The Meadow Of Demise In Hamlet By William Shakespeare

The Meadow of Demise Death is the act of dying or being killed; the conclusion of a title of a person or organism. A lot of people have different outlooks on death, but the truth is that we are all going to die sooner or later. Some of us could be hit by a bus or even killed by our own blood, others might have a disease or sickness that is weakening them until they die. In Hamlet, a play written by William Shakespeare, there are several characters that die to a series of unfortunate events. Some, like the main character Hamlet, died from avenging his father's death. Others died from revenge, betrayal, and misery.
The first to die in the play was Old Hamlet, the King of Denmark. He had a delightful life; he had the love of his family and was admired by his people. But his brother Claudius was power-hungry and jealous of Hamlet; Hamlet had everything Claudius desired. Claudius is able to manipulate others for his own needs and he is prepared to execute, eliminate, or murder to stay in control (Hamlet No Fear
Shakespeare-online). So Claudius decides to murder his brother with poison, “He died in his garden, hideously disfigured, a victim of his brother’s treachery” (rrteacher-online). Now that Claudius had killed his brother, King Hamlet, all of Denmark needed a new king which would be Claudius. He tells everyone that Hamlet got bit by a snake in the garden and then eventually Gertrude, King Hamlet’s widow, confides in Claudius and they fall in love and get married. After King Hamlet’s death the Queen of Denmark, Gertrude, has seen that her son, Hamlet, has been acting mad lately and is fearful of her own son murdering her; all she wants to do is speak to Hamlet. So she makes her seemingly trustworthy friend Polonius stand behind the curtains to make sure she won’t get hurt. But when Hamlet enters the room and the Queen and him are talking she yells for help and he hears someone say “Help! Help!” behind the curtains and believes its Claudius the King. Hamlet acting impulsively, slays Polonius thinking he was the King. Hamlet's action speaks to his inability to control his actions by thinking, resulting in rash decisions, “Let no rational being give up control to impulse which cannot see, cannot distinguish, the nature of a deed” (The death of Polonius and the impact on Hamlet’s character-online). As the result of killing Polonius he is in shock and drags Polonius’s body into the next room in an effort to conceal it (Hamlet 3.4.235-236). Polonius’s daughter Ophelia is described as being very beautiful and she is also very obedient to her father and does nothing wrong.
But in her case she snaps because of her obeying other individuals without any sense of herself. Soon after her learning that her boyfriend Prince Hamlet had killed her father, she went mad to the point where she started singing songs, “Larded all with sweet flowers; which bewept to the grave did not go with true- love showers” (Hamlet 4.5.44-46). This song that she sang was about how Prince Hamlet didn’t mourn the loss of her as a loving partner. Ophelia’s song demonstrates that everyone has a different impression of what true love is. Ophelia's depression had set in with her causing her to feel suicidal and she had been overcome by excruciating emotions and she sees death as the only way out (Depression and Suicide-online). Her madness and depression later take over her thoughts and she commits suicide by drowning
herself. The last to die in this play was Prince Hamlet himself. The Danish soldiers, Francisco, Barnardo, and Marcellus had seen the ghost of King Hamlet; they told Horatio who is Prince Hamlet’s most loyal friend and he later told Prince Hamlet. The ghost desired to speak to Hamlet in private; Hamlet agreed to go by himself since he didn't value his existence anymore and he recognized that the ghost can’t endanger him (Hamlet 1.4.72-76). As they were talking, the ghost tells Hamlet about his brutal death and how he wants Hamlet to “Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder” (Hamlet 1.5.31). Hamlet agrees to avenge his father’s death by trying to murder Claudius; however, along the way, Hamlet slays Polonius, who was the father of Laertes and Ophelia. This drives Ophelia to commit suicide and causes Laertes to challenge Hamlet to a duel. In this duel, Hamlet gets struck with a sword that Laertes had poisoned causing Hamlet's death.
Near the end of Hamlet when the gravediggers tell Hamlet that the skull he is holding is Yorick's he understands that he is gazing at death right in front of him. He realizes that everybody dies even if they do or do not accept that. Hamlet established a mature acceptance of humankind’s shared destiny. Life is filled with a series of unfortunate events so you should live life to the fullest until you're gone.