Revenge in "Hamlet"

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that, through the 20th and 21st centuries' psychological and individualistic lens, "Hamlet" often is thought of as a drama primarily about one man's relationship with a dead father and a living and murderous stepfather, but it also can be seen as a play almost completely about the circular economy of revenge, which, during the Elizabethan and Jacobean era, was one of the ways individuals remained connected to the past and the world of the dead. The author believes that the most chilling display of the ideology of revenge is the scene in the graveyard, where Ophelia's corpse is wrestled between her brother and Hamlet. The paper relates that, in Act 4, when Hamlet returns from England, the site of Protestantism, he no longer sees revenge as a positive thing; the Elizabethan audience would have approved of this attitude, which despised revenge and purgatory as anti-humanist, but still acknowledged the need to survive in a bloody, politically uncomfortable, and divided society.

From the Paper:

""Hamlet" begins with a Denmark under siege in Scene 2, with the Norwegian Fortinbras demanding revenge for his dead father in the form of restitution of Norwegian lands. Upon meeting the ghost of his dead father, Hamlet vows revenge upon his uncle. He says he will forget all of his studies, even his identity, until this is accomplished. Hamlet does not kill his uncle at prayer, because the revenge will not be full and fitting if Claudius does not suffer in purgatory, calling this hire and salary, rather than true revenge. Laertes vows revenge upon Hamlet, the man who killed his father. Ophelia bedecks herself in flowers and uses the flowers to communicate, through the riddles of her broken mind, to say what she could not say while sane."

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