Notes on Hamlet

At the beginning of reading Hamlet, I thought it was going to be just like other tragedies. I was immediately surprised by the presence of a ghost in the first scene, and that this ghost had so much influence on the plot. As we read through the tragedy, I began to identify different aspects of a classic tragedy. I noticed Prince Hamlet was extremely troubled by the death of his father and the remarriage of his mother to his father’s brother soon after. Following his troubles through the play, it became apparent that Hamlet was not crazy, as many say, but young, passionate, and vengeful after finding out it was King Claudius, his uncle, who murdered Hamlet’s father. It seems that poor Hamlet knew that the testimony of a ghost would be an absurd reason for killing his uncle, so I believe that the play-within-a-play idea was genius. It shows that Hamlet actually thought his actions through, and was not just acting on impulse the whole time, as I initially thought. So far, through this play, I have evolved my thinking of Hamlet as a crazy, impulsive, young man to thinking of him as a passionate, vengeful person, and rightly so. I have also found this play has become easier to read and understand as we have been reading it. It is the most understandable Shakespearean play I have ever read.