William Shakespeare `The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark`

Hamlet is a play written by William Shakespeare . The play focuses on Hamlet , the nephew of the king of Denmark , as he exacts revenge against the king , Claudius . Hamlet , after the appearance of a ghost that introduces itself as the ghost of Hamlet 's father , is plagued with the thought that his father the king was murdered , and that the murderer is his uncle . He is not sure though , so he stages a play that reenacts King Hamlet 's death . Claudius ' reaction will determine the truthfulness of the ghost 's statement , Hamlet thinks

p The ghost , we can imagine , is miserable as his true situation is not known : that his own brother poisoned him , and a month after his death the murderer married his widow . This pushes him to contact his son , and tell him the real state of their affairs . This could also be interpreted as a father 's concern for his son , his way of telling him that not everyone can be trusted . Even from the afterlife , King Hamlet is still guiding his son on what to do and whom to trust

The ghost can also be seen as an avenger of wrongs , only his instrument is his son . The ghost , then is the main mover of the play (Goldman ) It moves the play forward , makes events happen . Without the ghost , Hamlet would have not discovered the treachery . Hamlet would also not plan his uncle 's murder . Without this element of revenge , the play would not have existed in the first place

The ghost also can be seen as the outsider . Since the ghost is already outside the realm of people , the ghost sees the follies of the people inside the castle . Through the ghost , we get a better picture of the kind of people in Shakespeare 's Hamlet

Work Cited

Goldman , Peter . Hamlet 's Ghost : A Review Article ' Anthropoetics 7 (2001...