Discuss Hamlets attitude to death and the afterlife Essay Example for Free

Discuss Hamlets attitude to death and the afterlife Essay Discuss Hamlets attitude to death and the afterlife, giving an indication as to how both contemporary audience and modern audiences might view it. Hamlet deals with situations, which require a single-minded response. However, by the end of the twentieth century a large percentage of people were unfamiliar with church worship and words of the bible, which makes modern interpretation of it much more difficult which Elizabethan and Jacobean audience of Shakespeares time on the other hand had strong beliefs in religion, includes specifically the afterlife. Hamlet shares the views of the contemporary audience and we must therefore try to understand his religious perspectives in the way that contemporary audiences would have done. To the modern audience the religious ideas and beliefs of Hamlet may seem strange 1 There is never an ideal production of Hamlet; any interpretation must limit. For our decade I think the play will be about the disillusionment which produces apathy of the will so deep that commitment to politics, to religion or to life is impossible Hamlet is always on the brink of action, but something inside him stops the final committed action. It is an emotion which can encounter in the youth today. I agree with this statement but I think that it is Hamlets conscience that holds him back from killing Claudius rather than mere disillusionment. For the Shakespearean audience, a religious theme would have been established at the very beginning of Hamlet when the ghost fades on the crowing of the clock and Marcellus says: Some say that ever gainst that season comes Wherin our Saviors birth is celebrated, This bird of dawning singeth all night long: And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad. The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallowd and so gracious is that time No spirits are allowed to walk the earth in the day. The Crowing of the cock could also be a religious reference to St Peters denial of Christ before the crucifixion, all of which would have been readily understood by a less secular audience than a modern one. When Laertes discovers that Hamlet killed his father, Polonius, his reaction is in complete contrast to Hamlets when he discovers what happened to his father. Laertes is prepared to go to Hell to avenge his fathers death and is more concerned about getting his revenge than what happens to him. The final result of Laertes decisiveness is the death of Hamlet. Laertes gets his revenge, but at great cost. In a traditional revenge tragedy the search for revenge would predominantly lie with the hero of the play. However, Shakespeare makes Hamlet very aware of the consequences of his actions, which is why this is not the typical revenge tragedy that Jacobean audiences were familiar with. This is because Shakespeare wanted to show that Hamlet has a morality that rises above vengeance. Laertes takes on the role of the character who demands vengeance regardless of the consequences. Hamlet, as I have already suggested, is very much a thinker and considers the consequences of his actions. He procrastinates about taking revenge throughout the play and ironically it is Claudius who suggests the fencing match and the poisoned wine, which ultimately allows Hamlet to honour the Ghosts wishes and kill Claudius. When Hamlets fathers ghost first appears to him, he wonders whether or not to accept it at face value. This is because Shakespeare has acknowledged the church belief that no soul could ever return from the grave so all in reality were evil spirits or devils who are attempting to entrap mortals into their power. On first seeing the ghost Hamlet says: Angels and ministers of grace defend us! Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damnd, Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell, Be thy intents wicked or charitable, Thou comst in such questionable shape That I will speak to thee. Ill call thee Hamlet

