Hamlet essay
...-slaughter! God! O God!” (3.ÆÆ.132), which means it is against the law of God to commit suicide. Furthermore, when he says, “ Fie on’t! O fie! ‘tis an unweeded garden, / That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature / Possess it merely. That it should come to this!” (3.ÆÆ.135-137), Hamlet is using the metaphor of an unweeded garden and comparing it with how he sees the world. He is put side by side an unweeded garden that is filled with weeds and pests to the disorder in the world, more specifically the chaos happening in Denmark. Moreover, a weeded garden would probably be symbolic of harmony and normalcy in the world. Additionally, the situation of his mother marrying Claudius disgusts him. He says, “She married: ---O most wicked speed, to post / With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!” (3.ÆÆ.156-157), meaning his mother feel in love with Claudius and married him so promptly after Old Hamlet’s death. Furthermore, Gertrude and Claudius are committing incest because although they are only related to each other through marriage, the union between a wife and a husband’s brother, even though the husband is dead, was strictly forbidden in the Catholic and Anglican faiths. In summary, the events that had happened to Hamlet, which include his father’s death and his mother’s quick remarriage cause him to become severely depressed. Act 3 also presents Hamlet as an intellectual being. After Old Hamlet’s ghost told Hamlet how he was murdered, he became furious with the information given to him. He had to have wits to think of such a good plan for revenge on Claudius for killing his father. His plan for vengeance is to pretend to be crazy until he can retaliate for his father’s death. This shows that he does not act on impulse but carefully plots his actions. After making Marcellus and Horatio swear to secrecy about the ghost, he tells them not to even hint at knowing anything even if he acts in an unusual way. He never says why he might act strange but pretending to have gone mad was a popular and commonly used plot device in the revenge tragedy of Shakespeare's time. Hamlet hints at pretending to be mad when he says, “I perchance hereafter shall think meet / To put an antic disposition on" (3.V.171-172). To end, Hamlet thinking of acting mad is a very smart way to make Claudius not suspect him of ever plotting revenge, since he would not know until the last minute before Hamlet attacks and kills him. It can also be seen in Act 3 that Hamlet is very obstinate, meaning he is stubborn and determined. His stubbornness is particularly apparent when he would not listen to Horatio and Marcellus cautioning him not to follow the ghost who looks like Old Hamlet. This shows that he does not listen to others even when their intentions are obviously good. He does what he wants without reconsidering the consequences even though Elizabethans be...