Essay Two

INTRODUCTION

Central to coherent and enduring literature is its ability to reflect the harsh realities of the world and provide a portrait of natural imbalances.¹ This is expressed through William Shakespeare’s revenge tragedy, Hamlet, which candidly explores how relationships in this imbalanced world can be unworthy, malicious, at times pitiful, and destined to fail. By drawing on this, Shakespeare paints a bleak portrait of a world filled with disturbing revenge, madness, and gender inequalities² that has transcended audiences across cultures and centuries.

1. Note that you don’t have to put the thesis as the first sentence. You can play around with the structure of the essay, like putting it at the end of the introduction. But no matter what, you must introduce your overarching thesis statement in the introduction so that the marker is clear on what you are writing about.

2. Although you can’t simply replace key words in a prompt with your own preferred topics to discuss, you can add to the prompt by drawing up other key themes, provided you make them relevant!

PARAGRAPH 1

Hamlet is built upon the basis of extreme revenge and the escalation of the severity of the revenge between characters, which results in a world whose balance has been disturbed. The first signs of distasteful revenge in Hamlet appear early in the play, with Hamlet’s disgust at his mother’s blatant lust and hasty remarriage. This emerges through evocative natural imagery of an “unweeded garden” and “sallied flesh.” These symbols help to paint a bleak image of Hamlet’s opinion on the disturbing, incestuous relationship. This imbalance⁴ came as a result of the murder of Old Hamlet, who reappears as a ghost and also is distressed with the new bleak reality of the Danish court, calling Gertrude, “that incestuous, that adulterate beast.” Hence, Shakespeare underscores⁵ how Hamlet’s intense lotalty to his father and sense of filial obligation fuelled his desire for revenge. Additionally, the ghost acts as a symbol of chaos and corruption, according to the Christian doctrine that was prevalent in Elizabethan society. It also subtly hints at the Great Chain of Being⁶, which is a hierarchical structure that God decrees all life, and any disturbance to this hierarchy could have disastrous consequences.⁷ This concern was particularly prominent due to the forthcoming transfer of power in the Elizabethan monarchy. In terms of revenge and its position in the world portrait, the character foil of Hamlet and Laertes is important to consider when examining the bleak realities of such a societal imbalance. Hamlet significantly delays his revenge, going to the lengths of using a frame narrative in The Mousetrap – a piece of metatheatre which reflects the bleak lives of Shakespeare’s characters – to “reveal the conscience of the king.” This contemplative behaviour is juxtaposed with the immediate actions of Laertes, who believes “revenge should know no bounds.” The two men mirror each other’s circumstances in their attempts to rebalance the world, but are ironically met with bleak endings. Ultimately, the imminent imbalance within this fictitious society acts as a literary reflection of imbalances observed in life, particularly in Shakespeare’s Elizabethan context.

4. Though this seems like a very simple link, connecting your ideas and analysis in this way (e.g. describing an example of revenge, and then starting your next sentence with ‘This desire for revenge can also be seen in...’) allows you to seamlessly transition between points very fluently.

5. Don’t neglect to use authorial verbs to emphasise your understanding of the text as a deliberately crafted work of the author!

6. This is a great contextual link for demonstrating the imbalance seen in both Elizabethan society, and the fictional society in Hamlet.

7. However, don’t just use key words like the Great Chain of Being and assume your assessor will be able to link them to your discussion for you. Instead, include a quick sentence like this to clearly summarise the point of this reference so that you can explain its relevance and earn marks!

