Hamlet brings many contrivesal topic to life during the story including death, depresssion, and suicide. The main characters bring these topics into the spotlight by the struggles they endure during the story. They show these points by the multiple monologues in the story, some being what Shakespere is known for.
Many people try to avoid death as a topic of discussion because it's not a fun topic to think about. Everyone should talk more about it because one day it will happen to all of us and students need some realization on the topic. Everyone knows someone who has died. Hamlet allows us to see the grieving process of many people, Hamlet especially. This will give readers insight to how death can affect other people. It is beneficial to the reader because it brings up the topic and gets them to realize that one day they will meet the inevitable, rather it be for themselves or someone they are close to. In Hamlet, Claudius states; “Hamlet, you are so sweet and such a good son to mourn your father like this. But you have to remember, that your father lost his father, who lost his father before him, and every time, each son has had to mourn his father for a certain period.”, “It’s not what God wants, and it betrays a vulnerable heart and an ignorant and weak mind. Since we know that everyone must die sooner or later, why should we take it to heart?”, “And it’s irration-al, since the truth is that all fathers must die.” This provides insight to the way Claudius thinks of death and how he is reacting to it. It brings up that it is true that “all fathers must die”, and that shows that everyone will die at some point or another and we have to accept that. And with death comes the grieving process, and with that depression could come.
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Depression is another topic that doesn't get talked about often in the classroom because most students hate talking about it, even though statistically speaking teens are the ones who have it most. . Hamlet does an amazing job of letting us into the mind of someone with depression and the effects it can have on a person, it shows that Hamlet has depression and how crazy he acts during it and the signs you may see from depression in a person. In the story, Hamlet says; “Seem,” mother? No, it is. I don’t know what you mean by “seem.” Neither my black clothes, my dear mother, nor my heavy sighs, nor my weeping, nor my downcast eyes, nor any other display of grief can show what I really feel. It’s true that all these things “seem” like grief, since a person could use them to fake grief if he wanted to. But I’ve got more real grief inside me that you could ever see on the surface. These clothes are just a hint of it.” In this monologue it shows the insight to how Hamlet is depressed and the signs he is showing, such as his clothes, his crying, and so on. Many people with depression show the same signs in real life, but it never gets picked up on until it's too late. Hamlet could let the reader see the signs someone could be showing and help them accordingly. If depression gets too far it can turn into something way worse, for example, suicide.
Suicide is the topic for one of the most famous speeches Shakespere writes, and it is performed in the story, the “To Be, or Not To Be” speech. It states; “The question is: is it better to be alive or dead? Is it nobler to put up with all the nasty things that luck throws your way, or to fight against all those troubles by simply putting an end to them once and for all?. That’s certainly something to worry about. “That’s the consideration that makes us stretch out our sufferings so long.”, “After all, who would put up with all life’s humiliations—the abuse from superiors, the insults of arrogant men, the pangs of unrequited love, the inefficiency of the legal system, the rudeness of people in office, and the mistreatment good people have to take from bad—when you could simply take out your knife and call it quits?” Also another exerpt from another speech; “Ah, I wish my dirty flesh could melt away into a vapor, or that God had not made a law against suicide. Oh God, God! How tired, stale, and pointless life is to me.” This here is a great example to why Hamlet shows us real life scenarios, everyone knows someone who has gone through this if you haven't gone through it themselves.
Hamlet does an extraordinary job of showing topics that are not usually discussed in school that should be. Topics like deression, death, and suicide are not disscued enough for students to know everything about it, and Hamlet is the perfect story for showing what it can do to a person and how it will effect them.
Work Cited
- Crowther, John, ed. “No Fear Hamlet.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2005. Web. 26 Oct. 2019.