HAMLET 3
Running head: HAMLET 1
Ravage as Destructive Force in Hamlet
Introduction
Ravage is a hurting action that is perfumed to a person by the ravager for an injury suffered in their hands. The main aim of ravage is to inflict harm in an attempt to make the other person pay for what he did or omitted. A wrongful act inflicted on someone develops a feeling of disturbance on consciousness that drives vengeance.This force peoples to decide to the average for the act so that they can get that feeling of satisfaction and contentment. But ravage does not always lead contentment. Its sometimes seen as a destructive force that makes the situation more worse both for the one doing the ravage and one who the action or inaction is directed. This paper will examine the play of Hamlet by Shakespeare to reveal how the desire to ravage is a destructive force.
Revenge is a theme that is directly evident in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.He uses ravage to show how characters are destroyed and blinded by their desire to act on ravage. This is both the main and the secondary characters. As always, ravage is based on an eye for an eye principle, and the results are not still desirable.The Characters that reveal ravage in the play include the Hamlet, Fortinbras, and the Laertes who are eager to avenge for the death of their fathers (Gottschalk 158). Through their emotionally driven acts, it’s evident how the desire for ravage corrupts the minds and action of individuals resulting in downfall and self-destruction.
The distrustful desire for ravage is evident Laertes. Laertes has uncontrollable and is emotionally affected by the death of his father. He, therefore, decides that his father’s death must be avenged as a means of settling cards for himself and his family. He loses his father Polonius, who is stabbed by Hamlet when spying him, as well as his sister Ophelia who died from mysterious drowning due to her madness. Hurt by the two deaths of his family members, Laertes vows to avenge his father’s death. ” I dare damnation: to this point, I stand/ That both the worlds I give to negligence/ Let come what comes; only I’ll be prevented/ Most thoroughly for my father” (IV.v. 131-134). Upon setting his mind that there is a need for ravage, he his mentally disturbed, leading to depression and anger. This shows that ravage leads to self-destruction- a feeling of anger and depression. He is deeply convinced that Hamlet did not only kill her father but is the reason why her sister went mad, leading to her drowning and death. To ravage this, he plans to kill Hamlet with the help of Claudius
“That drop of blood that’s calm proclaims me bastard,
Cries cuckold to my father, brands the harlot
Even here, between the chaste unsmirched brows
Of my true mother.” Act IV, scene V
Even though Laertes manages to ravage his father’s death, this does not lead to a feeling of satisfaction or being a ‘good son.’ His Vengeance leads to his departure to as Hamlets stabs him with his own poisoned sword. Revenge does not result in any benefit.It leads to a feeling of guilt and regret.
The desire for ravage as a destructive force is also seen in the main character, Prince Hamlet.At the beginning of the play, Hamlet is a good man, with a remarkable character and loving. “However after his uncle, Claudius killed his father and married her mother Gertrude becoming the new prince, he is filled with anger and desire for ravage” (Lynn, 68). His dead father appears to him inform of ghost and tells him that his uncle killed him and therefore must be murdered.Hamlet is filled with fury and desire to take vengeance for his father’s death. This desire for ravage makes him change his character from a good prince to a bad and evil one. The desire makes him react awkwardly to the girl he loves, whom he was always nice to her. He treats Ophelia like any other girl and shows no concern and care to her. This behavioral change has been driven by his desire for avenging his father’s death. She tells her ‘You should not have believed me, for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it. I loved you not” (Hamlet, 116-118).
Besides, the evil thoughts of ravage that has taken the better part of Hamlet to change his physical upkeep. He is not the prince we know neither does he take himself to be one. The thoughts of revenge have controlled her feelings and thinking to unextend that he does not control himself. “He even walks on the street with clothes disheveled” (Eliot, 99). This is not how a prince should be dressing. Also at the end of the play, he gives her another and nearly makes out with her. This shows how the desire for ravage has turned to be a destructive force on the main character and controlled him, forcing him to do incredible things.
In conclusion, the desire for ravage in Hamlet by William Shakespeare is depicted as a strong destructive force. Revenge leads to the downfall of characters such as Laertes and Hamlet. Though they seek vengeance as a means of not only satisfying their feelings but their families too, the result is misery and no achievement at all obtained from the seek for revenge. It’s the desire for revenge that results to death of Laertes after he is stabbed by wound by Hamlet, using a blade that he had poisoned it himself.It turns out that this desire for ravage destroys him more than it destroys the opponent.
Work cited
“Revenge and Vengeance in Shakespeare’s Hamlet – Revenge in Hamlet.” 123HelpMe.
https://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=12239
William Shakespeare. Hamlet. WW Norton & Company, 1996.
Eliot, Thomas Stearns. “Hamlet and his problems.” The sacred wood: Essays on poetry and criticism (1920): 95-103.
Gottschalk, Paul. “Hamlet and the Scanning of Revenge.” Shakespeare Quarterly 24.2 (1973): 155-170.
Shakespeare, William. The tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. SR Winchell & Company, 1885.
Lynn M. Zott. Ed Shakespearean Criticism. Vol. 68. Detroit, MI: Gale, 2003