Skip to main content

In the play Hamlet, King Hamlet (the father of Prince Hamlet) and Claudius are brothers. If that is so, then why are there so few examples of how...

King Hamlet, the father of Prince Hamlet, only appears briefly in Shakespeare's play, in the form of a ghost urging his son to take revenge on Claudius for his murder. The reason that there are not many examples of the differences between the two brothers is that King Hamlet has been murdered before the play starts and therefore is not a central character. We don't receive much characterization to attribute to Kind Hamlet.


Prince Hamlet, in certain ways, idealized his father and Shakespeare may have intended to suggest that King Hamlet was an ideal ruler and Claudius a bad one. First, Claudius poisoned his brother, which is a morally wrong act. The marriage to Gertrude, despite Hamlet's protestations, may actually have been a moral act, a way of taking care of his brother's widow. Although it may have been intended to suggest adultery before King Hamlet's death. Hamlet points out the difference between her current and former husband to Gertrude in the following lines:



See what a grace was seated on [King Hamlet's] brow;


... Look you now, what follows;


Here is your husband [Claudius]; like a mildew'd ear ...



King Hamlet appears to have been widely respected and loved both by his subjects and by foreign kings. Claudius' dealings tend to be more duplicitous and he may be perceived as a less powerful warrior, as is seen in Fortinbras' attempt to reclaim lands from Denmark after the death of King Hamlet. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more