Module B Draft 1 |

Shakespeare's Hamlet has been described as a bleak portrait of a world in which the balance
has been disturbed. To what extent does this perspective align with your understanding of
Hamlet? In your response, make detailed reference to your prescribed text.

Hamlet, a revenge tragedy by William Shakespeare, follows journey of Hamlet as he tries to honour
his father while retaining his moral integrity. Shakespeare poses Renaissance humanist challenges to
the medieval setting, extending questions that retain universal appeal such as the difficulty of
restoring a sense of balance to a world that has been disturbed by moral ambiguities. Hamlet's
relationships and cynical view of humanity has a profound effect on audiences as we reflect on the
complexity of the human condition in which our own identities are challenged.

Shakespeare explores revenge through Hamlet's filial loyalty and how the conflict between duty and
personal values results in internal imbalance. In his first soliloquy, Shakespeare gives us insight into
Hamlet's grief, using the Greek mythological simile, "Hyperion to satyr" to illustrate his great
admiration and respect for his father relative to the corruption of Claudius. His profound sense of loss
and imbalance is accentuated by a dramatic and mournful demeanour of "windy suspiration of forced
breath…" However, the poetic rhyme, gives a noble sentiment to his attachment, which gains further
impact through the theatrical use of the unabsolved ghost. Despite the dominant Protestant belief in
Shakespeare's context that ghosts were spiritually malicious, Hamlet is immediately "bound to hear"
upon seeing its likeliness, metaphorically illustrating a strong and instinctive sense of filial duty. The
emphatic tone in Hamlet's promise to "wipe away all trivial fond records" in favour of the Ghost's
charge deepens our awareness of how strong human relationships evoke a compelling sense of
obligation. Yet despite the motivation, Shakespeare provides a powerful revelation of Hamlet's
hesitation through the dramatic use of his "o what a rogue and peasant slave am I" soliloquy. This
makes the audience ------ Hamlet's frustration at his deliberation is evoked by the contrast to the
player's passion, a metatheatrical device dimension to the motivation behind revenge. At the height of
speech's intensity, the dramatic emphasis on "prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell" uses
Christian imagery to highlight the immorality of ignoring a father's legacy. Overall, Shakespeare's
representation of Hamlet's strong emotional obligation accentuates our understanding of how filial
duty generates powerful values that have both moral and spiritual significance.

Shakespeare then explores the disillusionment emanating from the collapse of balance within
meaningful relationships as Hamlet suffers from sin and betrayal. Throughout the play, Hamlet’s
struggle to overcome his corrupted social surroundings, unable to comprehend how his mother’s
devotion could deteriorate so rapidly, is shown in the animal imagery “a beast… would have mourned
longer”. However, despite this sense of betrayal, the ghost implores him to “Taint not thy mind, nor
let they soul contrive against thy mother aught”, using religious language to highlight the immoral
consequences of retribution. The metaphor sharpens our awareness of the tensions and disparities that
 Module B Draft 1 |

impact on our attempt to reconcile personal values with a greater justice or responsibility. Like us,
Hamlet struggles to find a cohesive sense of identity with a complex and perplexing world. It is his
own ethics that hinder his honouring of filial loyalty to his father, seen in the dramatic irony of
Hamlet’s hesitation in murdering Claudius; a symbol of immorality in the court of Denmark through
his disruption of the Christian concept of the Divine Order. The simile, “hire and salary”, conveys a
methodical, emotionless and detached image of retribution which undercuts the virtuous motivations
informing the revenge. This is reinforcing in the contrast between his father’s “grossly, full of bread”
murder and the proposed killing of Claudius while “his is fit and seasoned for his passage”, further
illustrating the collapse of the ideals behind vengeance in the morally ambiguous reality, expressed
with the image of divine damnation. Thus, Shakespeare uses the conflict emerging from Hamlet’s
corrupted relationships to display how the ideals of morality, loyalty and justice are difficult to
actualize and protect.

Shakespeare finally reveals the corrosive nature of revenge in Hamlet’s transformation of self. He
yearns for the abandonment of his moral ruminations in favour of a more passionate and proactive
approach. This is reflected through Fortinbras as a dramatic foil, who intends to sacrifice “twenty
thousand men… for fantasy and trick of fame”. The “trick”, highlights the disregard for life which is
ironically shared by Claudius’ machiavellian rise to power. The discarding of personal values is hence
deemed necessary in the metaphoric “unweeded garden” of the court, evident in Hamlet’s brash
murder of Polonius, “I took thee for thy better” where the dismissive tone echoes the unethicality that
has tainted Hamlet’s integrity. Ophelia’s resulting descent from a symbol of “love in honourable
fashion” into insanity further condemns Hamlet. Her later fragmented speech; “you must sing a-down
a-down, and you call him a-down-a”, uses song with a dramatic intermingling of frivolity and
morbidity to show how the natural order has been grievously usurped. Hence, the pursuit of revenge is
shown to be the cause of her loss of the Renaissance values of rational autonomy which results in
Shakespeare’s portrayal of revenge not only depleting personal values, but also corroding those
around them. Hamlet’s revenge on Claudius, using a “treacherous instrument… unbated and
envenomed”, returns to the recurring motif of poison to highlight the ironic nature of revenge as an
act of honour. Fortinbras’ legal inheritance of the crown, “rights of memory in this kingdom”,
symbolizes a return of the Chain of Being and Hamlet’s death, motivation for order to be restored in a
spiritually and morally disturbed world presented through the microcosm of the Danish court in the
play.

Shakespeare’s depiction of Hamlet’s loss of values in his pursuit of vengeance deepens our
understanding of tensions between loyalty and justice. Shakespeare expands on the revenge tragedy to
emphasise how these values remain fundamental to the human condition, encouraging us as an
audience to consider their powerful and multi-faceted role in shaping human identity.