About Shakespeare Essay Example for Free

About Shakespeare Essay Essay Topic: Literature , William Shakespeare Choose cite format: APA MLA Harvard Chicago ASA IEEE AMA Hamlet (634) , Claudius (325) , Ophelia (231) , Polonius (224) , Gertrude (208) , Laertes (186) , Horatio (118) , Fortinbras (82) Haven't found the essay you want? Get your custom sample essay for only $13.90/page ? Hamlet is Shakespeare’s longest and most tragic play. It was first published in 1603, from a draft published several years earlier. The play begins two months after the death of King Hamlet of Denmark. The country is in a state of unrest. Young Fortinbras of Norway is preparing for war. After the King’s death, his brother Claudius takes over the throne, and marries the widowed Queen Gertrude. Young Hamlet, the late king’s son is incensed. He is told by the ghost of his father, that Claudius had poisoned him, to become the King of Denmark. Hamlet starts acting like a madman rousing concern. Polonius, an advisor to King Claudius is also worried by Hamlet’s strange â€Å"transformation. † The two, along with Queen Gertrude instruct Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Hamlet’s childhood friends to spy on him. Hamlet is also increasingly hostile towards his love, Ophelia, Polonius’ daughter. Out of fear, the King orders Hamlet to be sent to England. King Claudius and Polonius both feel that Hamlet is dangerous. To ensure who the culprit was, Hamlet cleverly changes the lines in a play which is performed before the king and the queen. The King’s reaction convinces Hamlet that it was indeed he who poisoned his father. Alone, King Claudius reveals his crime, and confesses that he cannot escape divine judgment. After the play, Queen Gertrude scolds her son, but he instead scolds his mother for her wrong actions. Polonius is spying on the two, from behind a curtain. Hamlet hears Polonius, and kills him thinking he is Claudius. Anxious and scared, the king orders Hamlet to be sent to England, along with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. The King wants Hamlet killed as soon as he arrives in England. Hamlet had the spies Rosencrantz and Guildenstern put to death instead. Meanwhile, Young Fortinbras has brought his army to Denmark. Hamlet admires Young Fortinbras, for his courage to fight for honor. The death of Polonius has a profound impact on Ophelia, who in her depression and apathy kills herself by drowning. Laertes, Polonius’ son is enraged. The king tells him that it was Hamlet who murdered Polonius. The two decide to get rid of Hamlet, their common enemy. Claudius and Laertes arrange a duel, in which Laertes will fight Hamlet. To ensure Hamlet’s death, Laertes poisons the tip of his sword. In the course of the duel, Laertes, Hamlet and the King are poisoned by the same sword. Queen Gertrude drinks a poisoned drink meant for Hamlet, and is killed. Dying, Hamlet tells Horatio to tell the world of his story and recommends Young Fortinbras the next king of Denmark. Hamlet – Prince of Denmark is a play that deals with the main subjects of honor, revenge and suicide. Hamlet is not our typical hero. Born in a royal family, he is a refined young man with noble attributes, but he has his weaknesses. After his father’s murder, he is driven mad by anger when his mother marries Claudius. His love for Ophelia too turned into a strange confusion and mix of emotions. He distrusts all those around him, and starts dwelling in a melancholy state of mind. Even those he thought were his friends turn out to be spies sent by the king and queen. This also explain Hamlets â€Å"insanity† to a great extent. But even so, Hamlet is a disturbed individual. The way he treats Ophelia is obvious evidence. He is cruel to her, in spite of her efforts to try and understand him. He is also impulsive – he kills Polonius without thinking twice. Justice and revenge form major themes of the play, with Claudius, at the Head of a country, having killed his own brother, and Hamlet, avenging his father’s death. Suicide also forms an essential theme in the play. Ophelia kills herself by drowning. Hamlet too is prompted to kill himself. † But should he, or not; â€Å"To be or not to be, that is the question. † Shakespeare portrays all the characters with great ingenuity. He analyses human psyche, and how eventually, everyone’s destiny is controlled by fate. About Shakespeare, Hamlet Study Guide, http://absoluteshakespeare. com/guides/hamlet/hamlet. htm About Shakespeare. (2017, Mar 16).

