So i guess I'm going to write about how revenge doesn't lead to anything good. This is a tough subject because it's easy to say that revenge just leads to more pain and more hate (which it does), but if someone were to murder someone dear to me, i would want to demolish that person. I understand where Hamlet is coming from because i would want to do the same thing if someone murdered my dad.
Even though revenge seems like the thing to do at the time, people have to be bigger than revenge. Revenge is a never ending cycle of hate and as long as people keep avenging other people the cycle won't stop.
Revenge can happen in better ways like sending the person to prison and let the law deal with them, instead of murdering the person you were trying to get revenge on. Hamlet was in a tough situation because back then there was no justice system like we have today in America and it was just what the king said. If Hamlet would have gone down a less violent path i don't think he would have gotten the king in trouble. In those situations what do you do? Do you just turn the other cheek and just let the person go off with no consequence? Or do you get payback? It seems like any decision you make is the wrong one because one option you look like a panzy and the other option you stoop to the level of the person that you are trying to get revenge on. Like i said earlier today there's better ways of getting revenge than just killing the person, but back then it seems like that was your only choice.
I don't know, i just don't know!!! There have to be better ways of getting revenge than killing someone, there has to be a way to stop the never ending circle of hate. Revenge just brings more hate because when Bill avenges someone, then Stanley will want to avenge the person that Bill got his revenge on, then Mr. Right will want to get his revenge on Stanley for killing Bill. It just doesn't stop. Just like how Claudius killed Hamlet senior, then Hamlet killed Poloinius even though it wasn't intentional, but that made Laertes want to revenge on Hamlet. In the end, it just screwed up almost all of the characters' (in the play) lives because almost all of them died. Was it worth it? Was it worth going through all that pain and suffering? This is what the endless circle of hate does. it just doesn't stop manipulating people's minds and almost every human falls into the circle at least once.
It's hard to say which side i want to be on. All i want is to stop this circle of hate, but then again i understand why someone would want to get revenge. I don't know how to stop it, but all i know is that it won't stop unless people realize what could happen to them and other people if they try to get revenge in a grotesque way. There has to be a way to get revenge without all the extreme hate that takes place in almost every revenge. I don't know how anyone can find it, but there must be a way, nothing is impossible.
PS: Sorry for all the rambling i just trying to throw out ideas here. i guess i'll be on the side of revenge shouldn't be justified, but sometimes people feel like they don't have any other options, like Hamlet.
You have an interesting topic. You are kind of all over the place. Focus more on what happens in the book. One point you might add is that revenge is portrayed as good because Fortinbras in the end is on the top of everything. He takes revenge and is successful and overtakes Denmark and some of Poland. He is heightened because he took revenge so you could argue that Shakespeare portrays revenge as good through Fortinbras.
ReplyDeleteI like it. you do jump around a bit, its ok its a rough draft. Its a fine line between getting even and getting ahead or punishment for a crime/ revenge and letting them get off too easy. they should pay for what they have done but how much and in what manor? $$? pain? death? either way you go fully commit don't have any doubts or second guesses about what your saying
ReplyDeleteNathan,
ReplyDeleteI agree with the comments above in that you have an excellent topic in revenge, and in your own opposition to the "endless cycle of hate"--but I wonder if this is your view or Shakespeare's. Given that Hamlet is spurred on to revenge by his father's ghost, his own resolve (after observing Fortinbras' army (Fortinbras who is a character who seems to have no compunction about revenge and comes out on top in the end) that his actions should be "bloody or nothing worth", then perhaps the approach you ought to take here is to argue that while Shakespeare ultimately views revenge as a noble aim, he's wrong to do so. What do you think? (I'd be happy to discuss this with you).