Hamlet Act 3- Nemesis in Hamlet

      There is one clear nemesis in Hamlet, Claudius, the antagonist, the killer of the king who stole his crown and his bride. However, the Aristotelian view of nemesis’ are character who go through a divine retribution, or a divine, ironic, poetic justice that prevails above all else. In act three we see the Players come to the castle. The Players are a tool for Hamlet to find out if his uncle actually did kill his father and that the ghost was not the devil in disguise. By rewriting the play to an exact replica of the murder, Hamlet observed his uncle become overcome with guilt and shame. This only goes to show that if you commit a crime, you will be found out, and you will suffer the consequences. Although Claudius has not gotten to that point yet, it came very close when Hamlet snuck up behind Claudius while he was praying. Hamlet came to the conclusion that Heaven was too good for Claudius and that killing him during prayer would guarantee the murderer a seat in Heaven. This is an example of poetic justice because we know that when Claudius dies, he will be going to hell for his sins (or Purgatory like Hamlet senior, all  depending on the views of the time the play was written).
 
                  “Now might I do it pat. Now he is a-praying.
                  And now I’ll do’t. And so he goes to heaven.
                  And so I am revenged.- That would be scanned.
                  A villain kills my father, and, for that,
                  I, his sole son, do this same villain
                  send to heaven.
                 Oh, this is hire and salary, not revenge.” (III:ii 74-80)

     Another example of poetic justice in act three of Hamlet is when Polonius is stabbed behind the curtain. Even though Polonius is not the antagonist, he is punished for being a nosy busybody. Shakespeare’s tragedy is filled with tragic endings and karmic justice for many of it’s characters.

Works Cited
Crowther, John, ed. “No Fear Hamlet.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2005. Web. 27 Apr. 2012.

The Women of Shakespeare’s Hamlet- Assignment 1

            The two female characters in William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, are portrayed in the old style of thinking where women were thought of as weak and if they didn’t do what they where told then they were viewed as unfaithful and impure. Ophelia, Hamlet’s recent ‘fling’ and daughter of Polonius, is warned by her father and brother that she must remain pure by not given in to Hamlet’s romantic advances. Laertes (her elder brother) warns Ophelia of how shameful it would be to her if she gave in to Hamlet’s advances by saying,

“Then weigh what loss your honor may sustain

  If with too credent ear you list his songs

  Or lose you heart, or your chaste treasure open

  To his unmastered importunity.”

  (I.iii. 29-32)

Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother, on the other hand has already become unfaithful and impure by letting herself become seduced by her dead husband’s brother Claudius, the present king of Denmark after King Hamlet’s death. But to be honest I would probably be upset if my mother married my uncle a month after my father’s death.   

We as readers must also take into account that Shakespeare wrote the play Hamlet about four hundred some odd years ago. In the sixteen hundreds such views of women were not uncommon. Back then women had to be virtuous and needed to be steered in the right direction because they could be ‘easily swayed’. Perhaps the views of women at the time are best summed up by the character Hamlet in Act 1 scene 2: “Frailty, they name is women!” (I. ii. 146)

Works Cited

SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Hamlet.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2007. Web. 13 Apr. 2012