I saw the play of Hamlet my first year of high school and loved it! (Probably because the guy playing Hamlet was a stud) So it was exciting to finally read the play.
Hamlet, like many of Shakespeare's tragedies, is full of dramatic speeches, unrequited love, misunderstandings and lots of death.
Hamlet's character was so interesting to me. He is such a narcissistic drama-queen and yet the audience cannot help but pity him. After all, he does have a lot going on. His dad, the king of Denmark, was mysteriously murdered and is now haunting the earth; his uncle, meanwhile, has married Hamlet's widowed mother and taken over the throne; and the mother sees nothing wrong with it; and then Hamlet discovers that his uncle was the murderer of his father! Whew! So Hamlet tries to solve the problems by himself, but what ends up happening is just a lot of talking about how he will solve the problems. While Hamlet plots and schemes, he misses all his chances to actually get things done.
Ophelia is such a tragic character. Hamlet is a real jerk to her and the poor girl's life is so dysfunctional.
So, anyways, I really enjoyed Hamlet! My favorite character was Hamlet himself, despite his being a slightly annoying emo kid.
Sarsie - Great review, and I totall agree! I read Hamlet my senior year and LOVED it and LOVED the character Hamlet, but he is definitely a bit angsty and do-nothing. This play has one of my favorite quotes of all time in it (despite it being said by Polonius):
ReplyDelete"This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."