Hamlet displays his inability to separate his emotions from his rational being. ... He feels ashamed that he has not avenged his father's death with the speed and expression exhibited by the actors in the play. Hamlet compares his inaction to the dramatic expression the actor exhibits for the death of his character's father. ... This is ironic because he is concentrating on the actor's expression of grief, not a proactive response, which will only inhibit one's action. ...

• Word Count: 1431
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

Perhaps it is worthwhile to ask this question: If a person in a rational state of mind decides to act as if he is crazy, to abuse the people around him regardless of whether he loves those people or hates them, and to give free expressions of all his thoughts against his society, when he starts to carry those actions out, will it even be possible to say at what point he stops pretending to be crazy and starts actually being crazy? ...

• Word Count: 1318
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

From the first scene on, Horatio appears as a man of thought, whose actions are guided mainly rational. ... Just before the most tragic point in the drama, this idea finds its highest expression, when he breaks out of his passive pattern: He anticipates the life threatening scenario and warns the Prince, that he "will lose this wager"(5.2.183). ...

• Word Count: 1209
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

Equal to other malcontent characters of the age, "Hamlet [...] is a bitter critic of the society in the midst of which he is placed."9 As other malcontents do, he "[...] finds expression in the form of bitter self-abuse, both in soliloquies, like Oh what a rogue and peasant slave am I. ...

• Word Count: 4821
• Approx Pages: 19
• Grade Level: High School