Hamlet An Atypical Shakespearian Tragic Hero
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare is one of the Shakespearian tragedies. ... But Shakespeare presents Hamlet as an atypical Shakespearean tragic hero through Hamlet’s intelligence, his realism, and his nobility. First, if one must understand the character Hamlet, one must not think that the play is the tragedy of man who could not make up his mind, because presumably he things too much. Told by Harold Bloom, “the fundamental fact about Hamlet is not that he thinks too much, but that he thinks much too well. ... Mackenzie also said, “The basis of Hamlet’s character seems to be an extreme sensibility of mind apt to strongly impressed by its situation”(148-149). In the play, Hamlet’s father, the king of Denmark, is murdered, and the king’s ghost appears to Hamlet showing the murderer, Claudius. Hamlet reacts to this situation very wisely; he begins to fake madness and investigates that murder. Hamlet’s intelligence shines through his fake madness. ... Hamlet is wise, he does not rely on a ghost for the truth; he plans and reveals the true murderer with a play. Bloom explains that Hamlet is “Unable to rest in illusions of any kind (father’s ghost) he thins his way through to the truth(Claudius’s murder of the king), which may be a pure nihilism, yet a nihilism so purified that it possesses an absolute nobility, even a kind of transcendentalism”(5).