Apology Letter Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Apology Letter - Essay Example Nothing was wrong until I encountered an unexpected expense that I had not planned for. That unexpected expense put me into great trouble and I was perplexed. I did not know how to accommodate that in my budget. Circumstances had become unbearable for me, and I had to come out of them any way. Lack of money had sabotaged my ability to think rationally, and I ended up charging back almost $1000 on my credit card in five different transactions without taking the items back to the store. I was able to do that since I knew how to operate the computers accordingly. However, I must tell you that till this point, I had full intension of paying the price of those items. I had planned to simply charge my credit card back again upon receipt of my tax return money. It was just before I could get my tax return money back so that I could charge my credit card back that the store manager somehow got to know about my act, but not my intentions! I had no intention of stealing anything from the store ever, though apparently I do sound like that. Through the explanation that I have put forth in the text above, I have tried to convey that all I did was as a result of immense tension and confusion that I was going through few days back, though my conscience is clear for I never intended to steal.

Freedom,equality,justice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Freedom,equality,justice - Essay Example The root cause of unjust acts in society, according to Karl Marx, lies in the unequal distribution of wealth, power, and resources. Marx considered equality as a purely political value, political notion, and that it belonged to the bourgeois class. However, Marx argued that this class of people use equality to perpetuate class oppression. Political equality according to Marx is a form of procedural equality. The legal system in society accords some people more justice than others. Therefore, this is why Marx considered elements of justice, freedom, and equality as inappropriate for serving as the foundation of his politics. On the other hand, Locke and Kant’s view on equality was that it is based on the amount of possession one owns. In the state of nature and even in today’s centralized authority, there exists inequality in distribution of wealth, depending on one’s level of authority. Therefore, the more wealth one has, the more he stands to achieve equality, m aking equality to be relative to inequality. However, they are of the opinion that the notion of equality, if practised appropriately is still essential in society as it is only through this that freedom can be achieved. This is a backing to Marx’s views, and to an extent shows that equality in society can be hard to achieve, as even communalist societies experience inequality in both power and wealth distribution. On justice, Marx argued that only the bourgeois have the right to justice in society, as this stems from the element of equality. Marx did not regard capitalistic exploitation as unjust on the side of the labourers. He only was against the means through which the bourgeois acquired their wealth and power. However, Kant thought that the concept of equality is associated with the political and social institutions in society. Marx rejected the egalitarian intuition and the fact that any equal standard could be used to formulate some ideal demand of justice. He maintai ned that rights are best if kept unequal. Marx criticized the political, claiming that egalitarianism is an unclear political concept. However, bourgeois equality is based on political equality, which lies on the bourgeois economy. Therefore, according to Marx, bourgeois concepts of justice, morality, and right came up as class interests, and not based on genuine causes. Charles Mills similarly acknowledges the role of class, gender, religion, education, and race, among others in classification of people in society. All these elements according to Mils are the basis of discrimination, inequality, and injustice in society. However, unlike Marx who regarded social stratification as major cause of injustice, Mills refers to the concept of race as the main force behind most evils in society. Social contract according to Mills is fictitious and a reconstruction of the civil society, the racial contract is â€Å"a 'naturalized' account of the actual historical record" (91). Mills argues that the contract concept is still important in the society despite its shortcomings. First, this can be a standard to measure the society’s potential of achieving their political ideals. However, this is only possible if using the contract concept; they can identify and remove obstacles that lie in their way to the achievement of these goals. In addition, the non-whites, in order to determine the moral awareness of the whites, who perpetuate exploitation with their acclaimed superiority, have used the concept of racial contract. Kant and Locke basing on their works in political philosophy share similar views on the racial contrac