In the play, Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, Hamlet's father, the king, dies. His uncle, Claudius, marries his mother, the queen, to gain control of the throne. This troubles Hamlet very much, because his father has not been dead for even two months, and his mother has already moved onto another man, that man being his own uncle. Hamlet is visited by the ghost of his dead father, who informs Hamlet that he was killed by Claudius. Hamlet wishes to seek revenge on his uncle for the death of his father. He first pretends to go crazy, so that if anything were to happen to Claudius, he would be suspected the least. In his desire for revenge, Hamlet also shows an interest for death, starting from the point when he meets the ghost of his father. He soon comes to the conclusion that no matter how many great deeds a person does in his lifetime, he will end up the as everyone else, as dust. He disregards the fact that physical being is not everything and that a person can be remembered for his deeds even though he is not physically there.
The king and queen start to worry about Hamlet, and so call two of his friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to Denmark so that they may find out what is wrong with Hamlet and why he is acting so odd. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are sent to spy on Hamlet, whom they go to immediately after meeting with the king and queen. When they question Hamlet about his father, Hamlet goes on a speech to show how the death of his father has affected him. He says, "What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how express and admirable in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a .
god ---- The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?" (42).
In this passage, Hamlet says that man is great and wonderful compared to everything that is around them but that man to him is nothing but dust.