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Death is something that is mysterious, inevitable, and can be dealt with in a number of ways. In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Shakespeare represents the stages of grief, the process in which everyone goes through while mourning a loss. These stages are directly shown through the emotions and state of mind of Hamlet which were anger, sadness, and acceptance.
Firstly, Hamlet’s initial response to his father’s murder was anger, which is a usual reaction to just hearing that your father has been murdered. But when Hamlet also finds out who exactly killed his father, he plots revenge. This event took place when Hamlet said “O my prophetic soul! My Uncle” (I.V). This is near the beginning of the play when the ghost of his father comes and tells Hamlet that he has been killed by his uncle Claudius. Hamlet seems lost but when the ghost of his father orders him to seek revenge, Hamlet is right on board. But before he goes through with it, he wants to make sure that Claudius really killed his father and not just kill his uncle because a ghost told him so. This is sets up a play involving the way his father was killed. Claudius was in attendance and storms out of the theatre as he says “Turn on the lights. Get me out of here!” (III.II.12). At this point Hamlet did not seem angry, but was just trying to not care about it, which is also another way of trying to deal with death. He also has another chance at killing Claudius but does not because he is worried about what is due for Claudius in the afterlife. Hamlet ends up not killing Claudius with a thought out plan, but does in the heat of the moment when his mother has also been murdered by Claudius through poisoning her drink unintentionally. Another fuel to Hamlet’s fire is the fact that his mother had replaced his father with someone who he despises; Claudius. His anger with this situation is exemplified when he expresses “The funeral bak’d meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables” (I.II.7). This is showing his frustration with the situation that his mother has essentially replaced his father with his uncle in the matter of 2 months. Hamlet feels like this is too soon to get over a death and move on with their lives. So this leads to Hamlet also feeling anger towards Gertrude, as well as Claudius even more so. Even though this scene was prior to finding out that his father had murdered by Claudius, this caught up with him and just piled on the anger Hamlet was already feeling towards Claudius.
The second stage of Hamlet dealing with his father’s death is the feeling of sadness and depression. Hamlet contemplates suicide after his feeling of loneliness. In Hamlet’s first soliloquy he reveals that his despair has driven him to thoughts of suicide as he says “How weary….His law ‘gainst self slaughter” (I.II.5). This is where Hamlet is talking about potentially wanting to kill himself due to having these different emotions of both anger and sadness. But he ultimately does not kill himself because that is a sin in Christianity and goes against what stands for. Here Hamlet is again worried after what is due in afterlife, except this time he is worried about what is due for himself after death. Hamlet once again gets a huge dose of deep sadness when his love Ophelia has died. He expresses his feelings for Ophelia after her death as he said “ Forty Thousand brothers, could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum” (V.I). So this quote is initiated when people are at Ophelia’s unofficial burial and her brother Laertes jumps in her coffin to express his brotherly love to her for one last time. Hamlet then also jumps in and expresses his true love for her, as said before. What he means by that quote is almost exactly what it says, forty thousands brothers, directly meaning forty thousand people with Laertes’ love combined would not be enough to match Hamlet’s love for Ophelia. This situation also does not help Hamlet with dealing with everything and once again just adds to his existing sadness. This is also common is real life situations where once you are truly sad, everything around seemingly goes wrong for you and is rightly so for Hamlet.
After Hamlet gets the validation he needs from the play, he moves on to the final stage of grief; Acceptance. He now knows what must be done by him to avenge the death of his father. Hamlet shows here that he is set on completing the task laid on him by his father’s ghost. “ I do not know why yet I live to say “This thing’s to do, “Sith I have cause and will and strength and means to do’t…..How stand I then, That have a father killed, a mother stained, excitements of my reason and my blood, and let all sleep---while, to my shame….oh, from this time forth, My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!”(IV.IV.3). At the end of this passage Hamlet resolves to not think of anything other than his stepfather’s blood from that point on. This shows Hamlet’s determination to now do what he has accepted that he must. Also, in this stage of Hamlet’s grief, we see another acceptance come to light. As Hamlet and Horatio are talking with the gravedigger, he comes to another realization. “Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth to dust;the dust is earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that loam whereto he was converted might they not stop a beer barrel? Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay, might stop a hole to keep the wind away.” (V.I.9). Here Hamlet is coming to terms with life in that all lives and people will eventually just be dust, remembered and revered by no one. In the last pages of the play, Hamlet strides confidently into what he knows will be his death. He has already read the letter the king wrote to have him killed in Finland, so he knows the king wants him dead. Hamlet is smart enough to know that he will not come out of the duel alive. Yet, in his stage of acceptance he can only decide to end both his life, and fulfill his destiny in one fell swoop, which, by killing the king in his final moments he does.
Death goes beyond the simplicity of mortality and immortality. The person’s age at a time of another’s death contributes to their process of grieving, but also their ability to let themselves grieve and become vulnerable to the pains of approaching death as a friend rather than an enemy. Hamlet’s experiences with grief not only justify the legitimacy of the grieving process, but they also characterize grief as more than simply a ladder, but rather a bumpy road that has numerous ins and outs that cannot be accounted for at first glance. For this reason, grief is not an equation that can be placed in a calculator and made easier.
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