Hamlet Free Will

Love should be full of free will and passion, but the literature present are full of controlling love. In Hamlet, Hamlet Jr. loves his dead father so much at he forgets everything and kills anything that might help his dead father's ghost. In Romeo and Juliet, Romeo kills Paris and himself to be with Juliet in the afterlife. Juliet does the same for him after she sees his dead body. In “Porphyria's Lover”, Porphyria dies because she is controlling her lover and then gets controlled when she's killed by her lover. In Hamlet, “Porphyria’s Lover”, and Romeo and Juliet, death cannot hold the characters from being with whom they want. Although death or killing someone is a sin, these people put that aside to achieve control in their circumstances.
In Hamlet, Hamlet Jr. loves his dead father so much so that he will kill anyone to achieve revenge for his dad. Not thinking in common sense, Hamlet kills multiple people close to him that before the knowledge of his murdered father he would not of killed them. Here is one of those cases. Shakespeare writes, “How now, a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead. He kills Polonius by thrusting a rapier through the arras” (III.iv.28-29). Some of the context behind his is that he was hoping Polonius was the King but he did not care to check first and just stabbed through the curtain. The word “rat” in this quote is interesting because it’s calling King Claudius a person who hides and feeding on other people's garbage or leftovers. Lacking common sense, the thought that his dead father will love him more with the revenge of his death makes Hamlet control all situations that come to him. Overall, Hamlet was controlled by his love for his father and this made him kill to gain that control back.
In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet kills herself after she sees that Romeo has killed himself to control their love for each other and so that they stay together.
Romeo does not get the message that Juliet isn’t really dead, so he goes there to kill himself by her side to control their fate. On the way to the tomb where Juliet was resting, Shakespeare writes, “O, I am slain! If thou be merciful, Open the tomb; lay me with Juliet. He dies” (III.iv.72-73). Romeo kills Paris to get to Juliet. He only did this because he wanted to be with “dead” Juliet and to control the love he had for her. After killing him he felt bad and put Paris in the tomb with Juliet to show respect and to honor his dying wish. By Hamlet doing this Paris was closer to the person he loved and cared about. Another case of controlled love is when the text reads, “This is thy sheath. There rust, and let me die. She takes Romeo’s dagger, stabs herself, and dies” (Shakespeare V.iii.120-121). After Juliet sees that Romeo has killed himself to be with her in the afterlife she does the same and by doing so stay together forever. This quote is pretty interesting because of the metaphor used and how she compared her body to the sheath (the holder for the knife). Both Romeo and Juliet tried to control their love without killing, but their plan did not work and the next best option for them was death. Out of the three pieces of literature Romeo and Juliet is the king of controlling
love.
Lastly in “Porphyria's Lover”, Porphyria was killed by her lover and he did it to take control of the relationship and to assert his dominance. Porphyria’s lover wanted dominance in the relationship so some evidence follows, “And strangled her. No pain felt she; / I am quite sure she felt no pain” ( Browning 41-42). The text sort of wants the reader to think that he did it quickly and that she felt no pain, but that is a lie. He was sick of being the one being controlled and wanted to have the control in the relationship so he killed her. The text also gives examples of what he did when he gain control of the relationship. The text reads, “I propped her head up as before, / Only, this time my shoulder bore / Her head” (Browning 49-51). I think this quote is ironic because early in the poem he was the one on her shoulder. I think he wanted to be in control so he killed her. Now he was able to control Porphyria's body, thoughts, and everything else in the relationship. This is the most “hardcore” controlling love of the three pieces of literature because he had to kill the person he loved to gain the control. Overall it still had controlling love but one people should try to avoid in the real world.
In conclusion, death was present in all the literature pieces in someway. It was mainly by murder, but suicide was also present. In Romeo and Juliet death was mainly suicide, but there was some murder. In Hamlet it was the opposite of Romeo and Juliet there was lots of murder and one case of suicide. In “Porphyria's Lover” it only had to deal with murder. Although they involved different kinds of death they were all thought of being a sinful act back then and still today. This allowed them to control their fate and their love for the people around them. Love was very different back then in stories from in today's time. Love in the story was about the man being in control and the woman helping when needed and not being in public without the man. The woman also had very little rights and did not have a big role in society. Nowadays women can control more about the rights they can get, the jobs they can earn and the roles in society like government. Anyway that can sort of compare to the way love works today and how people leave people that are too controlling in relationships. Back to the literature was Hamlet Jr, Porphyria's lover, Romeo, and Juliet justified for there actions or should they of handled it better than killing to achieve the controlled love they desired in their specific circumstances.