Body 1: Hamlet in Private

When in private, Hamlet displays his corrupt thoughts brilliantly. His use of language in his soliloquys varies throughout the play from murky to perfectly clear. Before discovering how his father truly died, Hamlet’s speech is choppy and indecisive. “Like Niobe, all tears-why she, <even she>/ (O God…” (1.2.153-4). Hamlet does not allow himself to complete a sentence because of his immense despondency. Although he is speaking in jerky phrases, Hamlet is thinking clearly; he truly recognizes and acknowledges his sadness towards his mother’s hasty marriage and his father’s untimely death. However, later, he speaks clearly with misguided thoughts. For instance, after processing his conversation with the ghost of his father, Hamlet asks several questions.

            …Am I a coward?

Who calls me a “villain”? breaks my pate across?

Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face?

Tweaks me by the nose? Gives me the lie i’ th’ throat

As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this?

(2.2.598-602)

Hamlet is asking questions in very clear and logical sentences. However, he is coming to irrational conclusions in order to cope with the devastating news of his father’s death, and his mother’s speedy marriage. Furthermore, he is, through sharp diction, imagining wild events; for instance, he imagines someone plucking at his beard and blowing it in his face. Although, his language is straightforward, his thoughts are bizarre. Soon after, Hamlet is alone again, contemplating suicide. His feelings are so strong, that he feels like he needs to come up with a plan of action to deal with his feelings. Hamlet’s thoughts are clouded and reckless, but he displays his thoughts gracefully, and with understandable flow. This is another example of Hamlet having troubled thoughts, but displaying them in gentle, comprehendible language. After impulsively killing Polonius, Hamlet, in a soliloquy, declares that he will get his revenge. He is going insane, but is still able to formulate speeches that flow and clearly depict his thoughts. “My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth!” (4.5.69). So, although he starts of with positive thoughts and vague language, Hamlet quickly switches to having psychotic thoughts, but presenting his thoughts with logical, direct language.

Hamlet intro

Intro:

            Hamlet acts differently when he is with Horatio, with himself, and with almost everyone else. With Horatio, Hamlet’s language is clear: with straightforward wording, and quick, meaningful dialogue. When alone, Hamlet’s diction is mostly clear and displays his thoughts flawlessly. When with others, Hamlet speaks eccentrically, confusing people and leading them to believe that he has gone mad. Hamlet’s thoughts, however, seem to be inverse in quality to both solitary Hamlet and public Hamlet’s language. When alone, Hamlet makes illogical connections that are corrupt and result in misguided actions. In public, his conscious decision to act crazy is a choice. So he has to think about his actions, words, and himself, resulting in him speaking convolutedly but formulating proper thoughts. When with Horatio, Hamlet both thinks clearly, and formulates his thoughts into clear, logical sentences. His father’s death has thrust Hamlet’s solitary self into extreme confusion: only allowing logical thought process when interacting with others, yet denying himself coherent deliberations when isolated.

Thesis in progress

His father’s death has caused Hamlet to enter an extreme state of craziness that only allows logical thought process when interacting with others; however, when alone he is driven mad.

short essay brainstorm

I plan to write my essay on how when Hamlet is alone, he makes decisions that are irrational and that he may not make when he is with others. Furthermore, his thoughts are even more irrational, and drive him crazy. When he is with others, Hamlet acts crazy, as he admits early on (page 67ish). On 127-8, Hamlet contemplates suicide, alone. Also, although he is angry, does Hamlet have the right to kill Claudius? Maybe it is one of his irrational decisions. Apart from his thoughts, both socially and alone, he asks many questions; however, when alone, he is much more depressed and down on himself.

Alone

Hamlet acts differently around other people than by himself. He seems to play off a more positive person when with others; like when he was meeting the players, he was happy and full of life. Although his mother recognizes that he is a little sad, it is nothing compared to his depression displayed during his soliloquy. He is SO hard on himself, and is mad about everything he does and has done. I wonder why he waits until he is alone to display his 'true' feelings. Or, are these his true feelings? Is he so crazy that when he is alone he is not able to think properly? When alone, he calls himself a coward and questions everything. When he is with others, he seems to ask lots of questions, but not be so hard on himself. What does this say about when he is able to think properly?

The play at Claudius

Hamlet organizes a group of players to perform his own version of "The Murder of Gonzago." When Hamlet first meets the players, he acts excited and full of life, which is different then how we have seen him previously. He tries to relate to the players by reciting a speech. Hamlet is using this play to confirm his mental accusation on Claudius of Hammy Senior's murder. Hamlet will have the players reenact a scene similar to that Ham Senior described to Ham Junior. From Hamlet's perspective, this idea is actually quite smart. It is smart because he discovered a seemingly flawless way to confirm his notion. But, as the audience, it seems pretty obvious that Claudius is indeed a murderer. I wonder what this says about our flustered Hamlet's judgement.

