Hamlet, death in the midst of life
...her. We have no recollection of what Hamlet was like before this so all we know is that is his not a very pleasant person now. “From the first act onwards Hamlet is, as it were, blackened, scorched by that shattering revelation.” (Knight 102) Hamlet is blackened or scorched not by his encounter with the ghost but simply by the death of his father. He becomes obsessed with avenging his fathers death and that eventually drives him to madness. I feel that it is not his fathers death that drove Hamlet mad but that of his encounters with the ghost. After he encounters the ghost is when Hamlet starts to show signs of madness. “Hamlet already in despair, converses early with death: through the remaining acts he lives within that death, remembering the Ghost, spreading destruction wherever he goes,…” Not only did Hamlet’s encounter with the ghost lead to his madness but it leads to the death of many characters in the play as well. ...