Hamlet

To what extent does Hamlet’s desire for vengeance influence his relationship towards others?   11.17
Shakespeare’s Hamlet shows the catastrophic abasement of a crestfallen man, and how his desire for vengeance towards one man, elicits the torment of many others around him. This Kydian revenge tragedy exhibits man’s individualism and self-determination which is a consequence of the context of Hamlet, a consequence of an anthropocentric nature due to the Renaissance human movement. Furthermore it was a time where literacy developed and education was valued, a noticeable characteristic throughout Hamlet, where Hamlet’s cerebral vengeance is a clear example. Hamlet’s vengeance becomes an obsessive trait in which places him on the brink of madness. This in effect causes a paranoid judgment on all those close to him, where he drives others away such a Ophelia, blames others such as his mother Gertrude, and conspires against others such as his uncle Claudius.         11.22
As the play progresses, Hamlet culminates that Claudius is indeed guilty, and Claudius’ continual act of innocence, enrages Hamlet, accelerating his need for vengeance. This turns Hamlet cruel, and I believe he enacts madness, so that Claudius cannot suspect the regicide that Hamlet is cerebrally planning. But Claudius’ own actions of regicide, as well as fratricide and incest, call for a consequence in which he must pay for his sins, as a we recall from the demanded extended metaphors, “Let not the royal bed of Denmark be/A couch for luxury and damned incest”. Hamlet has to deal with whether it is right to commit vengeance and how to attain it without becoming like Claudius, as G.K Hunters (1963) explains with the contamination theory. As vengeance arises in him, his hatred does too, and he begins expressing his strong emotions against the ‘treacherous’ ‘villain’, with many emotive language and invectives, such as when he shouts out in anger in his soliloquy, “O vengeance”, showing his attitude...