Analysis Of Ceremony

Way too frigging many symbols.

Hamlet

Hamlet has been my favorite play to read this year, by FAR. Even though Shakespeare is an absolute nightmare to translate into modern English, the plot is strong and exciting. The main drawback about the play is how very very long the monolauges sometimes are. Hamlet is the main culprit, but Horatio and Claudius have also used their fair share of time. The two main ways to enact this play are centered around Hamlet's relationship with his mother, the queen. One way is that Hamlet is an overgrown child, and thus cannot take his father off the pedistel that he has been placed upon. Or he has a Oedipus complex, desiring his mother and when talking about his father is really talking about himself. Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself; "An eye like Mars, to threaten and command; A station like the herald Mercury New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill; A combination and a form indeed, Where every god did seem to set his seal, To give the world assurance of a man: This was your husband." Hamlet, Act III Hamlet is definitely not a saint. He kills at least five people, three on purpose but five non the less. He also talks quite a lot, leading some experts to say that this is one of Shakespeare's worst plays. I'm inclined to agree, because not much in this play is satisfying, except for Ophelia's madness scene. One of the play's most famous lines "To be, or not to be: that is the question" (Hamlet Act III) is nearly lost in a page long monologue that doesn't solve anything. It is far better than the plays we have analyzed previously though.