Hamlet, why so crazy?

After discovering his father's true reason for dying, Hamlet has gone crazy. I can understand his overwhelming anger and hatred towards Claudius and maybe some towards his mother, but why is he acting so insane? In the scene where Hamlet is talking with Polonius, Polonius asks Hamlet if he knows who he is, and Hamlet responds with "fishmonger." I get the feeling that Hamlet knows that Polonius is not a fishmonger, and is saying it to annoy Polonius, but why? And, maybe it is the Shakespeare's unique writing, but on page 95, Hamlet says "For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a good kissing carrion - Have you a daughter?" Hamlet is speaking to Polonius. Hamlet seems to be expressing love towards Ophelia, so Hamlet may or may not have known who Polonius was. Besides that, Hamlet had written a love letter of sorts to Ophelia and she showed Polonius. I wonder if Hamlet intended that letter to get to Polonius, and then Claudius. I wonder: does Hamlet have a plan? Is he acting crazy, and trying to get this letter to Claudius on purpose?

Queen vs Claudius. Ghost vs Hamlet.

Obviously, the Ghost was betrayed, but does he feel hate towards Claudius, the Queen, or both?

Well, I think that the Ghost is most hurt by Claudius; he was deceived and poisoned by his own brother. Interestingly, he does not seem to feel too much anger towards the Queen even though she remarried to his brother. I personally think that although the Ghost should feel most of his hatred and anger towards Claudius, the Ghost should probably feel slightly betrayed by his wife for marrying his brother, and right after he died. One may argue that Claudius seduced her in an attempt to take the crown, which is indeed very possible. The other thought, that is probably unlikely, but still worth a thought is that the Queen and Claudius have plotted something against Hamlet senior. Just a thought. Moving on, Hamlet junior is, on the contrary, originally most angry at his mother for moving on and remarrying so quickly after his father died; however, after speaking to his dead father, he seeks extraordinary revenge on his uncle. Also, the Ghost tells Hamlet NOT to seek revenge on the Queen.

From Hamlet to Hamlet

To avoid confusion, in this post when I say Hamlet it is the junior and when I say the Ghost it is senior.

Towards the end of Act I, Hamlet talks to the Ghost of his father. We learn that Claudius killed the Ghost. In this post, I'm going to talk about how Hamlet reacts to this news.

I think that all this discussion did to Hamlet was enrage him and fill him with the hunger for revenge. My question is, does Hamlet have the right to get revenge on Claudius? If so, how much revenge is just? From the incredibly angry tone that Hamlet using when talking to his murdered father, I can only imagine that Hamlet wants to kill Claudius. Stepping back, I personally don't believe anyone ever has the right to kill someone else, by the same token, I hate Claudius, and maybe he does deserve to die for his horrid actions. Although the Ghost does tell Hamlet, on page 57, to seek revenge, does the Ghost actually mean to murder Claudius, or another form of revenge?

Hamlet's priorities

Hamlet has a few problems in his life. These include:

-His father's death

-His uncle marrying his mother

-His mother marrying so quickly

-Not being king

One would think that his sadness comes mainly from the death of his father. As humans, we tend to feel love towards our father, and if/when he dies, we feel sad. Understandably, he is upset that his uncle married his mother. Although he is upset, I believe that this doesn't seem to account for the majority of his depression. It seems that what upsets him the most is that his mother moved on so quickly. This is connected to his uncle marrying his mother; however, I would bet that should this wedding have occurred a few years after Hamlet senior's death, Ham. Jr. would not be nearly as furious. As a small side not, the fact that Hamlet is not king (which maybe he should be) doesn't seem to bother him; or if it does bother him, he at least does not express it to the reader.

As a side: I understand that if Hamlet's dad died and Hamlet senior's ghost is like walking around the Hamlet would like to talk to his ghost dad, but doesn't it seem like Hamlet is obsessing over it a bit much? The questions he asks are very strange and specific like about his facial hair.

Line of kings: Hamlet senior to Claudius?

Usually, when a king dies, his throne is passed down to his eldest son. When Hamlet senior died, the crown was not passed to his son, but to Claudius. I think that it is clear that Claudius married the queen because he wanted to be king. This leads me to really not like Claudius. This also seems to have major repercussions on our Hammy junior. Our Hamlet seems to have tons of tension with Claudius, and although they don't directly argue and yell at each other, they discuss with passion and, frankly, hate. Claudius fires hurtful words to assert that our young Hamlet is not manly. He also does not want him to go back to school for some reason. Hamlet junior is depressed, and does not know what to do.

