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Hamlet

 

            Chaos in the Order of the Universe in Hamlet.
             Most cultures in the world rank people of a class in a certain order to form a society. This ranking or order of beings keeps the peace of the society. Whenever there is a break in the order of the society, there is chaos and turmoil. In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, supernatural, corruption and disease imagery create the theme that the state of Denmark is in total chaos because the Elizabethan order of the universe has been broken. His brother, now King Claudius, has murdered King Hamlet and he has married his sister-in-law Gertrude very quickly after King Hamlet's death. Prince Hamlet is very upset because of his father's death and his mother's quick remarrying. His love for Ophelia is unrequited. His father appears to him in the form of a ghost and tells him that Claudius murdered him and asks to avenge his murder. The state of Denmark is in a very volatile phase. .
             Supernatural element is any unnatural occurring and does not only refer to ghosts and spirits. Horatio after seeing the 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 Hamlet to Julius Caesar's murder and says: .
             A little 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 like the precurse of fierce events,.
             [I .i . 114-121].
             There has been a break in the Elizabethan order of the universe and thus the appearing of the ghost is a warning sign for Denmark.


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