We Must Ban Assault Weapons Essay -- argumentative, persuasive, gun con

The controversy over assault rifles is one of the most problematic issues related to the contributions of gangs, drug traffickers, and most criminal activity. More often than not, criminals have access to the weapons of their choice more easily than it should be. Getting them from licensed dealers, black markets, and family members’ homes, the availability of these militia weapons has become to effortless to obtain. The rise of criminal activity is part of the reason more than one-third of high school students have easy access to a weapon or gun. â€Å"Four out of five guns brought to school are actually brought from their own homes† (Page par 2). This is one of the biggest problems when faced with where criminals get their guns. They either steal them from relative’s homes, ask to borrow them, or steal them from licensed sellers. There are a lot of ways people can get guns. People who should not be able to purchase a firearm are allowed t o, and illegal transactions are also a huge issue with criminals getting their guns. For all these reasons that is why Government should require restricted gun ownership to protect society, prevent crime, and allow for recreational use. Assault weapons have been labeled as the number one source for mass killings in America. The idea that a weapon can fire a large amount of bullets at a remarkable speed can be used for recreational use was thought of otherwise. This type of weaponry was made for one reason and that is to eliminate as many people as possible and accomplish it in a reasonably fast time. The problem is everywhere and to help control the issue the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence is the nation’s largest organization dedicated to enacting and enforcing gun... ...laws protect the society. They need to understand that bans and laws work and that they need to be enforced more strictly so the people of the nation can feel safe and protected. The nation has brought many new ideas to try to solve the issue on illegal gun selling and gun traffickers. They have provided with legislation laws on gun control, the declining of allowing fully-automatic weapons to be legal in this country to keep all citizens safe. All of the proposals that legislation has introduced do a great job in monitoring the selling and purchasing of weapons that should not be bought and sold. If the country wants us to be safe and protected by our government, they need to know that bans and laws on assault weapon works and saves lives of the American people and that there needs to be cooperation with them so the bans and laws can stay strict and strong.

Aristotle as a Critic Essay

Aristotle (384-322 B. C. E. ), the son of a physician, was the student of Plato from approximately 367 B. C. until his mentor’s death in 348/347. After carrying on philosophical and scientific investigations elsewhere in the Greek world and serving as the tutor to Alexander the Great, he returned to Athens in 335 B. C. E. to found the Lyceum, a major philosophical center, which he used as his base for prolific investigations into many areas of philosophy. Aristotle is a towering figure in ancient Greek philosophy, making contributions to logic, metaphysics, mathematics, physics, biology, botany, ethics, politics, agriculture, medicine, dance and theatre. As a prolific writer and polymath, Aristotle radically transformed most, if not all, areas of knowledge he touched. It is no wonder that Aquinas referred to him simply as â€Å"The Philosopher. † In his lifetime, Aristotle wrote as many as 200 treatises, of which only 31 survive. Unfortunately for us, these works are in the form of lecture notes and draft manuscripts never intended for general readership, so they do not demonstrate his reputed polished prose style which attracted many great followers, including the Roman Cicero. Aristotle was the first to classify areas of human knowledge into distinct disciplines such as mathematics, biology, and ethics. Some of these classifications are still used today. [There has been long speculation that the original Poetics comprised two books, our extant Poetics and a lost second book that supposedly dealt with comedy and catharsis. No firm evidence for the existence of this second book has been adduced. Our (knowledge of the text of the Poetics depends principally on a manuscript of the tenth or eleventh century and a second manuscript dating from the fourteenth century. ] (not to write in notes)*. Aristotle could be considered the first