Sunday, October 31, 2010

The End And A New Start

"the rest is silence." (V, ii, 384) This phrase pretty much represents the ending of Hamlet. The King, the queen, Hamlet and Laertes all end up dead. With all the ones involved in the conflict dead, everything is just over. There's no more to happen and the only thing left is the story which Horatio is to spread.
In the scene where the king,queen, Laertes and Hamlet all die, all of them die for their own fault. The king and Laertes fell into their own trap. The poison, that they intended to kill Hamlet with, in the end killed them. "The foul practice hath turned itself on me." (V, ii, 336-7) Laertes realizes that only when he is already dying. The death of the king more obviously shows that somewhat deserved to die. "He is justly serve. It is a poison tempered by hiself." (V, ii, 248-9) Laertes and Claudius can not blame any other man for their death. I think it is fair enough to say that their death was just.
The death of the queen is slightly different. The queen drank the poisoned drink and died when, for the first time, she disobeyed the order of the king. Her first act of resistance led her to death, which implys that her obedience is probably what kept her alive until then.
But Hamlet is the "victim" in this situation. He too fell into the trap that Claudius and Laertes set up. It was an die-or-die situation for him. There was no way that he would have prevented dying. However, this is not only because of those two who planned the killing but also because of Hamlet himself. His erratic, almost insane, actions and his indecisiveness is what caused the whole mass murder to happen.
After Hamlet(and everyone else)'s death, Fortinbras takes over Denmark. Fortinbras is a person who has been juxtaposed to Hamlet a few times throughout the play. Thus, his taking over of Denmark can be seen as a extention of Hamlet's life. One can see Hamlet through Fortinbras who is the king of Denmark now. Hamlet's death is the end to the story but then it indicates a new beginning through the character Fortinbras.

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