Hamlet's Conception of Death Anonymous 12th Grade

Compared to his contemporaries, William Shakespeare is undoubtedly the most appreciated and widely-read playwright of the Elizabethan Era. Among his most popular plays is Hamlet, a tragedy detailing young Hamlet’s struggle to avenge his father’s death. Though readers may not identify with his contemplations of murder, almost all can relate to Hamlet’s internal conflict in accepting his own mortality. Shakespeare’s work Hamlet remains relevant in the modern age because the main character’s changing conception and eventual acceptance of death is a struggle inevitable for all humans.

In the beginning of the play, Hamlet is devastated by the death of his father, and considers taking his own life. When alone in mourning, Hamlet says, “Oh that this, too, sullied flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew, or that the Everlasting had not fixed his canon ’gainst self-slaughter! O God, God, How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me the uses of this world!”(I.ii.133-139). Hamlet uses the term “sullied flesh” to indicate that Hamlet Sr.’s murder taints the integrity of his family name, and to compare his sadness to bodily pain. He wishes that the pain of his father’s death would eventually lessen, or “resolve itself...