popular literary critic. Unlike Plato, who all but condemned written verse, Aristotle breaks it down and analyses it so as to separate the good from the bad. On a number of subjects Aristotle developed positions that significantly differed from those of his teacher. We very clearly note this profound difference of opinion with Plato and, indeed, observe the overt correction of his erstwhile master in Aristotle’s literary and aesthetic theories. Aristotelian aesthetics directly contradicts Plato’s negative view of art by establishing a potent intellectual role. The principal source of our knowledge of Aristotle’s aesthetic and literary theory is the Poetics, but important supplementary information is found in other treatises, chiefly the Rhetoric, the Politics, and the Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle’s main contribution to criticism may well be the idea that poetry is after all an art with an object of its own, that it can be rationally understood and reduced to an intelligible set of rules (that is, it is an â€Å"art,† according to the definition in the Ethics). The main concern of the rules of the Poetics, however, is not with the composition of literary works; it is rather with their critical evaluation. Consequently, criticism can be a science, and not a mass of random principles and intuitions. Aristotle speaks of the educative value of visual, musical and verbal arts. Both the Rhetoric and the Poetics can be considered –to be expansions of this view. We might say that Aristotle sets literature free from Plato’s radical moralism and didacticism, while he still expects it to be conformable to a moral understanding of the world. For him, literature is a rational and beneficial activity, and not an irrational and dangerous one, as it was for Plato. Aristotle? s approach to literature is mainly philosophical: he is more concerned with the nature and the structure of poetry than with its origin. The origins of poetry had been grounded on the instinct of imitation which is natural to man. The first poetical works were spontaneous improvisations. The origins of the different genres is justified by Aristotle thus: â€Å"Poetry soon branched into two channels, according to the temperaments of individual poets. The more serious-minded among them represented noble actions and the doings of noble persons, while the more trivial wrote about the meaner sort of people; thus, while the one type wrote hymns and panegyrics, these others began by writing invectives. (Poetics II). † The development goes through serious or comic epic poems such as those written by Homer to comedy and tragedy; â€Å"these new forms were both grander and more highly regarded than the earlier† (Poetics II). Aristotle does not, however, decide on whether tragedy (and by implication, literature) has already developed as far as it can; but he does assert that it has come to a standstill. Aristotle makes a brief outline of the history of tragedy: â€Å"At first the poets had used the tetrameter because they were writing satyr-poetry, which was more closely related to the dance; but once dialogue had been introduced, by its very nature it hit upon the right measure, for the iambic is of all measures the one best suited to speech . . . . Another change was the increased number of episodes, or acts. (Poetics II). † Aristotle also deals briefly with the rise of comedy: â€Å"the early history of comedy. . . is obscure, because it was not taken seriously. Comedy had already acquired certain clear-cut forms before there is any mention of those who are named as its poets. Nor is it known who introduced masks, or prologues, or a plurality of actors, and other things of that kind. Of Athenian poets Crates was the first to discard the lampoon pattern and to adopt stories and plots of a more general nature. (Poetics II). † The work of Aristotle as a whole may be considered to be an attempt to develop a structural and metalinguistic approach to literature. Although it preserves a concern with valuation, its main thrust is towards the definition of theoretical possibilities and general laws. Some critics have spoken of Aristotle’s sin of omission in relationship with lyric poetry and the inspirational element in literature. This is a fact. But it does not seem so important when we look at what Aristotle does say and the principles he establishes. We can barely recognize the aspect of criticism after Aristotle’s work, if we compare it to its previous state. His is the most important single contribution to criticism in the whole history of the discipline.

