Pennsylvania College of Technology   Dr. Vavra's ENL 121: Lit & Comp

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1      "Who’s there?" I chose this as the main theme for William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. [Titles] Having [Ref- This means the "theme" has to.] to write about foils[,] this theme seems to be quite fitting, as there are so many characters that have an influence on just one main character, Prince Hamlet. Hamlet [Titles]  is a play filled with murder, deception, insanity and tragedy. Hamlet is driven to madness when his father’s ghost tells him of his foul death, and there are many characters that bring out the different sides of Hamlet.

2     A foil is a character who is there to help define a main character or is just there for the main character to talk to. [That's all? Similarities? Differences?] First I will look at Horatio, Hamlet’s long time friend. Horatio seemed to be the only character that could reason with Hamlet. He is also the only character who looked out for Hamlet’s best interests. Simply put, the only time Hamlet didn’t sound crazy was when he was talking to Horatio.

3     Next is Ophelia. Ophelia definitely brought out the animalistic and sexual side of Hamlet. Hamlet loved her once, but after he learned the truth of his father’s death[,] he seemed to despise all royalty. Ophelia’s father was Polonius who was close to the new King; therefore Polonius was evil which made Ophelia
bad in Hamlet’s eyes. [Poor logic; Evidence?] This is proven on page 675 line 120 [Citation] when Hamlet says "Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?" He is telling Opehlia that she is evil, and if she were to give
birth, she would be giving birth to evil. Also all the sexual comments made to Ophelia by Hamlet such as laying his head upon her lap, and when he asks to see the "puppets dallying." Hamlet almost seemed like a child and playful when making these comments. Yeah he’s normal! [?] [Similarities & Differences?]

4     Hamlet’s mother Gertrude is also a foil. When Hamlet learned the truth of his father’s death, all love and respect he had for his mother was gone. He now saw her as being filthy and incestuous. I think the only thing that held him back from killing her was because of the ghost’s orders to leave her out of it. The Queen definitely brought out the raging fire that burned deep inside of him. I think he showed so
much anger towards her in particular because he couldn’t understand how she could be done grieving so soon after his father’s death and then marry the very murderer of his father so quickly.  [Similarities & Differences?]

5     Then there is Claudius. You would think Hamlet was going to unleash all of his rage, and all of his suffering on Claudius right away. But that’s not how it went at all. Claudius brought out Hamlet’s cunning wit. Hamlet wanted to play mind games with his uncle, and he wanted to let him know that he knew what he did, and that he would pay for it. But Claudius wasn’t stupid he knew that something
was up, and after Hamlet’s "Mousetrap" play Claudius knew that Hamlet knew he killed his father and something must be done to keep Hamlet quiet and fast or there would certainly be trouble. [RO]  [Similarities & Differences?]

6     In conclusion[,] many character’s served to create Hamlet’s character. It was amazing to see how many characters could have such an influence on the way one acts. Hamlet was being torn apart inside throughout this entire play as he considered everything including suicide. He was faced with a tough decision and with all the feelings he had been keeping inside were sooner or later going to come out and
they did on every foil he spoke to, all in different ways. [SS]

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