William Shakespeare is one of the playwrights who are very famous in literacy works. He is a Briton born in the sixteenth century yet wrote poems and plays that offer a thrilling effect when watching or reading them (Sylvan, ix). All the plays are written in native English which incorporates even some Latin or Greek words.
In the works written by Shakespeare, there is heavy use of various themes and a certain characteristic language pattern. In his books, he tried to evaluate several scenarios that are a dilemma even to the current generation. The language use even in the plays depict that the playwright is also a poet.
Some of the books written by William Shakespeare include:
1. Romeo and Juliet. (play)
2. The merchant of Venice. (play)
3. The Hamlet. (play)
In total, he wrote 38 plays, 154 sonnets and two long poems with a narrative structure alongside other poems. His work can be termed as one of the best plays that existed in the pre-dramatic era. In his career life, he started as an actor, then a playwright and lastly even owned a theater in Britain (Sylvan, x).
One of his most remembered plays is called the tragedy of Prince Hamlet. The play narrates of a prince whose father had been murdered by his uncle. The uncle went further and took over leadership after the murder and married his wife (Karen, 4). The play depicts grief, rage and great sensation for revenge. The play is set in a palace in Denmark and play consists of five main segments (acts) which are sub-divided into several scenes. This makes it the longest play written by Shakespeare.
In this particular play, the playwright illuminates on several themes that are predominant in the play and the societies in general. Such themes include:
Child and power rivalry which led to the murder of the King by his brother.
Revenge what led the prince to plot on how to avenge his father’s death by killing he who killed his father and Laertes avenging his father’s and sister’s deaths.
Immorality which is illustrated using the king who first killed his brother and then married his late brother’s wife (Karen, 19).
In his play, he has employed use of certain parts of speech as well as stylistic devices.
One of the most common features that he has used is the ‘Ghost’ appearance which is intended to mean that once one commits a crime of murder, it is very easy for that person’s blood (deceased) and spirit to wander around looking for a way to hit back to the murderer (Wells, 16). To begin with, in most tragedies, ghosts are a common character which always seeks revenge. It may take different forms which might be hard for the other characters to know but always try to find a way to get its revenge. In this particular play, a ghost of the murdered king (King Hamlet) appears on several occasions to different people in the play. It always appears to those close to the deceased person (Victim) or close to the murderer so as to try to woo the living to carry out a revenge on its behalf. This is mainly because ghosts are immortal and can’t have any power to physically fight a mortal being.
In the play, the ghost first appears to the sentinels. This can be claimed to be due to the closeness that the servants (sentinels) had with their former master (the murdered king). This can be also because the ghost wanted to make many people believe that it had an intention of sending for the son (prince hamlet) as it was the tradition of the king to send a sentinel once he wanted to summon his son. In the second appearance, the ghost of the King Hamlet leads his son to a secluded place and narrates of the murder. The ghost reveals to the young Hamlet that his uncle Claudius is the murderer and wants to seek revenge on his (King Hamlet) behalf. This makes young Hamlet swear to avenge his father’s death by doing the same to his uncle, now the king and ‘adopted’ father who had married his own (Hamlet’s) mother. To the reader, this ghost appears to be a good ghost since it appeared to save the son from grief over his father’s death and the task of trying to find the cause of his father’s death. On the other side, it may appear as a bad ghost for it came to seek revenge on a mortal instead of helping that mortal rule smoothly. By these two contradicting missions, we find that the protagonist in the play (Hamlet) gets into a partial dilemma of what to do. Due to his fury on remembering of his father’s loss, the protagonist makes a hasty decision which might lead him into danger since the ghost might be telling the truth or lying to the young Hamlet only to make him commit a murder of his own uncle who might help him in future because his own father is already dead (absoluteshakespeare.com).