The, The Inner World Of The Outcast - 1707 Words

Essay 1: Fantastical Realities in the works of Tim Burton â€Å"I get so tired of people saying, ‘Oh, you only make fantasy films and this and that’, I’m like ‘Well no, fantasy is reality’, that’s what Lewis Carroll showed in his work,† spoke animator, writer, producer, and director Tim Burton in regards to the themes of depression, isolation, and fear within his collection of work. Influenced by Gothic fiction and the art and film movements of Expressionism, Surrealism, and Noir, Burton crafts the inner world of the outcast and explores the ideas of Jungian and Freudian psychoanalysis in his films, particularly in Vincent (1982), Beetlejuice (1988), and Edward Scissorhands (1990). This paper will explore Burton’s aesthetics of chiaroscuro lighting, color symbolism, and composition to recreate the realism of human emotions through the eyes of a misunderstood character’s solitude in a highly fantastical world. Burton breaks conventions of narrative Hollywood cinema and focuses less on the script, but largely on the psyche of the character and the visual outer world that portrays their inner anxieties. Although, Burton’s films are directly influenced by the work of Fritz Lang, F.W. Murnau, Robert Wiene, and Salvador Dali, he creates his own auteur style by mapping out the psychological journey of his characters through symbolic hand-drawn concept and costume designs that mirrors his own struggles of displacement throughout his life. In Tim Burton’s 1982 debut children’s horrorShow MoreRelatedEssay about Escaping Isolation1069 Words   |  5 PagesMany people experience what it is like to be isolated at some point in their lives. But when does one feel like an outcast? Being isolated can change one’s entire outlook on life. Alienation can be described as â€Å"a powerful feeling of isolation and loneliness† (Alienation 1). Different people react differently to alienati on and some express it by becoming â€Å"withdrawn and lethargic [and] others may react with hostility and violence† (Alienation 1). Many suffer from alienation for a variety of causesRead MoreRole of Identity in Mary Shelleys Frankenstein Essays1046 Words   |  5 PagesIn past and present, society has always put an emphasis on external appearance as opposed to inner personality. As a result, social classes are formed, such as upper and lower, wherein members of each class must uphold the norms defined by the prestige of the class. Upper classes are deemed to be perfect, as they contain the wealthy and the beautiful. This class distinction is heightened in Gothic literature where emotions and the persona of the characters are externalized. Emotions are literalizedRead More The Inaccessible Inner Life of Wakefield Essay849 Words   |  4 PagesThe Inaccessible Inner Life of â€Å"Wakefield† â€Å"All these—all the meanness and agony without end I sitting looking out upon, See, hear, and am silent.† –Walt Whitman We are presented with a piece of gossip of a man named Wakefield who leaves his wife for twenty years to live in a house the next street over. If this story were workshopped in a present-day fiction writing class, it would be argued that this story has interesting elements but is not, as a whole, an interesting story--Read MoreEssay on Role of Identity in Mary Shelleys Frankenstein1010 Words   |  5 Pages In past and present, society has always put an emphasis on external appearance as opposed to inner personality. As a result, social classes are formed, such as upper and lower, wherein members of each class must uphold the norms defined by the prestige of the class. Upper classes are deemed to be perfect, as they contain the wealthy and the beautiful. This class distinction is heightened in Gothic literature where emotions and the persona of the characters are externalized. Emotions are literalizedRead MoreThe Awakening By Kate Chopin1656 Words   |  7 Pagescompelling word h eroic. Over the course of the novel, The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, I’ve come to discover that these adjectives do not fairly denote who a hero truly is. Can you ever consider an outcast a hero?... living within the norms and ideas of society that may reject his/her own philosophy, an outcast that may just be eagerly fighting, both physically and mentally to convey what others cannot see. It’s time we realized that a hero can be derive from distinctive ideas or norms build within societyRead MoreWhat is a Cult? Essay1225 Words   |  5 PagesA cult is a good place for social outcasts to express their ideas freely, to feel safe, and to be enlightened for the future. A cult is a good thing to be involved in especially if you are a delinquent or criminal. Most people that join cults have a desire to belong, a lack of self-confidence, a desire for spiritual meaning, or to quit their addictions. A cult is a religious group that is not part of a larger and more accepted r eligion and that has beliefs regarded by many people as extreme. TheRead MoreEssay on Emily Brontes Wuthering Heights - A Great Romantic Novel835 Words   |  4 Pagesirrational (Damrosch, 1317). Other common elements of the writing during this period were the returned interest of gothic romance elements, a fascination of exploring the inner world of the mind and the unconscious into its dark side, an interest in emotional adventures in exotic and remote times and places, an interest in the outcast people in society (outlaws, rebels, nonconformists, exiles, etc.), and an interest in characters performing dangerous self-explorations that take them to hell, and notRead More The Tower Pig Essay1292 Words   |  6 Pagesaround a young man who suffers the hardships of imprisonment in an American correctional facility. The protagonist is throughout the tale addressed only by his surname, Caine. Caine expresses incomprehensible anger he feels for one of the wardens, an outcast despised by colleagues and inmates alike, and who is commonly known as â€Å"The Tower Pig† by all the prisoners at the facility. â€Å"Pain, joy, worry, are shielded away until the cell doors slam and we’re alone in our solitude. For ten days in the hole,Read More Descartes, Leibniz, And Spinoza Essay700 Words   |  3 Pageswith as furiously disparate and uncompromising ideals as one would find in a meeting of Andrew Weil, Jerry Falwell, and David Duke, I expect that the philosophers would find some surprisingly common ground. Descartes, the Christian outcast, Spinoza, the Jewish outcast, and Leibniz, the creative mathematician all acknowledge that what we know better than anything is the mind. Given this, we can deduce that any knowledge we acquire of our perceived bodies does not necessarily relate to some externalRead MoreThe Beauty Of Individuals : Sydney J. Harris1603 Words   |  7 PagesTillie, the laughingstock of the entire school, uses these seeds to create an ex periment for her science fair project. Despite the negative factors around her, Tillie is able to create a winning science fair project, and she is no longer her school’s outcast. Melinda and Tillie both feel isolated, and their isolation serves to teach them critical life lessons, while they remain hopeful and experience growth as individuals. Melinda lives in a household that does not validate her feelings. Furthermore