Theme Of Grief In Hamlet

Typical of a Shakespearean tragedy, several of the characters in Hamlet die, and the remaining characters grieve them. At the beginning of the play, it is obvious that Hamlet is grieving the death of his father. However, grief is not limited to experiencing someone’s death. Hamlet also experiences grief when his mother decides to quickly remarry Claudius. Gertrude’s quick remarriage is also intriguing because she herself is going through grief, whether she knows it or not.

The socially accepted way to experience grief is to be sad for a period of time, and then eventually move on. But in reality, there are five stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. The socially “uglier” stages -- denial, anger, and bargaining -- are often overlooked and ostracized by society. Nevertheless, they are important and real stages that people go through in a nonlinear fashion.
While it seems counterintuitive that the denial stage can come after the depression stage, it does happen. Gertrude tells Hamlet to “cast thy nightly colour off…” (1.2.68) and to be happy. If Gertrude is in the denial stage of grieving, her words make sense. She doesn’t completely believe that her husband is dead, so Hamlet shouldn’t be upset. Now, it should be said that grieving is a very complex process and that her stage of denial would be deeper in her subconscious than in her