Disease Images In Hamlet Essay -- essays research papers

settlements DiseaseThe somber images of poison and disease taint the pages of Hamlet, and shadow the putridness pervading the recent and future events of the castle. The poison with which Claudius kills powerfulness Hamlet spreads in a sense throughtaboo the country, until "something is rotten in Denmark", as Marcellus notes (I.4.90). Shakespe ar shades in words of inexorableness continually during the play, perhaps serving best to deck the ill condition of affairs plaguing not only Denmark, but the characters as well.     Shakespeare immediately conveys the sense of cold and apathy in the opening scene. As the play opens in the cool, black night, Barnardo and Francisco are high atop the looming walls of Elsinore, keeping watch for the impending revenge of enemy Fortinbras (I.1). Midnight strikes and Barnardo notes, subtly referring to the sentiment of Denmark, that "tis hot cold, and I am sick at heart" (I.1.8). Since the beloved King Haml et has died and the Queen remarried, the morale of the people is low, and cold.      The act continues, and the Ghost appears out of the dark shadows (I.1). Horatio, who had doubted the mens earlier details of sightings, now contemplates the reasons for the Ghosts visit as the spirit disappears into the ramparts. He tells the men of King Hamlets battles, and adds how the appearance of the Ghost reminds him of what he has read about the portents of Rome, just before the assassination of Julius Caesar. As "the sculpture stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead did squeakthe moon was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse" (I.1.120). Horatio believes that the resourcefulness of the haunting Ghost is a forewarning to Denmark, just as the pale, sick moon was to Rome an image of the ill events to come. Even future events are drearily portrayed to the reader, a sense of the power of Fortune. This force was as well referred to earlier, in Hamlets soliloquy of the "slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune", going on to come up to of being "sicklied oer with the pale cast of thought" (III.1.90), yet other image of disease.     Still in the opening scenes of the play, even men exterior of the country can sense the rotting inside. Scornfully, Claudius says Fortinbras thinks "by our late good brothers death, our state to be di... ...is "rotten in Denmark?" Hamlet must be the one to accomplish this, but he is ill as well, contaminated with a sickness of thought. Though his madness is arguably feigned, this "antic lust" reiterates Hamlets lack of resolution. Throughout the play, Hamlet has opportunities to rid Denmark of ills, such as liaison the kneeling Claudius, but he hesitates constantly due to the sickness of his mind. Thus, Hamlet seems to have his own personal theme of irresolution, quite a air to Laertes quick and passionate decisions, who if he were Hamlet, would have "cu t his throat in church" (IV.7.127).      The end of the play seems to culminate each characters sickness into their downfall, with "purposes mistook, falln on th inventors heads" (V.2.385). The deadly poison Claudius prepared ends his own life, as it does to Gertrude and Laertes for their ill self-reliance of the malicious king the obvious mental disease of Ophelia leads to her demise. Hamlet, the indecisive sad hero and one character who could have ended the disease plaguing Denmark, is unable(p) to do so because he is afflicted with his own illness as well.