Hamlet

            The play hamlet has entertained audiences for centuries and for centuries the answer to one question has eluded audiences, who is hamlet. The story of Hamlet is one of a man placed in tragic circumstances and the story of how he deals with those. Hamlet deals with many different emotions throughout the play all of which the chosen actor would have to successfully express. Anger, sadness, self-pity, madness and hatred are all exhibited throughout the play although some would question the sincerity of these emotions. Hamlet is an extremely complex character that has to deal with all of these emotions he is feeling and therefore an extremely skilled actor would be required to do this play justice.
             Hamlets father, the king of Denmark, has died recently. The king's brother Claudius promptly marries Hamlet's mother and takes the throne for himself, much to hamlets displeasure. The ghost of his father, who tells him that he was in fact murdered, soon confronts hamlet and asks that he avenge his death. Hamlet delays his revenge and feigns madness in order to further investigate the matter. He arranges a reenactment of the events the ghost portrayed to him in order to view Claudius" reaction. It is ultimately Hamlets procrastination that leads to his demise, he does not act on his revenge and Claudius soon finds out his intentions and he plots to kill hamlet himself using laertes as a pawn. Laertes and Hamlet proceed to dual and both are stabbed by the same poison sword, Claudius is then stabbed with the sword and Hamlets mother Gertrude Drinks poison wine.
             One main aspect of hamlets character is the huge amount of anger in him due to the recent occurrences in his life at the time. The most significant reasons for this are the fact that his mother has married in such a short time after his father's death "O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason would have mourned longer."(Act I, scene 2), and because his uncle has murdered his father and taken the throne that hamlet believes is rightfully his.