Hamlet Essay, Research Paper

Hamlet, Leartes and Fortinbras all had some huge issues to work out in their lives. The way they worked out these problems is how we see the action behind the men and are able to recognize the traits that influenced all characters in the play, not just the ones discussed here. All three of these men avenge in very different ways. Hamlet, with his blinding rage, cannot see the forest from the trees. Fortinbras does not care what he fights for as long as it brings him honor. Leartes chases after false honor and is not able to detect something really worth fighting for. As these men interact in this play, you can see how these differences tug at the very root of the play, distinguishing it from all others

Fortinbras

Fortinbras had levied an army to attack and conquer Denmark. Though son of the late King of Norway, the crown of Norway had gone to his uncle, just as the crown of Denmark had gone to Hamlet’s uncle.

. Like Hamlet, Sr., Fortinbras is an empire builder who desires only to fight for glory and so, in an ironic way, he is fitted by character to inherit the kingdom of Hamlet, Sr.

Laertes

Laertes is a young man whose good instincts have been somewhat obscured by the concern with superficial appearances which he has imbibed from his father, Polonius. Like his father, Laertes apparently preaches a morality he does not practice and fully believes in a double standard of behavior for the sexes. But if his father allows him these liberties, it is that he may better approximate the manner of a so – called gentleman. More concerned with the outward signs of gentility than with any inner refinement of spirit, Laertes has well observed his father’s advice to be concerned with appearances since “the apparel oft proclaims the man.”

As unconcerned for the order of society as he is for his own salvation, he would rather “dare damnation” than leave his father’s honor and his own besmirched

Hamlet

With the death of his father and the hasty, incestuous remarriage of his mother to his uncle, however, Hamlet is thrown into a suicidal frame of mind in which “the uses of this world” seem to him “weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable