"There's a divinity that shapes our ends," is a theme that echoes through most of the Shakespearean play Hamlet and the new contemporary piece of work by Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead. Free will, as a concept, is discussed very existentially in Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead since the whole play takes place in the midst of Hamlet itself, and thus Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are unable to actually break free of the destiny assigned to them by Shakespeare. ...

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• Grade Level: High School

Dia de los muertos celebrates the dead with joy and humor rather than mourning. ... The Mexican people seek to build relationships with their dead. ... The Bon Odori, is a special tradition meant to summon and welcome the dead. ... Many beautiful colors and masks are worn during the holiday, almost to show the good side of the dead (Festivals That Honor the Dead). ... In Hamlet, the ghost is first seen by the two watchmen in the dead...

• Word Count: 3178
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• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

In Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Tom Stoppard uses the essence of the Theatre of the Absurd. ... Stoppard shows this in the part of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead where the two men are arguing over the orders or letter actually that is to be given to the English King. ... Going further into the absurd part of the theatre, we find that chaos has a major role in the play of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead. ... "The Player in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead speaks of "every exit being an entrance somewhere else-- (Schlueter 45). ... The absurdity of the actual play Rosencran...

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• Grade Level: High School

Stoppard broke the Shakespearean trait of righting wrongs by presenting Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead as an Absurdist piece with no resolution, no development, and no direction. ... Rosencrantz muses about death when he imagines being dead in a box. ... Yet one idea about death changes from Hamlet to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. ... Similar to Hamlet, many of the questions within Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead are rhetorical. ... The transformation of Hamlet into Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead led to the change in how issues were presented to the audience....

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• Grade Level: High School

It develops the character by mainly showing his incredible intellect, as it well portrays his vast knowledge of the dead. ... It shows his knowledge of the dead in line 162, "A tanner will last you nine years." ... Examples of this are shown in lines 165-168, " a" will keep out water a great while, and your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body. ... Also this imagery is expressed in the action the Gravedigger performs when he throws up skulls of the already dead and decayed. ...

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• Grade Level: High School

The play starts outside the castle, where three guards witness the appearance of a Ghost who looks exactly like the dead old Hamlet. ... Hamlet speaks to the ghost, who claims to be the spirit of his dead father. ... And later on in the play the queen tells Laertes and the King the breaking news, Ophelia is dead. ...

• Word Count: 601
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• Grade Level: High School

"Hamlet" by William Shakespeare, is a revenge tragedy set in Denmark, which was written around 1600. It closely follows the dramatic conventions of revenge in Elizabethan theatre. Revenge tragedies originally stemmed from the Greeks, who wrote and performed the first plays. After the Greeks came Sen...

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• Grade Level: High School

Hamlet discloses his true feelings about his uncle after his father's death. Hamlet is upset with his mother for marrying only two months or so after his father's death. And on top of his mother marrying that soon, she marries his father's brother. Hamlet is not a happy person. He finds out that his...

• Word Count: 374
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• Grade Level: High School

One's father's murderer is certainly someone one would want dead. Another reason Hamlet would wish Claudius dead is that Claudius marries and lusts with Hamlet's mother. ... (Act I, scene 2) Claudius thinks that Hamlet wants him dead because Hamlet wishes to take the throne. ...

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Hate and revenge are an ongoing theme in the play Hamlet. All of the main characters show some type of hate in the play. Hamlet's hate for Claudius is the main focus during the entire play. There are lots of other characters that hate each other in the play, like Laertes hate for Hamlet at the en...

• Word Count: 857
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In William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hamlet is the prince of Denmark and the protagonist. Hamlet through out Hamlet is contemplating the revenge for his father's death. Hamlet is indecisive, hesitant, and contemplative yet at other times impulsive. In Hamlet, Shakespeare defines some of Hamlet's char...

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Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: "He should the bearers"" (V, 2) Claudius: "" Then, venom, to thy work," (V, 2) Laertes: "They bleed on both sides"" (V, 2) Polonius: ""Dead for a ducat, dead," (III, 4) Ophelia: "What the fair Ophelia!" ... He never said that he wanted to be with his mother, but he was just mad that Claudius took the throne from him at the beginning of the play, not that his father was dead. ...

