Hamlet Essay

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the main character has a lot on his mind and plate.  He lost his father and his mother to a man who once thought cared for him. Hamlet’s father was murdered by his own brother and his mother married the man who murdered her husband shortly after the tragedy. Hamlet is definitely trying to cope but has no support since everyone is telling him to get over it and move on “it’s been two months”. Self-overhearing is applicable to real life and Hamlet as well.

As people, we try to speak a higher morality even though our actions may say otherwise. This shows that we try to seem like better people even though we turn into hypocrites when it comes to our actions. In Hamlet it showed that he was trying to understand how to avenge his father’s death but made a huge mess of it in the process. Hamlet did not think his actions through even though he thought he was doing a good thing it was scaring many other people he was close to. Every person thought Hamlet was taking this too far but still had no idea why he was becoming so “crazy”. He had good reason and was in his mind sane. Looking at my own self-overhearing, you realize we do this every day. Reading back in the journals we write everyday there was a topic about the masks we wear. It’s always changing depending on what we do and who we agree with.

The masks we wear change who we are as a person. It depends with who you want to impress or how you want to be portrayed. In real life people change their “masks” to fit in. They agree with whoever is “popular” and they think it will help them instead of saying what they really feel or becoming who they want to be. This becomes an issue for people because they become followers when they are meant to lead their own life. Hamlet wears a mask that shows he cares for his late father. He shows that he will do anything to prove he was murdered by his own brother and nothing seems to stop him. Hamlet loses people he cares about along the way but he is doing something that is important to him and to him it is not crazy in that sense that is self-overhearing in Hamlet and in real life. The experience of memorizing the “to be or not to be” soliloquy was very nerve-wrecking and very un-enjoyable. It took a lot of patience and was difficult. Most people including myself have a hard time memorizing anything and can be very stressful. This was a really long soliloquy and the fact that it had to be memorized and presented was awful. After reading the soliloquy it was easier to understand the point of it and what Hamlet exactly meant. You could easily tell that Hamlet contemplated the idea of suicide but did not go through with it because he had bigger things to overcome and prove like his father’s death.

            Overall, Hamlet dealt with a lot and was pretty young. Despite losing his father he found a somewhat positive benefactor which is trying to prove his uncle Claudius guilty. He had very good tactics in doing so. The way Hamlet recited his soliloquies was very relatable to our own lives. A mask can help you hide behind who you really are and sometimes the only person you need to be is you.