Hamlet's message

[minjaeyang]

We all read Hamlet in class. After reading Hamlet, I spent a lot of time thinking about what the author was trying to say through his work. In the end, I think the author was trying to say that revenge only brings more tragedy. Hamlet was looking for revenge, but he ended up killing everyone including himself.

What do you think was the author's message? What do you think the author was trying to say or prove through his long work?

[jinwooprk]

One message that comes to my mind right now is that ShakeSpeare might also be trying to convey us that humans in general have difficulties and hardships, no matter of social positions, ranks or authorities. If we look at only the surface of Hamlet, he is a prince of Denmark and has a lover. Just by looking at the surface of Hamlet's social position, we assume that he has a happy and a satisfying life which isn't true at all if we go a bit more inside of his thoughts.There are people in the world that lament on their life due to poverty. They think that money will bring them "life" full of happiness, however, by this play Hamlet maybe it wants us to know that social ranks, authority and wealth does not always equal to happiness that everyone is striving to achieve in life.

[sojounggg]

i do not think there was a serious message from the author in hamlet
may be he liked this kind of crazy nonsense stories.
every books that he wrote is nonsense love story.
this kind of loves are what might women dreams for.
i think he was just targeting people to read his book.
maybe he had some different reasons like minjae's and jinwoo's idea but
i do not think there was that deep reason while he was writig.

[stormy44]

In the moments before the duel, Hamlet seems peaceful, though also quite sad. He says that he feels ill in his heart, but he seems reconciled to the idea of death and no longer troubled by fear of the supernatural.That death is neither heroic nor shameful, according to the moral logic of the play. Hamlet achieves his father’s vengeance, but only after being spurred to it by the most extreme circumstances one might consider possible: watching his mother die and knowing that he, too, will die in moments. I think Shakespeare wanted to show how revenge can never lead to a positive outcome. Despite the fact that Hamlet finally killed Claudius, he himself was killed and the whole play became a tragedy.

[RegXD]

I think the author is trying to say that the world was never a peaceful and nice place to be and everyone is bound to do corrupted things or behavior. No one is the perfect person and no one is purely good. There will always be a balance of good and evil. my own quote that i created "It is easy to become corrupted but it is hard to undo the mistakes that was done."

[juliekim]

I agree with you. I think Shakespeare was trying to make the point that if you don't let go of things, those things will start controlling your life. Sometimes no matter how hard it is, you just have to let go and not let that affect your whole life. But even if Hamlet ended up dying, he didn't seem to regret the things he did to take revenge for his father. If he thought it was all worth it, then it's fine.

[cathysjun]

I agree with you. I also think the main message from that piece was that revenge doesn't solve the situation. Instead it aggravates it. Another message that I got was do not overlook things. The queen and the king overlooked Hamlet's grief by telling him to suck it up and get over it.

[hannahs]

Like other people said, I think the author was trying to teach a lesson that revenge doesn't solve anything. In the process of trying to get revenge, Hamlet lost everything. He made revenge the top priority in his life and stopped caring for other things because of it. Maybe the author is also trying to say that if you consume your life on one thing too much no matter what it is, it can lead to downfall.

[sarahlee2]

I agree with you that Shakespeare's main point was that revenge doesn't get you amywhere. It might just even bring more pain on yourself. Hamlet just ended up dead along with his beloved mother and Laertes who did nothing wrong. Revenge is something that can consume your whole life. It gets you so concentrated on only getting revenge. Because of it, Hamlet could not continue his relationship with Ophelia and lost his mother. I guess Shakespeare is warning his readers against revenge.

[seongrae]

I agree that Shakespeare was trying to say that revenge only brings more tragedy. I think there are more other themes that Shakespeare wanted to say in Hamlet. Shakespeare made a contrast between Hamlet and Fortinbras. They both lost their father but Hamlet tried to revenge the murderer, Claudius. On the other hand, Fortinbras understood and stopped to revenge Hamlet. At the end, Fortinbras was one who became selected as king and Hamlet and everyone died.

[sujeonggg]

I also agree with you. Hamlet's tragedy was just caused by himself. And I think Shakespeare was trying to say that taking revenge on someone for someone's death wouldn't simply end the problems. This made me think of a common Korean drama topic. When a son takes revenge on someone for his father's death, it just goes on and on with hurting/killing each other.

[davidh]

I definitely agree with you on that. I mean... That lesson that I learned was revenge only brings tragedy and because of Hamlet's childish mind, everyone gets killed. Since this is the main theme or idea, people should consider every situation rationally rather than emotionally. If not, then things could turn out like hamlet's situation which is pretty dirty.

[jessicak016]

I agree with most of you here. Hamlet put too much emphasis on the revenge for his fa ther and let his anger overtake him and lose his other priorities that were as important like caring for his love, Ophelia. Trying to bring justice to the palace and the country is great and certainly Hamlet tried to accomplish it but he made the mistake of bringing other innocent people into danger and even death and did not stop repeating this mistake.

[ginayang]

Yeah, I agree with the message that revenge is never the answer in order to solve problems. But that message is an obvious one. Another message that the author wants to convey is that the world is corrupted but we need to deal with it and not just run away from our problems. For example, Hamlet didn't try to talk it out with Claudius about the death of his father. He just ran away and planned out his revenge without even finding out the truth.

[alexkoo]

As many people mentioned above, I think Shakespeare wanted to convey how dangerous one's hatred can be. Hamlet, who was once lover of beautiful women became crazy because of his father's death. I do understand that it is very hard for Hamlet to let it go, but his desire to revenge for his father drove him crazy. I think Hamlet knew that he was going crazy, but he could not stop.