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• Grade Level: High School

His dead father, the King, sought Hamlet out so that he could discover the truth about, and get revenge for his father's death. ... Tragedy is almost a synonym to death in that by the end of both stories, every immediate member of Oedipus's family has died and everyone in Hamlet's immediate family, along with most of the people he cared about, is dead as well. ... Claudius is two-faced while Oedipus is anxious, until he finds his mother dead, then he becomes crazy and scratches his eyes out. ... Both stories ended with them "dead", one way or another. ...

• Word Count: 1038
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People who Hamlet has friendly interactions with turn out to be dead because Hamlet's sense to kill is completely unstoppable. For instance, Polonius becomes a victim of Hamlet's wrath simply because he is in the wrong place at the wrong time, "Dead for a ducat, dead!... The only demand Hamlet has is for the man who murdered his father to be dead. ...

• Word Count: 1006
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• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Loyalty, a noun meaning "the quality of being loyal toward someone or something, a strong feeling of support or allegiance, or faithfulness to one's cause, ideal, or government." In its purest form, loyalty is merely the adherence, or the duty one human being has to another. First off, what exactly ...

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Claudius, both uncle and father to Hamlet, second husband to Gertrude and the murderer and brother of the dead king. ... Claudius' speech can be compared to the poison poured in the dead king's ear - sly and swift. ...

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• Grade Level: High School

As a result of Hamlet's prolonged act of being mad, he does indeed become mad himself. As we know King Claudius murdered Hamlet Sr. Upon hearing the news of the true actions taken, Hamlet sets out to avenge his fathers murder. With all of his anger he is viewed as being mad by society, King and Que...

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Shortly following King Hamlet's death, Gertrude, the mother of Hamlet, married the brother of her dead husband. ... She begins singing songs to herself that don't make much sense to anyone, such as: "he is dead and gone, lady, he is dead and gone" (4.5.117). ... A short while after, Ophelia is found dead in a river, having drown that afternoon. ...

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• Grade Level: High School

Hamlet can only now kill his uncle because his mother is now dead and gone and his sole purpose is to kill his uncle for what he has done. ... His mother and father are dead; his former love Ophelia is dead, and everyone else who ever opposed him is dead. ...

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His only true love is dead , which is seen when Hamlet says," I loved Ophelia. ... Hamlet had already lost a father and now her love is dead as well. ... Oh, my two, my dead. Dead by your own hands or by mine? ...

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He wanted Hamlet dead right away and decided to do this by planning a crooked fencing match which would result in Hamlet's death. ... An apparition of Hamlet's dead father comes to Hamlet and informs him that he was in fact, murdered. ... Hamlet wants the king dead and he will make sure that he be the one who kills him. ...

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• Grade Level: High School

If Hamlet had the chance to kill Claudius in the church, Polonius would not be dead. ... " The determination that Claudius had to become king, made the dead king comes back seeking revenge on Claudius. ... The Queen is ashamed that she is sharing a bed with Claudius, the same bed that she once shared with the dead king. ...

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As "the graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead did squeak [the moon] was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse" (I.1.120). ... The newly crowned villain, Claudius, later remarks "Diseases desperate grown by desperate appliance are relieved, or not at all" (IV.3.8), directly before the scene of Hamlet revealing the location of Polonius' dead body. ... While making bitter jests at Polonius, he says, "For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god kissing carrion" (II.2.181-182), showing his view that even the life-giving sun can give life to disgusting disease. ...

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Hamlet - Act IV 1. Based on the short initial scene of Act IV, is it unclear if Gertrude truly believes Hamlet is mad or not. What it is clear is that the Queen seems to be more allied to her King than her own son. After her encounter with Hamlet which ends with Polonius' death, Gertrude does not he...

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He could have stayed hidden, yet when he found out that it was Ophelia that was dead, he went out to say good bye to his love one last time. Seeing Ophelia dead was a reality shock to Hamlet, and his true feelings were brought out. ...

• Word Count: 644
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School