Hamlet

Brandon Stinson
Miss Goncher - 2
11- 16-12
Hamlet Final Essay

The play Hamlet is a classic example of a tragedy. The entire plot of the play revolves around the characters scheming against one another for personal benefit or revenge. The characters in the story attempt to entrap other characters with a plan that always leads with death of the entrapped person. The three main examples in the play of characters entrapping other characters is Hamlet killing Claudius, Claudius killing King Hamlet, and Laertes killing Hamlet. The first scheme in the play of one character entrapping another is Laertes killing Hamlet. Laertes has a desire to murder Hamlet because Hamlet killed his Father Polonius. Hamlet killed Polonius and afterwards did not show any sorrow for the accidental murder. Laertes was raged and came up with a scheme to kill Hamlet with the help of the king. The plan was to challenge Hamlet to a dual in fencing. The fencing match would be tampered with by giving Laertes a sharp sword with a poisonous tip which guaranteed death with one cut. The king had a drink for Hamlet with poison mixed in as a back up plan because Hamlet was a good fencer. Laertes’s plan would end up being successful in a way because Laertes goal was to get revenge by the death of Hamlet. Although his plan was “successful” , in the end, his plan would cost him his own life , the kings life, and the queens life. The second scheme in the play of one charter entrapping another is Hamlet killing Claudius. Hamlet did not like or admire Claudius because when King Hamlet died Claudius married Gertrude. This was wrong because Claudius was King Hamlet’s brother and because of how quickly Gertrude moved on from King Hamlet. These issues alone did not lead to little Hamlet’s desire of killing Claudius. King Hamlet came back to Earth as a ghost and explained how Claudius was responsible for his death and asked that little Hamlet kill Claudius in return. Hamlet was furious at his uncle and promised the he would avenge his father’s death, while not killing or harming his mother physically. At first, Hamlet was simply going to murder Claudius at any given moment, but then realized that he needed to send his uncle to Hell by murdering him while he had sin on his spirit. In the end, Hamlet did succeed in killing Claudius and avenging his father by stabbing Claudius with a poisonous sword and forcing him to drink poison giving his uncle no time to repent, but Hamlet died in the process. The Last and most important scheme in the play is Claudius and the murder of King Hamlet. Claudius's plan was to poison his brother, King Hamlet, while he was asleep in his orchard. Claudius planned to kill the king because he realized that little Hamlet was currently away in college which meant that Claudius was next in royal line to become king. Claudius also planned the murder of King Hamlet because he was in love with Gertrude and wanted her to be his queen. The plan of Claudius poisoning King Hamlet in the orchard was successful which led to him becoming king after he married Gertrude. This scheme was key to the plot of the play because all other character conflicts and schemes from "Hamlet" rooted from this action. Little Hamlet would never have had any reason to go crazy or get revenge on any other characters in the play if Claudius never killed King Hamlet. After Claudius murdered King Hamlet, all other conflicts came from the actions and revenge of Hamlet, which all began because of Claudius. The play “Hamlet” told a story of many characters entrapping one another through schemes to murder. All the schemes were “successful” , but the end result always led to the death of the person who developed the plan. One character hurting another character was the fuel for all the murder motives, which depicts the theme of “Hamlet” perfectly, revenge.