... wipe the blade of his sword with a cloth soaked in poison. As the fight goes on Hamlet is cut on the arm, causing the poison to slowly seep into his blood. While they are fencing Hamlet is able to switch swords with Laertes and when he stabs him he unknowingly poisons him with the blade of Laertes own sword, eventually leading ... perfect time to kill the king so that she and her husband can rule the land. After they had killed the king, she thought that they could just wash the blood off of their hands. Eventually, her wicked deeds had got to her head and she went insane and died. Know...

• Word Count: 1312
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... Claudius passionately as the true horror of the murder is revealed: "And in the porches of my ears did pour The leperous distilment; whose effect Hold such an enmity with blood of man That swift as quicksilver it courses through The natural gates and alleys of the body, And with a sudden vigour it doth posset And curd, like eager droppings into ... milk, The thin and wholesome blood. So did it mine."" I.IV Claudius' usurpation of the crown and Hamlet's final act of revenge in killing Claudius fulfills the conventions of an Elizabethan revenge tragedy. During the play ... of Claudius an...

• Word Count: 2372
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: High School

... wipe the blade of his sword with a cloth soaked in poison. As the fight goes on Hamlet is cut on the arm, causing the poison to slowly seep into his blood. While they are fencing Hamlet is able to switch swords with Laertes and when he stabs him he unknowingly poisons him with the blade of Laertes own sword, eventually leading ... perfect time to kill the king so that she and her husband can rule the land. After they had killed the king, she thought that they could just wash the blood off of their hands. Eventually, her wicked deeds had got to her head and she went insane and died. Know...

• Word Count: 1310
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... hour thy uncle stole, With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial, And in the porches of my ears did pour The leperous distillment, whose effect Holds such an enmity with blood of man That swift as quicksilver it courses through The natural gates and alleys of the body And with a sudden vigor it doth posset And curd, like eager droppings into ... milk, The thin and wholesome blood (1.5.34-39, 59-70).[9] It is possible that "poison in the ear" is an image of temptation. In that case, Claudius's later whispered plottings with Laertes, Ophelia, and Rosencrantz and ... is so clear that it is di...

• Word Count: 1931
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: High School

... -(III:iii). Finally, after the encounter with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Hamlet continues on his way to see his mother, at which time he says that, "Now he could drink hot blood-, showing his passion and anger. Directly after this he sees Claudius alone praying in the chapel; A perfect opportunity for Hamlet to act. You can argue that Hamlet really should not ... wishes a soul for a soul. Here we see how the ghost has left Hamlet with no choice in how he can kill Claudius, as Hamlet's Fathers soul burns so she his. "Blood and judgement well coerced-, ironically revenge can get in the w...

• Word Count: 1406
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid to tell the secrets of my prison house, I could a tale unfold whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres, thy knotted and combined locks to part, and each particular hair to stand an end like quills upon the fearful ... porpentine, but this eternal blazon must not be to ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list! If thou didst ever thy dear father love."(Ghost) The ghost also tells Hamlet that he was killed before he had the chance to confess his sins ... ...

• Word Count: 2059
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... as suspicious to the court. Ghosts are considered a form of superstition because they cannot be explained. A ghost may have possessed Lady Macbeth when she went crazy and thought she saw blood on her hands. The supernatural ghosts which Macbeth saw, led him to seek the witches and request more prophesies of his future. Macbeth found the witches in their cave. He ... -drawn" dagger. This form of the supernatural led Macbeth to his victim. When the dagger appears to him, Macbeth believes the delusions of his confused brain. The importance of the blood-covered dagger is that it led Macbeth ...

• Word Count: 1522
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... not his own" and "he himself is subject to his birth". He reminds Ophelia that Hamlet is a Prince, and that he may be forced to choose a wife who has royal blood, regardless of whom he might actually love. Therefore Ophelia could not become Hamlet's wife. In addition, Laertes suggests that his sister should remain "chaste" as she would lose her honour ... towards his daughter have no true meaning and are not fuelled by real love. Polonius advises his daughter that Hamlet could not possibly be serious, though he knows "when the blood burns, how prodigal the soul lends the tongue vows." P...

• Word Count: 1408
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... the play. Shakespeare also uses conflicting culture to control the audience's reactions. Hamlet is set in Denmark, but written for an English audience. According to the Danish tradition of the blood feud, the King's murder requires vengeance, and filial duty dictates that Hamlet "was born to set it right." (I.v.189) However, to the Christian audience, murder for any reason violated the ... highest Christian ethic -- love. This includes love for one's enemies. Therefore the blood feud conflicted with the audience's Christian views. By comparing Danish culture with Christian morals, Shake...

• Word Count: 1416
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... , the evil king considers his plan to send the mentally ill Hamlet away to England, ridding himself of . Later in this scene, Claudius compares Hamlet to "the hectic in my blood and thou must cure me" (IV.3.65), portraying the psychologically ailing prince as a personal sickness, a fever raging in his body. Hamlet, later, in his first soliloquy, deplores of the world ... in a vial, and in the porches of my ears did pour the leperous distillment" (I.5.61-64). He continues to describe how the poison Claudius poured in his ear caused his blood to "curd, like eager droppings into milk" and e...

