What is the role of death in the play? Why does Hamlet spend so much time thinking about and/or discussing it?
In the play, death serves as a catalyst to further the plot. For instance, the play is set into motion with the death of Hamlet’s father, Hamlet’s inner conflict results in his indecision of killing Claudius, and conflict arises when Hamlet mistakenly kills Polonius. In all of these instances, death furthers the plot by providing a new direction for Hamlet to follow in order to ultimately achieve his goal. For example, the conflict between Laertes and Hamlet, which arose due to Hamlet killing Polonius, further the plot to bring Hamlet to the situation in which he is able to finally kill Claudius before succumbing to death himself. The reason why Hamlet spends so much time thinking about death can be attributed to his fascination. Such as in the case of the scene of Yorick’s skull, Hamlet is fascinated by the notion that the skull, now a piece of the earth, had once been a person who entertained him as a child. Furthermore, Hamlet’s thoughts often turn toward death as he lays it down as one of his options for escaping his miserable reality. Thus, the role of death in the play is to provide Hamlet with the incentive to keep pursuing his revenge and to exist as an escape route and subject of fascination for Hamlet’s mind.
It seems that Hamlet has already set his mind on death, the question is whether to suffer or to die and evade it all. And because of the uncertainties with death, it pushes him towards the former option. Although, Hamlet does have a choice at any point in the play, however, fate has always been pulling his strings. The question of whether to kill Claudius or not, always follows him as the ghost has been seen to remind him of his “right” path. Obviously fascinated or obsessed, but it’s a concept he could not avoid.
I agree, I feel like without death there is no Hamlet play. Death is at the very beginning of the play with Hamlet’s father and at the end, with Hamlet himself dying. That is without counting the other characters who died throughout the play, which is a lot, especially at the end. Of course, Hamlet is going to think a lot about death after seeing the ghost of his father.
I agree that death has a significant role in the play – there’s a total of eight deaths including all the main characters. Hamlet is in a dark place most of the time and is even considering suicide as a way of putting an end to his misery. Therefore, it’s not surprising Hamlet thinks and talks about death so much.
I agree in your post that death is the catalyst the furthers the plot; the play begins and ends with death. Though his intentions may have been noble, it is ironic that Hamlet becomes a murderer worse than Claudius, the man who he has an agenda against because he is responsible for his father’s death. It is possible that Hamlet realizes that this is an inevitable consequences of his actions, and ponders his own existence in the famous Act 3 Scene 1 “To Be or Not To Be” soliloquy. Would it be better to take his own life, or to take the lives of everyone who stands in his path?