The same ghost appears again in act three after Hamlet crosses one of the instructions issued by the same ghost during the previous appearance. This time, the ghost gives instructions to young hamlet to stop scolding his mother for her actions and mistakes. It appears to both hamlet and his mother. This makes the scene or that particular part of the play to have a lot of suspense since the King’s ghost appears to his wife, talks to his son giving him a fatherly advice and the king’s murderer is listening in the conversation from the other side of the wall. This makes the reader believe that the ghost is in fact a good ghost since it advices the protagonist to keep to his minds and power and not be very rough with his mother since she has done nothing wrong. The ghost is used to make the reader anticipate King Claudius’ reaction after knowing that he can’t escape divine justice. The dilemma previously on the protagonist’s side shifts to the king’s side. Therefore, the ghost can be claimed to have been used to clear the doubts on who murdered the king, the reason for young hamlet’s strange transformation and shift the dilemma and concentration of the reader from hamlet’s actions to King Claudius’ actions while still maintaining some concentration on hamlet. The ghost is also used to introduce some concentration on the queen’s actions since she swears to change her way of living and stop living with Claudius. This also shows that a ghost is not only used to show the raging and burning urge for revenge but also may be used to show love and consideration in certain situations (absoluteshakespeare.com).
Analyzing the whole play again in attempt to know the exact purpose of this ghost character, it is clear that the ghost character is used in this play to set the theme of revenge into motion and develop it to the very end. This makes it necessary for the reader to analyze this theme in a less detailed outline and find out how the ghost character made it possible for the theme to be fully developed and eventually how it made it possible for the whole tragedy to mature towards the end (Edwards, 45).
Hamlet’s revenge starts when we learn that Polonius is murdered and the only person who knows where to find his body is only hamlet. This shows that the Polonius’ murderer is none other but hamlet. It is believed that he did this because Polonius was King Claudius’ chief advisor thus knew the truth about king hamlet’s death. This also serves as a warning to King Claudius who clearly sees that he is the next in the line of revenge.
The king’s scheme for revenge sets in when he implements his plan. The play does not outline how hamlet escaped death and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern met their deaths. Hamlet returns to Denmark and makes an appearance during Ophelia’s burial. Ophelia’s death forms a tragedy within a tragedy in the story. She drowned but during the burial, Laertes and hamlet fight over the fresh grave (Karen 17). Laertes fights to avenge his father’s and sister’s (Ophelia) deaths while hamlet fights to avenge Ophelia’s death since he believes that he (hamlet) loved Ophelia more than his brother did. Hamlet’s drink is poisoned but his mother drinks it dying but reveals to everyone that she had been poisoned by the person who wanted to kill her son. From this description, it is clear that king Claudius had organized all this. Since hamlet had to be killed and he now knows that someone is out to poison him, King Claudius ensures that Laertes’ sword which will be used to fight hamlet has its tip poisoned. In the battled, hamlet is wounded by the poisoned sword thus is poisoned. Before he dies, he stubs King Claudius with his (hamlet) sword whose tip was also poisoned (sylvan, 14). Hamlet announces that Young Fortinbras should be the next king since he, Laertes, queen and king are all going to die. This forms the last scene of the play and the end of revenge as well as the play.
In conclusion, involvement of this ghost character is seen to be one of the best and unique stylistic devices employed by the playwright. In fact, it gives the play a unique and appetizing mood which makes the reader eager to read more (Edwards, 45)
Works cited
Sylvan B. Shakespeare: An Overview in Macbeth, ed. Sylvan Barnet. A Signet Classic. 1998. Print.
Karen D. Hamlet (Spark notes Literature guide). United Kingdom: Spark publishing company. 2007 Print.
Edwards, P ed. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. New Cambridge Shakespeare ser. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.1985 print.
Wells, Stanley, and G, T. eds. The Complete Works. By William Shakespeare. The Oxford Shakespeare. Compact ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press. 1988 Print.
http://absoluteshakespeare.com/guides/hamlet/summary/hamlet_summary.html.
