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

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1     Hamlet , by William Shakespeare, is a classic work which can be hard to understand since he wrote for so many different audience's [No ' H=50] . To better understand Hamlet[,] you have to see and interpret the foils. One of the overlying themes is revenge although in this time period honor was prevalent and it was necessary to carry out the revenge in an honorable fashion and I will use three foils to show this. [Awkward sentence]

2     The basic definition of a foil is a minor character that A) is compared to a major character through similarities and difference’s [No '] or B) simply there for a main character to talk to, to get to know the main character. [SS; and short paragraph]

3     The first foil is Polonius and Claudius the king. [Which is the foil?] A major difference between them is that the king did not change his person to fit whomever he was around[,] unlike Polonius who very much did. [Differences first?] In the play, Polonius and Hamlet were talking and Hamlet asked Polonius if he saw that camel shaped cloud in the sky. Polonius said yes it does look like a camel but then Hamlet said no, I think it looks like a weasel and Polonius said yes, its back is like a weasel but then Hamlet says no, it is like a whale and Polonius agrees again. The king did nothing like this[,] although he was a murderer and Polonius was not. The king was dishonorable enough to actually murder his own brother. [What is the significance of Polonius changing his personality? -- Doesn't it relate to the conflict of appearance and reality, and thus to Hamlet's problem of deciding if the ghost is "real"?]

4     In most aspects the king and Polonius are very much alike. Both did sneaky things, [examples?]  which was dishonorable. Polonius died hastily for his dishonorableness unlike the king though. Polonius was eves dropping on Hamlet and his mother one day when they were having a conversation. Well, ["Well" is not appropriate in a formal paper.] Polonius made a noise or something and Hamlet put his sword through this bush ["bush"?] that was in between them and slew Polonius when actually Hamlet thought that he was killing the king. The king on the other hand did an excellent job at covering up his sneakiness and would not have been found out if the super natural ["supernatural"] would not have showed up and blew his plan.

5     The second foil is the Ghost and Hamlet. [Again, which is the foil?] This is not a very in depth foil but is absolutely essential to the play. The foil took place [A "foil" cannot "take place."] mainly to get some understanding of what actually happened in the play and to set up the rest of the play. With this foil, Hamlet was on top of a castle just listening to the Ghost (Hamlet[']s father) tell him what really happened to his father. The Ghost told Hamlet that he was murdered and how it was his uncle who killed him by pouring poison in his ear while he was sleeping in the garden one day. This triggered a chain of events that made the rest of the play. Hamlet started toying with people using an appearance and reality conflict by acting like he was mad but just doing that not to show his true self so he could play everybody around him for his investigation. Before the ghost appeared, Hamlet was obviously upset over the death of his father, which is perfectly normal, but was all right with it, as in not wanting revenge.

6     The third foil is Laertes and Hamlet. Both are about the same age and both want revenge for their fathers, but other than that, they are very different. Hamlet acted out his anger with honor and with a sense of religion. Hamlet had many chances to kill the king but did not capitalize until the end. One of these particular occurrences happened in a church. The king was kneeling and praying, in perfect striking position, and most importantly, he was all alone. Hamlet did not take this chance for it was irreverent and dishonorable, [This is not what Hamlet says is his reason.] although at first he was going to kill the king.

7     Laertes at first thought that the king had killed his father and went storming in on the king one day, sword in hand, but then found out that Hamlet had killed his father. [Poor topic sentence. The essay is turning into a plot summary.] So the king set up Laertes, with all his anger, to kill Hamlet. Laertes was so angered that he said that he would slit Hamlet[']s throat in a church, which ended up not happening but he would have done it. Laertes was dishonorable in the dual [duel] and was quite sneaky for he had put poison on his sword and was going to just cut Hamlet so the poison could kill him. Laertes wanted revenge so a safe dual [duel] was set up between Hamlet and himself and the king was going to give some horses to the winner. The first to score three points in the dual [duel] would be the winner. Hamlet had just scored a point and bent down to tie his shoe or something when Laertes cut his arm. With his sword which had deadly poison on it. [Frag] Hamlet, unlike Laertes, played by all the rules and did not take any cheap shots like Laertes did. If Laertes was not in this play[,] then there would be no second half of the play. Laertes is a crucial part to the story. If Laertes had not told Hamlet who had done all these bad deeds with the poison, no one would have known and thought that it was Laertes who was behind everything. [Why would anyone think that Laertes killed Hamlet's father?]

8     The lack of honor B[b]rought about this soap opera classic and would have been avoided if done in an honorable fashion. [SS-1] Because it was not carried out in an honorable way, the state of Denmark started filling up their cemeteries. If honor was carried out, Ophelia, an innocent by stander, would not have died.

[Although this essay vaguely hovers around the idea of "honor," it never gets close to demonstrating its thesis. It never shows that "in this time period honor was prevalent." Nor does it show that "it was necessary to carry out the revenge in an honorable fashion."]
 

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