Is Hamlet a tragic play?

Hamlet is known as the most important tragedy of all of the English literature. But is
this famous play, written by William Shakespeare, a tragedy?

Aristotle described tragedy as The imitation of an action that is serious and also,
as having magnitude, complete in itself; in appropriate and pleasurable language;
... in a dramatic rather than narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and fear,
where with to accomplish a catharsis of these emotions. He believed that it is
important to divide this gender into six important criteria for knowing if a text, story,
play or movie is tragic. Thess are: Plot, characters, thoughts, diction, melody and
spectacle.

Following next, this text will explain, with strong and supported arguments, why
Hamlet is a tragic play, taking into account Aristotle definitions and criteria. The
most important principles that are the ones who define if a literary text is tragic or
not are plot and characters, that are the one that are going to be used to support
the fact that Hamlet is a tragic play.

Plot: according to Aristotle this principle refers to the actions of the play, All
human happiness or misery takes the form of action. Character gives us qualities,
but it is in our actions what we do, that we are happy or miserable. This play,
Hamlet, is the story about a prince, who wanted to take revenge from his uncle,
because he killed his father. From the beginning until the end, in Hamlet, sad and
dreadful things happen to the principal character, such as his father murdered, his
mom wedding with his uncle (who was the one who killed the king), the detail that
his mom never supported him, the suicide of the woman that he loved, the fact that
the whole time he was being spy and called crazy, the element that he never took
complete revenge and his own death. Taking into account these elements its
clear that the plot is tragic and dramatic, that the main actions and events are
painful for the characters and that the play does not have a happy ending.

These play basic themes are revenge, impossible love, death and betrayal. In
terms of love, is the story about Hamlet and Ophelia a prince and a commoner, the
story of a boy who is madly in love with a girl, the problem is that her father and
brother hate him and think that he is crazy. Revenge, the objective of all the main
characters: Hamlet, the ghost, Laertes, Polonius and Claudius. The sad problem is
that none of them could achieve what they wanted, at the end all of them died and
could not succeed. Death, in Hamlet all died, because of suicide, an accident or
murdered: Hamlets father died because was poisoned by his brother; Ophelia
drown herself; Laertes died because his own plan failed and he poisoned himself;
Gertrude drank the poisoned wineglass; Polonius was killed by Hamlet, but by an
accident and an impulsive action; Claudius was murdered by Hamlet because of
his anger; Hamlet was killed by his uncle. At the end of the play, all of the
characters died and never got to have a happy ending. Betrayal, characters gave
their back one to other, lied and killed; they were interested in what they wanted
and did what ever it takes to have it. This shows how the main ideas and events of
the story are tragic and how all of the peoples plan failed, not permitting they to
have a better life without problems.

The two principal characters of the play are Hamlet and Claudius. Taking into
account the criteria of the characters, which consist in the qualities and the natural
essence of the actors in the literary text, of Aristotle, this famous English play is
tragic. Hamlet, the principal character. His sadness illustrates the plays theme,
drama and tragedy, he is melancholic and sad, he wears black cloths to express
his pain; Hamlet also has a bad esteem, he compares and punish himself by
saying that he is a rogue and peasant slave and a dull and muddy-mottled
rascal. Another important character is Claudius, who in the play is compared to a
satyr, a half human and half monster creature. He is blind with his selfishness and
desire of ruling Denmark, at the end he dies with his own plan. The other
characters also have a hard life, they have problems and bad moments, like
Ophelia that is tired of living and kills her self; Laertes that dies for defending his
fathers honor. In this play, all of the main characters have problem and at the end
dont resolve them, they have a difficult life, and as it has already said, none of
them got to have happy endings.

Taking into account this two criteria that are the ones who decide whether a literary
text is tragic or not, according to the Aristotle hypothesis, Hamlet is part of this
gender because of its tragic plot, themes and characters.

Bibliography:
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/hamlet/hamletcharacter.html
http://cuip.uchicago.edu/~ldernbach/msw/xhgkaristrag.pdf
http://www.studyworld.com/newsite/reportessay/literature/Shakespeare%5C
Hamlet_As_A_Tragedy-382058.htm