The Quest For Vengeance In Hamlet By William Shakespeare

The idea of a spiritual encounter may be considered frightening to many, and it is most of the time not seen as fortunate. During Shakespearean times encounters with events as such would be seen as either decent into madness or as demonic foreshadowing of the future. In Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet, Prince Hamlet encounters the supposable spirt of his father, the previous king of Denmark. The apparition, is a demon that informs Hamlet of how his father war murdered, with the intent of creating chaos. It instills in the prince the thirst for vengeance on his uncle and current King of Denmark, Claudius, and the schemes his downfall. In this process he not only brings acquires vengeance but at an extremely high cost. To start, Hamlet encounters
the demon under an atmosphere that can be easily found as sketchy because of time of day and the fact that it will only speak to him. In both modern and past times the night is associated with evil and typically when any evil or mischief occurs as is the same with other Shakespearean plays, for example Macbeth. The ghost informs the Prince states “So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.” it displays its intentions (Shakespeare I. v. 12). The guise worn by the demon puts Hamlet in a position to ignore the consequences of avenging his father and bringing his murder to justice. This then starts countless number of deaths that eventually bring Hamlet to near insanity in order to complete his quest for vengeance. When a country has no one in control then, unless that person is replaced, it will fall into anarchy and utter chaos.
Hamlet doesn’t consider the consequences of killing Claudius and believes he would assume the throne after. However, after the duel with Laertes both are poisoned and dying steadily, but Hamlet manages to forcibly poison Claudius after witnessing him kill his mother Gertrude. As a result, Denmark is has no available ruler or heir to throne of Denmark. This puts the country in a state of chaos which is immediately taken advantage of by Fortinbras when he says “I have some rights of memory in this kingdom/ Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me”, who planned to invade Denmark (Shakespeare V. ii. 432-433). The ghost was a foreboding of the eventual downfall of the country eventually being controlled by
Norway. Lastly, the number of deaths achieved by murdering Claudius created more evil than justice, in terms of avenging Old King Hamlet.
The first to go was Polonius, Laertes’s father, through accidental manslaughter and resulted in Ophelia’s suicide as consequence, and, afterwards Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s deaths in order to allow the Prince to escape exile into England. Finally, is the during the duel with Laertes in which Gertrude, Laertes, Claudius, Hamlet meet death because of the Claudius’s attempt to rid himself of the Prince as a threat.
This leads to a tragedy of deaths that is recognized by the uninvolved, such as Horatio.
After Hamlet’s death and Fortinbras’s arrival Horatio informs Fortinbras “What is it you would see? /If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search” and shows of the misfortune that occurred (Shakespeare V. ii. 401-402). The lives of eight people were stripped from their bodies in order to avenge the life of one person. The apparition brought nothing of fortune to either Hamlet or Denmark by informing Hamlet of the cause of his father’s death. Only the loss of lives resulted from this knowledge and would have been better overall if the Prince never found out of the Old King’s death. The quest for revenge left the country with any authority of power and defenseless against enemies, Fortinbras. Demons are known to bring chaos and instill evil in the people they are in contact with and in this case Hamlet was the victim of this
apparition.