Hamlet Obsession Flashcards
H obsession with the skull.
“That skull had a tongue in it and could sing once”
Preoccupation with philosophical deliberations about eschatological uncertainty
H plays on this idea of C being eaten in death.
‘A king may go a process through the guts of the beggar’
After considering Polonius as supper, Hamlet plays on this image with Claudius – ridiculing his kingship and that after death justice will be served?
inevitability of death/ Caesar.
“Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away”
Inevitability of death
Alexander and the cyclical nature of life.
“Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returned into dust; the dust is earth; of ear that we make loam: and why of that loam, whereto he was converted, might they not stop at a beer-barrel?”
Recognising the cyclical nature of life
The afterlife shaped by a divinity.
‘There is a divinity that shapes our ends’
H’s need for pure ignorance in death or sleep.
‘To die or to sleep’
Desire for death but his fear prevents him inflicting it upon himself
H accepting and putting his fate in hands of God.
“Since no man knows aught of what he leaves, what is’t to leave betimes? Let be.”
Acceptance/ placing his fate in the hands of God
