Investigative Essay: William Shakespeare's Hamlet

Introduction

An exploration of the historical and socio-political context of a specific text, and an analysis of the effect that this has had on the literary monster/s within that text.

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The setting of the play has a lot of significance to the play, and there are several implications that political, social, economic, or any other setting depicts in the play. Understanding the effects of these factors in the texts play an essential role for the readers. In William Shakespeare's Hamlet, many characters are good while the others are good; the evil characters and the right characters (Guerrero-Strachan and Hidalgo, 2016 pp. 89). Throughout the play, we see that there re attitudes who always clouded by the evil thoughts such as Queen Gertrude and King Claudius who were consistently influenced by the evil forces. The noble characters in the play, such as Ophelia and Hamlet, among others are also considered.

The play came to existence in 1603 a time when Renaissance had spread all over the world. During this period, there was the study of the human experience and awareness, and the ability to understand the human actions and experiences became skeptical (Mostafalou and Moradi, 2015 pp. 190). Many philosophers, as well as scholars, claimed that the understanding of human experience was appreciated only through difficulties that they can see beyond their appearance, and this struggle has been seen in Hamlet through various characters. The play can as well be said to have been taken during the Protestant reformation. Denmark, where the story sets up, is one of the most significant protestant countries, they broke the laws of the Catholics such as believing in purgatory in the period of protestant purgatory and the mentioned can be pointed out to the reasons why Prince Hamlet hesitated to understand the claims of the ghost. Hamlet studying in the Protestant University can as well confirm the historical context, and this made him forget about the catholic teachings thus, fueling the internal as well as the external conflicts between him and his father's Catholic ghost.

Socio-politically, Hamlet is a text with many social and political components these are between the Hamlet the Prince and Claudius or among Denmark and Norway, the two political settings where the content was set up. It is the social and political fights that enable the continuation of the play. There are different topics utilized by Shakespeare in the play that can be placed in these two classes (Zoric, 2018 pp. 1084). These topics incorporate, yet are not the slightest bit restricted to; Death, social class, retribution, legislative issues, and separation. Hamlet, the play, is exceptionally male-centric. The men appear to employ the power and use it over one another, yet additionally to the ladies in the play. For instance, Hamlet and Claudius control Gertrude at different focuses in the text. Claudius utilizes her to attempt to control Hamlet, though Hamlet uses her as a pawn in his round of trying to get to the base of what befell his dad. Gertrude is considered less to be another person yet to a higher degree a prize in Claudius' eyes, and there is no doubt as far as we can say all through the play that Claudius didn't just execute old Hamlet for the position of authority yet besides for Gertrude's turn in marriage.

There is an issue of the class coming up clearly in the text. The fundamental casualties of class issues in Hamlet are Hamlet himself. In spite of the fact that it tends to be said that Ophelia, Polonius, and Gertrude all succumb to class issues. Hamlet executes Polonius. However, this is on the grounds that while he is in Gertrude's room examining Hamlet ill-advised social conduct, he holes up behind a drape and is killed by Hamlet who missteps him for Claudius. This prompts Laertes following Hamlet to retaliate for his dad, which prompts the passing of all characters still alive now with the exception of Horatio.

It tends to be said that Ophelia suffocates in the desires for her group. She isn't just constrained into seeing Hamlet by her father trying to pick up the throne, yet she is additionally executed because of her attire. When she is at the lake, she suffocates because of the majority of the layers of material that she is wearing. It was obviously expected at the ideal opportunity for ladies of her group to wear apparel this way, so she is a casualty of social class benchmarks.

Conclusion

From the historical context analysis and the socio-political analysis of Hamlet, a lot can be said to have affected the players or characters in the play to show the monster characters that were depicted. To begin with the historical context, the characters of the play were influenced by the historical wind that was hovering during the time when the book came to existence thus, making some characters to show some behaviors that they showed throughout the play. Socio Politically, the characters were affected by the social settings as well as the political settings of the play. For instance, some of them such as Claudius who has been painted as the main monster in the play had a thirst for too much power to the extent that he killed the brother the king to get into kingship. Moreover, the social norms during the time the text was made dictated that when a man dies the brother to the husband takes over, this can s well be seen when Claudius go with Gertrude after killing Hamlet, the king. The deductions indicates that historical and the socio-political context had effects on the play.

References

Fischer, I., 2017. Is conscience" but a word that cowards use"? An analysis of conscience in William Shakespeare's" Richard III" and" Hamlet". GRIN Verlag. http://aicll.sastra.uisu.ac.id/index.php/aicll/article/view/61

Gjesdal, K., 2017. Interpreting Hamlet. Shakespeare's Hamlet: Philosophical Perspectives. Edited by Tzachi Zamir. Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming, pp.247-272. http://ejournals.ukm.my/gema/article/view/9384

Guerrero-Strachan, S.R. and Hidalgo, A.S., 2016. The Fooler Fooled: Salman Rushdie's Hybrid Revision of William Shakespeare's Hamlet Through "Yorick". In Native Shakespeares (pp. 83-98). Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315597508/chapters/10.4324/9781315597508-12

Mostafalou, A. and Moradi, H., 2017. Baroque Trauerspiel in William Shakespeare's Hamlet: A Rejection of Aristotelian Tragedy. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 8(1), pp.184-190. http://academypublication.com/ojs/index.php/jltr/article/view/jltr0801184190

Senter, P., Mattox, U. and Haddad, E.E., 2016. Snake to Monster: Conrad Gessner's Schlangenbuch and the Evolution of the Dragon in the Literature of Natural History. Journal of Folklore Research: An International Journal of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, 53(1), pp.67-124. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/jfolkrese.53.1-4.67

Zarate, M.D.M.R., 2018. To be or not to be Ophelia?: the feminine role in Hamlet from its dramatic and social development. https://philpapers.org/rec/RODTBO

Zoric, V., 2018. "The Time is Out of Joint": Shakespeares Hamlet in den Landern des ehemaligen Jugoslawien. By Alexandra Portmann. Materialen des Instituts fur Theaterwissenschaft, Bern no. 15. Zurich: Chronos Verlag, 2016. 277 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Chronology. Photographs. Tables. $40.00, hard bound. Slavic Review, 77(4), pp.1082-1084.