CHAPTER 3
A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY 3.1 Main Characters
There are some main characters found in the Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet”, as the following:
3.1.1 Prince Hamlet
Prince Hamlet is the Prince of Denmark. He is the son of Queen Gertrude and the late King Hamlet, and the nephew of the present king, Claudius. He is
melancholy, bitter, and cynical, full of hatred for his uncle’s scheming and disgust for his mother’s sexuality. Hamlet is an introspective character. A reflective and
thoughtful young man who has studied at the University of Wittenberg, He is
often indecisive and hesitant, but at other times prone to rash and impulsive acts.
It can be seen from these quotations below:
Hamlet: ...To die; to sleep, No more, and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to; tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wishd. To die, to sleep; Hamlet, III.i.60-4
Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting, That would not let me sleep: methought I lay
Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly, And praisd be rashness for it, let us know,
Our indiscretion sometime serves us well When our deep plots do pall, and that should
learn us Theres a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will. Hamlet, V.ii.4-11
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He hated his mother for marrying Claudius so soon after his father’s death. And he had to decide whether to kill his uncle Claudius and revenge his father’s
death. It can be seen from these quotations below: Hamlet: …Frailty, thy name is woman
A little month, or ere those shoes were old With which she followd my poor fathers body,
Like Niobe, all tears:—why she, even she— O, God a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mournd longer—married with my uncle,
My fathers brother, but no more like my father Within a month:
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married. O, most wicked speed, to post With such dexterity to incestuous sheets
It is not nor it cannot come to good: But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.
Hamlet, I, ii, 146-159
3.1.2 King Claudius
He is the King of Denmark, Hamlet’s uncle. He is the brother of the late King of Denmark. The villain of the play, he is a calculating, ambitious politician,
driven by his sexual appetites and his lust for power, but he occasionally shows signs of guilt and human feeling—his love for Gertrude, for instance, seems
sincere. He murders his brother to seize the throne. It can be seen from these quotations below:
King: My fault is past. But O, what form of prayer Can serve my turn? Forgive me my foul murder?
That cannot be, since I am still possessd Of those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen. Hamlet, III, iv, 52-55
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3.1.3 Queen Gertrude She is the Queen of Denmark, Hamlet’s mother. She is the widow of the late
