哈姆雷特的性格分析.doc

Xian Eurasia University Term Paper The Character of HamletMajor: English (Education)Class: 0902Student ID: 09511500317Writer:Luo Ping Teacher:Bai Ruifang Date: 27th, June, 2012 The Character of HamletHamlet is a tragedy written by Shakespeare.Without a knowledge of his character, Hamlets story would hardly be intelligible. Hamlet is neither a frail and weak-minded youth nor a thought-sick book-worm. The play itself does not bear out such ideas. In the play, nobody thinks of him in that way. Though he is deprived of his right to the throne, he is still loved and respected by everyone. Hamlet is a man of genius,highly accomplished and educated, a man of far-reaching perception and sparkling wit. Though a scholar, he is at the same time fearless and impetuous in action. He cares for nothing but human worth and shows contempt for rank and wealth, He is a close observer of men and manners . He easily sees through people.The keynote of Hamlets character is melancholy . Revenge is easy, but it is not merely personal revenge that Hamlet seeks . What is more important is to expose the roots of the evil and to establish a reign of justice. His responsibility is thus enlarged into a radical transformation of society. This is the cause of Hamlets profound melancholy and his delay in revenge.Shakespeare injects the thrilling Renaissance spirit into the story. He turns a one-dimensional stereotyped plot into one in which Hamlet is transfigured into a multifaceted Renaissance idealist, made to face a world of debilitating evil and having to learn deal with it before he is ready. All of his antic-disposition, his feigning insanity and his momentary but true madness, and his impulsive action-these all stem from the thinking mind of a Renaissance humanist as he picks up wisdom and fast matures to act properly. The other characters are similarly deftly transformed from the stock characters of the other versions of the story into complex individuals of this play, so that they all serve to rivet attention on Hamlet and enrich his personality. As a result, Shakespears Hamlet is no longer the mere agent of revenge and violence. Although his first priority is to ideal, the Renaissance humanist ideal, which he knows sadly is lost to him,probably never again to be retrieved. He would still assert mans power-his noble reason and infinite faculties; he would still help mend the social ills, and save a society that is out of joint;but he knows that he is fighting a losing battle. He keenly feels that he is not born at the right time, and that reality is so sinister and overwhelming that it is probably not worthwhile fighting it out any more. Viewed in this way, the theme of the story assumes a much graver magnitude than one of mere blood and violence. The corrupt and criminal ancient Danish court versus Prince Hamlet becomes, in the hands of Shakespear, a metaphor for-or a mirror reflection of -the real world of Shakespeares England in confrontation with Renaissance humanism.The question that has attracted Shakespearean scholars has been Hamlets procrastination. People have found it hard to understand why the young man does not take immediate action and get the job of revenge done once and for all and proceed to put the country back in order. One obvious reason is that Hamlet has doubts about the ghost and his truth. He has to prove it for himself before he acts. Actually, Hamlet seems to think that the ghost may be the devil thatabuses me to damn me. Another reason for his procrastination is the social and religious education that he has received, which explains why he does not kill Claudius when the man kneels and prays and makes himself a vulnerable prey; Hamlet hates to kill a man in his moments of repentance and help send his soul to heaven. Then there is Hamlets intense mental battle throughout the play, which indicates that his conscience may secretly feel that the revenge may serve mothers honor. As to the appearance of the ghost, although the watchman and Horatio confirm that it is not a figment of their imagination, it mystifies Hamlet as he is the only one to hear it speak and his mother can neither see nor hear it. Hamlets repeated questioning of his mother as to whether she sees or hears the spirit suggests somehow to the audience that he is not quite sure of his senses and that he might be hallucinating and having a killers hidden voice in him. He is very much afraid that he might do the wrong thing. More interesting is perhaps the Freudian approach to the hesitation question though it may sound a bit far-fetched and way off the mark. Psychoanalytical criticism seems to suggest that the young prince suffers from the Oedipus complex. But he could not kill his father as this would violate the moral principle on patricide and entail disaster for him. Yet if someone else kills the father, he should feel more than happy. But the son would have to avenge his father on the criminal, which is another way of saying that he would be denouncing and hunting himself to the kill. That is why, as the psychoanalytic critic says, Hamlet puts off his fatal strike at his uncle. The point sounds absurd but it opens one more window to look into the inner world of the fascinating youth. The most famous speech in Hamlet is the princes soliloquy, To be, or not to be. Said to be the most famous soliloquy in the history of the theatre, it discusses the attitude of a Renaissance humanist toward life and death. The speech comes at a critical juncture in the drama when the truth about Claudius murder is about to be confirmed with the staging of a pay within the play. While waiting for the moment to come, his sense of anxiety drives Hamlet to think seriously about the existentialist condition of man. Is it worth it dying in the fight with evil? Or is it better to settle for the passive acceptance of the second best, to ignore evil and endure the pain and live on? He may die in his effort to remove evil and avenge the blood of his father. Death may be the way out of all the anguish and sorrow in the next world? Hamlet realizes that, though thought guides action, excessive thinking makes people cowardly and jeopardizes the chances of success of great undertaking. This self-warning portrays the Renaissance humanists as both men of thought and action. Instead of talking about suicide and evading commitment as some critics think, Hamlet is in fact spurring himself to action. This speech is also a vehement criticism of the il