On a separate, and less serious note, it is very difficult for me to tell the difference between all the characters. I feel like I hear a bunch of names, but the few that really stand out as characters I really remember are both Hamlets, the queen, Claudius, and sort of Laertes and Polonius.

Starting a new play

Today, I started reading Shakespeare's play Hamlet. So far, it has been a bit difficult to adjust again to the Shakespearian writing. I can very much appreciate his wording and sentence structure; however, it can be difficult to understand. So far it appears that based off of Claudius' speech, I do not like him. Right after Hamlet, the former king, dies, Claudius, his brother, marries the queen in order to become king. Not only that, but he tells the people that even though they should be sad for Hamlet's death, they should also be happy for his wedding. If marrying your dead brother's wife isn't strange enough, it is awfully suspicious that it was SO recently after Hamlet's death. In other words, I understand that there is a ghost floating around and annoying the guards, but my main gathering from tonight's reading was that Claudius is very annoying and not on my good side.

The colorful spectrum from android to human

Phlip K. Dick blurs the "line" between android and human. Some humans act like androids, and some androids act like humans. A couple of quick examples include Luba Luft being genuinely touched by ricks gift, and Phil Resch who kills with no regrets. But, I think the best example is of when Rick and Rachael are in the hotel room together. As a brief background: Rick is an android killer, and Rachael is an android who thought she was a human (which in itself is an example). The two express feelings of love towards each other. For Rick, this proves to be a transition in his life, because he is having feelings towards female androids, but for Rachael, although it can be argued that she is deceiving him, her diction suggests otherwise. It seems like Rachael genuinely has the feelings to want to love Rick. On page 194, she says to Rick: "I love you... If I entered a room and found a sofa covered with your hide I'd score very high on the Voigt-Kampff test." Basically, she is displaying to Rick her human feelings towards him. One may argue that she is luring him in so he can't kill another android, but Rachael continues by saying "We're not the same. I don't care about Pris Stratton... Go to bed with me and I'll retire Stratto. Okay? Because I can't stand getting this close and then-" (Dick 195). It seems like she really wants to be with him tonight. The question that follows, however, is: does Rick have a special connection to Rachael Rosen, or could he have this sort of connection with any female Android? He does have feelings towards Luba Luft, but that is no guarantee that he would fall in love with her.

Garland to Rick to Resch to squirrels

On page 122, Garland convinces Rick Deckard that Phil Resch is an android. This turns out to be rather strange, because not only is Phil Resch la[ter tested and determined to not be an android, but Garland admits to being an android. But, interestingly, Garland does not reluctantly admit that he is an android, he declares it; he says that he came on the same ship from mars as the other androids Rick was supposed to retire. 

So it seems like for some reason, Garland wanted him to know. The problem is, if Rick knows that Garland is an android, then Rick is probably supposed to kill him, and if Garland is an android, he has superior knowledge and knows that and is therefore seemingly not following Asimov's law of self-preservation. I think that Garland knows that Rick is a human, and is accusing Phil of being an android in order to divert Rick's attention away from him. After all, an android will have no problem decieving it it is for a self-preservative reason.

After the altercation in which Rick and Phil escape, killing Garland, Phil wonders if he is an android. Rick thinks: Phil can kill all these androids with no feelings whatsoever, maybe he is an android. Phil, however, goes into a state of panic, talking about his squirrel, Buffy. I believe that Phil is truthful in his claims for his love for Buffy; he even gave the squirrel a nickname! Androids, supposedly, don't have the ability to care for an animal, so it seems like Phil should be a human. However, I would like to believe that even without programming, it is possible for an android like Phil (even though he is not one) to care for someone or something. After all, Luba Luft does feel some sort of genuine gratitude at Rick's gesture to by her a gift.

"one of them will get you"

On page 90-91, Rachael Rosen, a Nexus-6 android, tells Rick Deckard that when he is chasing the androids, "one of them will get you." On the surface it seems like she is warning him of the possible dangers of hunting down the androids due to their intellectual capabilities; however, Philip K. Dick could be slyly implying that Rachael Rosen is actually the one who is going to get Rick Deckard. As it turns out, Luba Luft, an android Rick goes after, does outsmart him and he ends up going to a strange police station. The police station is of course full of androids.

The interesting part of this all, is the fact that Rick Deckard finds himself attracted to both Luba Luft and Rachael Rosen. This completely goes against what us readers may have thought at the beginning; I mean, a the beginning of the book, I would have NEVER guessed Rick Deckard to see an android as anything other than a piece of metal. And then towards the end, he develops a sort of relationship and love for one. But the question is: would a relationship work out between a human and an android? Rick, although physically attracted, does know that it is kind of strange.