Hamlet has become one of the most popular images of world literature. Moreover, he has stopped to be a hero of ancient tragedy and is perceived as a living person who is familiar to many readers. But this familiar character is not so simple. Throughout the play he appears as mysterious and unexplained person. For some Hamlet – doughface man, for others – a courageous fighter.
It the Prince of Denmark tragedy, the most important is not external events, that mostly are grandeur and bloody incidents. The main thing – what happens all the time in the mind of the hero. Painful and horrible drama that appear in Hamlet’s heart are more dreadful than those that occur in the lives of other actors in the play.
It can be said that the Hamlet tragedy is a tragedy of man’s cognition of evil. For the time being the hero was serene. He lived in the family, illuminated by mutual love of parents and he loved and felt mutual love from the charming girl. Hamlet had loyal friends. Hero was enthusiastically engaged in science, loved the theater, wrote poems. A great future was waiting for him – to become a monarch and rule the people. But suddenly everything collapsed. In the prime of life dies Hamlet’s father. When hero had just survived the grief, another shock occurred: the mother married Hamlet’s uncle less than two months after father’s death. Furthermore, she shared the throne with him. And the third shock: Hamlet discovers that his father was killed by his own brother, to seize the crown and his wife.
It is no wonder that the hero was on the verge of despair. All that make his life valuable, collapsed before his eyes. Hamlet has never been so naive to think that life has no fatalities. But he had it very hazy idea. Troubles that face the hero, forced him to take a new look at everything. New questions with unprecedented sharpness began to raise in the Hamlet’s mind: What price life? What is death? Is it worth to believe in love and friendship? Can you be happy? Is it possible to destroy evil?
Previously, Hamlet thought that the human is the center of universe. But under the influence of misfortunes his view of life and nature has changed dramatically. Hero confessed to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that he “lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises.” He feels sick at heart, the earth seems to him “a sterile promontory “, the air – “pestilent congregation of vapours.” Earlier we heard from Hamlet that life – a wild garden full of weeds and evil reigns everywhere.