Mod B Hamlet Essay

Hamlet is a play that, in grappling with how people come to terms with morality and choice in a deceptive world with no absolutes, forces us the examine our roles as human beings. My first “seeming” belief of what it means to be human was thoroughly challenged through Hamlet as he perpetually analyses his mind and choices to test his own human potential. Hamlet lives in a deceptive corrupt society forcing him to continually ponder over the elements of the human mind, potential, choices and inevitable death. However whilst Hamlet experiments with other characters to test truth and his role on earth, it is ultimately Shakespeare who is experimenting through the characterisation of Hamlet to create a dramatic debate for a diverse audience about what it truly means to be human.
Shakespeare positions us to view Hamlet as a character who is trying to expose the true nature and minds of characters, particularly his own in order to understand what it means to be human. Hamlet’s deep philosophical thinking over the purpose of human existence “To be or not to be that is the question” causes him to be permeated with melancholy and doubts not only about the people surrounding him, who he can no longer trust, but also doubts within in himself about who is he and his purpose as a human being. This is evidently explored through many of Hamlet’s soliloquies which invite us into his mind, confronting audiences over centuries with his raw grieving emotions that force him to question his nature. This is seen in Act 2, Scene 2 soliloquy through the famous metaphor “What a piece of work is man!” recognising that humans were made in the image of God and therefore resemble complete perfection with the potential of God-like thought. Yet due to the extreme grief Hamlet suffers and realising he lives in a world where truth is not valued he juxtaposes humans with dust “Yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust?”. Audiences over centuries have been confronted with this paradox...