Essay about The Role of Fortinbras in Shakespeares Hamlet

Steeped within his own pool of madness, the prince of Denmark seeks to avenge the premature death of his father. Claudius must die, die, die! Nothing else matters: not love, or death, or preservation of state, or the means to which the task is accomplished. To right what is wrong is the only focus that matters. Hamlet, blind by his own emotional transitions, is not aware until it is too late that his counterpart to the north also plots and prepares. Being one of the first writers to develop dynamic and intricate characters that leave the readers to question and interpret the characters’ actions for themselves, Shakespeare understood better than anybody else what a piece of work is a man! (2.2.305). In the play Hamlet, Shakespeare†¦show more content†¦Hamlet’s motivation throughout the play is to kill Claudius and avenge his father’s death, so every action he makes works to accomplish that goal. On the other hand, Fortinbras’ motivation towa rd action does not lie exclusively for the sake of revenge. Fortinbras, like Hamlet or any other proud prince, feels a certain obligation to exact revenge on his father’s killer. However, whatever he decides to do it would not entirely be accepted as revenge because King Hamlet is already dead when the play starts. Although it is unclear if Fortinbras desires to kill Hamlet in the name of his father, killing Hamlet would not be the same as killing his father, the true murderer. Rather than act as if responding to a vendetta, Fortinbras is motivated to restore honor to his father by reclaiming the parcel land in Norway that is seized after King Hamlet kills King Fortinbras. At his first appearance, young Fortinbras is shown to be inferior to Hamlet; being of unimproved metal, hot and full (1.1.96) Fortinbras is initially shown as a sharp contrast to the sweet and commendable (1.2.87) Hamlet introduced in the next scene. Despite going through emotional and mental highs and lows, Hamlet seems to constantly be in a state of regression and thought: Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied oer with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pith and momentShow MoreRelatedFortinbras in Hamlet by William Shakespeare691 Words   |  3 Pagesmajor role in Shakespeare’s plays, they have some type of significance. In Hamlet, one of these characters is Fortinbras. The character of Fortinbras is someone with an extremely similar background to the protagonist of the play, Hamlet. One might say that Fortinbras and Hamlet are parallel versions of each other, being in the same situation even though they have a different lineage. 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