PARAGRAPH 2

Madness is a controversial conceit throughout Hamlet and plays an integral role in demonstrating a disturbed universal balance, especially characterised though Hamlet and Ophelia. It is evident in Act 2 Scene 2 that Polonius and Ophelia come to the conclusion that Hamlet is mad, after his peculiar encounter with Ophelia. However, as presented with dramatic irony, Hamlet’s insanity is simply a mask of an “antic disposition” used to combat the harsh realities of his bleak world. In the theatre production of Hamlet in May 2016, by ‘Sport For Jove,’ Eloise Winestock⁸ (Ophelia) suggests that Hamlet’s madness is fake, which she believes is Shakespeare’s way of “juxtaposing” Hamlet’s false insanity with Ophelia’s genuine insanity. Ophelia, by contrast, simply cannot cope with the imbalanced world that Shakespeare has depicted. Furthermore, Shakespeare validates Ophelia’s madness through by her dialogue, with varied verse and prose. In the Elizabethan era, it was representative of the elite class to speak in verse, and representative of the lower, poorer class to speak in prose.⁹ Ophelia’s madness stems from the devastation of her father’s murder, which disturbed the balance of her life and as a result, Ophelia begins handing out flowers that is known to be of significant symbolic value. Ophelia hands Laertes rosemary and pansies, for remembrance and thoughts, to Claudius, fennel and columbine for flattery and foolishness, and to the queen, she gives rue, linked with abortion and adultery. In addition, Ophelia comes to an end by saying, “I’d give you some violets, flowers of faithfulness, but they all dried up when my father died.” These flowers symbolise innocence and faithfulness, and more holistically, demonstrate Ophelia’s judgement of each character and of the corrupt state of Denmark;¹⁰ for Ophelia, these virtues no longer belong in the lives of Claudius and Gertrude. As such the audience observes the powerful realities of Ophelia’s disturbed world. Hence, the volatile nature of human relationships can lead to deception and imbalance in society, as demonstrated by this bleak portrait Shakespeare paints.¹¹

8. This is a modern performance of Hamlet, which highlights its enduring form.

9. Again, make sure you are adequately explaining ideas and evidence to your marker, rather than making generalisations like ‘Ophelia’s varied prose and verse represents her madness’ and assuming the assessors will fill in the blanks. If anything, it’s better to over-explain yourself and ensure the marker can follow your train of thought and give you credit, rather than make too many logical leaps just to write more, or finish sooner.

10. This is a great example of a clear and concise explanation of symbolism, rather than just a list of symbols or a remark like ‘Ophelia’s flowers symbolise her innocence.’ As aforementioned, don’t be afraid to delve into explanations like this!

11. There a clear link back to the question at the end of this paragraph, thus strengthening the overall discussion.

PARAGRAPH 3

Similarly, gender roles and imbalances are also explored throughout Hamlet and play a significant role in conveying the bleak reality of Elizabethan interpersonal relationships. A prominent belief of Shakespeare’s societal framework was that men were superior to women, as can be seen in Act 1 Scene 2 in Hamlet’s soliloquy, denouncing his mother’s swift remarriage with the statement, "frailty, thy name is woman," allowing the audience to understand Hamlet’s true thoughts about women and his imbalanced¹² relationship with them. Throughout Hamlet, Ophelia is especially portrayed as subordinate to both her father and Hamlet. Ophelia is too often seen as the poor victim of Hamlet’s cruelty, as is evident when Hamlet tells Ophelia to “get thee to a nunnery.” Here, Hamlet is also expressing repressed anger towards his mother, due to their disturbed relationship, as he feels she has been unfaithful and incestuous when she married his uncle and thus created imbalance within their worlds. Ophelia also plays the role of the obedient daughter, though recent feminist critics see Ophelia’s lack of an independent will as representative of a repressive double standard inherited in our society. One view in particular, that of Elaine Showalter, is that Ophelia is “indeed representative of women,” and that her madness stands “for the oppression of women in society as well as tragedy” (1985). This illustrates the intense inequity in the relationships of men and women, particularly in the Elizabethan era. However, the modern context of this view affects the way Hamlet has been interpreted, and therefore paints a picture of a new world with a different context to Shakespeare’s.¹³

12. Here, we’ve interpreted the core of the prompt in a new way to add variety to the discussion, and show the assessor that we are able to approach these ideas in unique ways.

13. These closing sentences directly answer the given question, but also address the ideas regarding its textual integrity to make the essay more cohesive.

CONCLUSION

Ultimately, Shakespeare’s illustration of the bleak realities in his fictitious world of Hamlet continues to be just as pertinent 400 years after it was written. The universal themes of revenge, madness, and gender bring to light the imbalanced way humans interact with each other and the result of relationships that are as tragically flawed as the individuals themselves.