

 

[honestrosewater]

Are you still looking for help on this, or is it too late?

If you have more questions, I happen to know Hamlet quite well and would be glad to help. You can post your questions in the https://www.physicsforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=148 forum.

 

[blimkie]

Are you still looking for help on this, or is it too late?

If you have more questions, I happen to know Hamlet quite well and would be glad to help. You can post your questions in the https://www.physicsforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=148 forum.

yea i was just looking for opinions of my thesis and the paragraph in general before i continure with the rest of the essay. Of course I am going to fix the gramatical errors and find better words

 

[honestrosewater]

If you're going to post a revision, I'll only add one thing to DaveC426913's corrections/suggestions. To avoid confusion, when you refer to the play (or use the title of any work), set it off from the rest of the text somehow:
Shakespeare’s Hamlet (my preference)
Shakespeare’s "Hamlet"
Shakespeare’s Hamlet
etc.

I'll just list some quotes that I think you should consider in your search for new words or phrasings (I'll underline some specific words or phrases). BTW, quoting the text in order to support your argument is a very good thing in my book, so I hope you'll do so when it's appropriate! ...Unless your teacher told you not to.

(If you don't know where exactly in the text the following quotes appear, you can locate them easily enough by searching an online text; One of the best (IMO) online, modernized versions, from which I'm copying & pasting; If you can or want to read them, transcriptions of the First Quarto (Q1), Second Quarto (Q2) and First Folio (F1) can be found here, and a really cool, time-saving enfolding of Q2 with F1 can be found here. What text are you using anyway?)

Act I. Scene i.
Hor. ...Now, sir, young Fortinbras, 112
Of unimproved mettle hot and full,

I.v.
Ham Speak; I am bound to hear. 12
Ghost. So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.
Consider the different meanings of bound too.

...

Ghost. ...List, list, O list! 28
If thou didst ever thy dear father love—
Ham. O God!
Ghost. Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.
Ham. Murder! 32
Ghost. Murder most foul, as in the best it is;
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.
Ham. Haste me to know’t, that I, with wings as swift
As meditation or the thoughts of love, 36
May sweep to my revenge.
Ghost. I find thee apt;
And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed
That rots itself in ease on Lethe wharf, 40
Wouldst thou not stir in this.

...

Ghost. O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible! 88
If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not;
Work nature in somewhere - it's so important.

...

Hor. There’s no offence, my lord. 152
Ham. Yes, by Saint Patrick, but there is, Horatio,
And much offence, too.

II.ii.
Ham. ...Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak, 400
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing; no, not for a king,
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damn’d defeat was made. Am I a coward?

III.v.
Ham. Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That, laps’d in time and passion, let's go by
The important acting of your dread command? 124
O! say.
Ghost. Do not forget: this visitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.

IV.iv.
Ham. I’ll be with you straight. Go a little before. [Exeunt all except HAMLET. 36
How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more. 40
Sure he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason
To fust in us unus’d. Now, whe’r it be 44
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on the event,
A thought, which, quarter’d, hath but one part wisdom,
And ever three parts coward, I do not know 48
Why yet I live to say ‘This thing’s to do;’
Sith I have cause and will and strength and means
To do ’t. Examples gross as Earth exhort me:
Witness this army of such mass and charge 52
Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Whose spirit with divine ambition puff’d
Makes mouths at the invisible event,
Exposing what is mortal and unsure 56
To all that fortune, death and danger dare,
Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw 60
When honour’s at the stake. How stand I then,
That have a father kill’d, a mother stain’d,
Excitements of my reason and my blood,
And let all sleep, while, to my shame, I see 64
The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,
Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause, 68
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain? O! from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth! [Exit.

IV.v.
Laer. Where is the king? Sirs, stand you all without.
Danes. No, let’s come in.
Laer. I pray you, give me leave.
Danes. We will, we will. [They retire without the door. 88
Laer. I thank you: keep the door. O thou vile king!
Give me my father.
Queen. Calmly, good Laertes.
Laer. That drop of blood that’s calm proclaims me bastard, 92
Cries cuckold to my father, brands the harlot
Even here, between the chaste unsmirched brow
Of my true mother.
King. What is the cause, Laertes, 96
That thy rebellion looks so giant-like?
Let him go, Gertrude; do not fear our person:
There’s such divinity doth hedge a king,
That treason can but peep to what it would, 100
Acts little of his will. Tell me, Laertes,
Why thou art thus incens’d. Let him go, Gertrude.
Speak, man.
Laer. Where is my father? 104
King. Dead.
Queen. But not by him.
King. Let him demand his fill.
Laer. How came he dead? I’ll not be juggled with. 108
To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil!
Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!
I dare damnation. To this point I stand,
That both the worlds I give to negligence, 112
Let come what comes; only I’ll be reveng’d
Most throughly for my father.
King. Who shall stay you?
Laer. My will, not all the worlds*: 116
And, for my means, I’ll husband them so well,
They shall go far with little.
King. Good Laertes,
If you desire to know the certainty 120
Of your dear father’s death, is ’t writ in your revenge,
That, swoopstake, you will draw both friend and foe,
Winner and loser?
Laer. None but his enemies. 124
King. Will you know them then?
Laer. To his good friends thus wide I’ll ope my arms;
And like the kind life-rendering pelican,
Repast them with my blood.

Are you framing your concept of revenge around Laertes' reaction (and Hamlet's last soliloquy)?

*I have to make this one 'correction' (there are others, but this one is quite bad, IMO). Q2 says worlds, which could be worlds (this world and the next - not specifically their will, but amounts to about the same thing - just not as pointed), world's (this world's will), or worlds' (this world's will or the next world's will).

IV.vii.
King. ...what would you undertake 136
To show yourself your father’s son in deed
More than in words?
Laer. To cut his throat i’ the church.

V.ii.
Ham. ...What I have done,
That might your nature, honour and exception
Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness. 156
Was’t Hamlet wrong’d Laertes? Never Hamlet:
If Hamlet from himself be ta’en away,
And when he’s not himself does wrong Laertes,
Then Hamlet does it not; Hamlet denies it. 160
Who does it then? His madness. If ’t be so,
Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong’d;
His madness is poor Hamlet’s enemy.
Sir, in this audience, 164
Let my disclaiming from a purpos’d evil
Free me so far in your most generous thoughts,
That I have shot mine arrow o’er the house,
And hurt my brother. 168
Laer. I am satisfied in nature,
Whose motive, in this case, should stir me most
To my revenge; but in my terms of honour
I stand aloof, and will no reconcilement, 172
Till by some elder masters, of known honour,
I have a voice and precedent of peace,
To keep my name ungor’d.

...

Ham. ...O God! Horatio, what a wounded name,
Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me. 288
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
To tell my story.

...

Hor. ...so shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters;
Of deaths put on by cunning and forc’d cause, 332
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall’n on the inventors’ heads; all this can I
Truly deliver.

Hope that helps. There's so, so much I could say, but I don't want to bore you. Are you not a big fan because you aren't interested or because you don't feel as competent in English as you do in other subjects? Or something else? Knowing would help me target my comments, if you still want them.
BTW, here's a thread concerning revenge in Hamlet that you may want to check out: Did Hamlet's Mousetrap work?. You may at least enjoy the article.

 

[blimkie]

thanks a lot you have been a great help with the qoutes my friend