Hamlet- Dramatic Treatment

Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’, although set and written during the Elizabethan era, continues to captivate the modern audience, as it possesses themes that are of universal nature. The audience is able to understand, and possibly relate to the characters’ struggles as a result of the disillusionment that occur in the play. Being a revenge tragedy, the issues in ‘Hamlet’, and the action that takes place within, although relatable to that of modern society, are dramatized in order to engage the audience.

One could safely say that ‘Hamlet’ revolves entirely around struggles. Prince Hamlet struggles with a number of troubles, which derive from the disillusioning circumstances that he experiences throughout the play. His mother’s disappointing and hasty remarriage, his treacherous friendships with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, his rocky relationship with Ophelia; and the discovery of the truth behind his father’s death are situations that affect him greatly.

The effect of his father’s murder on Hamlet is inferred through his thoughts shown in his soliloquies, a literary device that is used by Shakespeare to create a dramatic effect. In his first soliloquy, he confides in the audience his feelings toward his mother’s remarriage to Claudius, ‘but break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue’ (1.2.158). Hamlet incessantly struggles throughout the play but upon learning of his father’s murder, he reaches the brink of suicide, as he contemplates life in his third soliloquy, ‘to be or not to be, that is the question’ (3.1.56) , referring to life as ‘the undiscovered country’, and debating the consequences of both life and death.

Hamlet can be seen as an unreliable narrator, as his struggles have resulted in his sometimes-conflicting views. In (3.1.121), he tells Ophelia, ‘Get thee to a nunnery, why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me’, portraying his...