Hamlets Destructive Humor Essay - 802 Words

Hamlets Destructive Humor Humor can be funny and uplifting or cynical and destructive. Hamlets humor insults every one around him and its very cynical and leads to his downfall. When Hamlet insults people around him, his remarks are not clearly understood by the people who he is insulting. Hamlet makes Polonius look like a fool when he criticizes him with his words, and Polonius doesnt know that he is being fooled. Hamlet even makes fun of the courtiers particularly Rosencrantz and Guildernstern. Although Hamlet doesnt stop there, he even insults Claudius and his own mother, Gertrude. Hamlets love, Ophelia, is also an unfortunate victim of these remarks. All these insulting remarks show Hamlets lack of sympathy for other†¦show more content†¦When Claudius sent these two courtiers to figure out what was wrong with Hamlet, they never figured out his problem, in fact Hamlet found out what they were up to. I know the good king and queen have sent for you. (2.2.271-272) Here Hamlet surprises the courtiers making them admit that theyre spying for Claudius. Rosencrantz tries to make Hamlet talk about his ambition, and Hamlet replies by saying, Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretched heroes the beggars shadows. (2.2.263-264). When Hamlet says this, Rosencrantz doesnt even understand the point Hamlet is trying to make, which is that only the beggars are real, and heroes are figments of the beggars imaginations. These incidents show that Hamlet clearly has no problem handling these two courtiers, who are both working for Claudius and Hamlet loves toying around with them. Hamlet has more people on his list that he would love to insult especially Claudius and Gertrude, and even poor Ophelia gets caught up in this mess. At the beginning of the play Hamlet lets Claudius know how angry he feels about him. Hamlet says, A little more than kin, and less than kind! (1.2.65) Hamlet says Claudius is related to him, as an uncle and a stepfather, but hes not really his kin or his kind at all. In the beginning Hamlet makes fun of his own motherShow MoreRelatedPurgatorio Essay4430 Words   |  18 Pagesabout Purgatory that should be mentioned. Purgatory is not, as is sometimes thought, a second chance for those neither decisively good nor bad in life. It is not a period of probation after which one might be assigned to Hell. (Thanks to the Ghost of Hamlets father for that misunderstanding. Shakespeare, of course, shared with his fellow Elizabethans a characteristic misunderstanding of, and hostility toward, things uniquely Popish.) Rather, everyone who enters Purg atory eventually gets into Heaven;