• Word Count: 1339
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... ghost himself says that when Julius Caesar died, the dead rose from their graves and roamed the Roman streets. He compares the dead to stars with fire and dews of blood. There were eclipses of the sun and the moon and it seemed like doomsday. All these unnatural events were warnings of the turmoil ahead. Horatio compares the murder of King ... ere the mightiest Julius fell, The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets: As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood, Disasters in the sun and the moist star, Upon whose influence Neptune's em...

• Word Count: 1647
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... of men who fight for a place "Which is not tomb enough and continent/ To hide the slain?" (4,4, 64,65). Hamlet comes to realize that he has just cause to shed blood here on earth and that if he does not do it he will never be able to live a lie for the rest of his days no matter how great the ... fear that seems to hold him back. When honor's at the stake. How stand I then, That have a father killed, a mother stained, Ecitements of my reason and my blood, And let all sleep, while to my shame I see That for a fantasy and trick of fame Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot Whereo...

• Word Count: 1666
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... " and who affirms authority. It would have been recognized by the Jacobean audience that the horrifying denunciation of Lear's royal duties would be the denial of "propinquity and property of blood". Flattered by hyperbolic declarations of love, he fails to recognize that "Nor are they empty-hearted whose low sounds/ Reverb no hollowness". Furthermore, the terrifying "wrath" with which he dismisses ... a child. However, it is exacerbated by his own tyrannous nature and it becomes the "wrath of the dragon". Caught in a vortex of extreme rage, he disclaims "propinquity and property of bloo...

• Word Count: 1583
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... . 'Zounds has evolved into somewhat of a silly and meaningless word, but was originally horribly offensive. This oath, short for "God's wounds," was extremely offensive because references to the wounds or blood of Christ were thought especially outrageous, as they touched directly on the crucifixion. "'Sblood" had twelve occurrences in all. There were eight times in 1 Henry IV (with Falstaff accounting for ... form of "God blind me." Also, in England, words such as "bloody," "blimey," "blinkin'," beginning with the letters "BL" are taken offense to because they, once again, refer to the ...

• Word Count: 1988
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: High School

... ;I, his sole son, do this same villain send to heaven" He cannot kill him when he is in public. The time that Hamlet has chosen to "drink hot blood" , is when Claudius is drinking, having sex, or gambling (3.2.382). This way, he would be sent straight to damnation, which is pretty terrifying. Hamlet at this point in the ... ...

• Word Count: 1825
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... line and focuses instead on Hamlet's delay and struggle to take action, as opposed to the actual act of vengeance. The character of Hamlet does not conform to the usual blood-thirsty protagonist who will stop at nothing until his desperate need for revenge is satisfied, as is expected by the audience. In contrast, Hamlet's intelligence prevents him from being overcome ... ...

• Word Count: 1503
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... audience exactly what Hamlet was like while in college, but we can piece together a picture of him. Laertes describes Hamlet's attitudes toward Ophelia as "trifling", a "toy in blood" and "primy" (1.3.12-14) suggesting that Hamlet is youthful and unreliable. Ophelia remembers his earlier personality more positively, calling him "the expectancy and rose of the ... ...

• Word Count: 1669
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

... warns his sister, Ophelia, that Hamlet's love for her may not be honest or authentic: "For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favor, hold it a fashion and a toy in blood, a violet in the youth of primy nature, forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting, the perfume and suppliance of a minute, no more" (I. iii. 6-11). His father is accidentally killed by ... ...

• Word Count: 1979
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: High School

... hastily marries Claudius after her husband's death, Hamlet states that Gertrude shouldn't feel any sexual desires, proclaiming: "You cannot call it love, for at your age The heyday in the blood is tame, it's humble, And waits upon the judgment; and what judgment Would step from this to this?" (III, iv, 68-70) Idolizing his deceased father, young Hamlet is blind ... ...

• Word Count: 1649
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... his new-found knowledge to himself, and waited until he could assume the throne legally and naturally, he could have accomplished both of the ghost's primary orders, and without the blood and darkness he brought not remaining quiet. Through his self-centered focus on 'righting the wrong' he brought about directly or indirectly just about every death in the story, and ... ...

• Word Count: 1273
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... (in regards to killing Hamlet) "Laertes, was your father dear to you? Or are you like the painting of sorrow, a face without a heart?" in which Laertes replies, "That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard, cried cuckold to my father." These exchanges suggest that it is a common belief that revenge is justified and boundless when done to avenge a family's honor ... ...

• Word Count: 1323
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... Claudius' knowledge of Hamlet's sanity is the fact that he feels threatened enough by Hamlet to order him killed by the king of England: For like the hectic in my blood he rages, And thou must cure me: till I know tis done, Howe'er my haps, my joys were ne'er begun. (4.3.62-4) In the scene in his mother's bedroom, Hamlet ... ...

• Word Count: 1834
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... ere the mightiest Julius fell, The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets: As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood, Disasters in the sun; and the moist star, Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands, Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse: And even the like precurse of fierce events, As ... ...

• Word Count: 1520
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... sexual desire: Our bodies are gardens, to which our wills are gardeners If the balance of our lives had not one scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us to most prepost'rous conclusions. But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts. The new ... ...

• Word Count: 1869
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... to her telling her that Hamlet does not love her, he only lusts for her, in truth he does love her: Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. I do know, When the blood burns , how prodigal the soul Through the play Polonius hids behind his mask appearing to be honest loving parent. In reality Polonius lies, manipulates people and eavesdrops on peoples conversation ... ...

• Word Count: 1792
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School