Hamlet

After reading the blog and the questions that were accumulated I have decided to focus on the aspect of belief and perception in Act I, scenes I and II of Hamlet. In the beginning of Act I Bernardo, Marcellus and Horatio all claim that they have seen the ghost of the late King Hamlet. My question is do they really see the ghost and/or is the image of the ghost just a scheme from these men.

The first thing I would like to approach is, if the image of the ghost is real. I believe this depends on the reader and the writer. Obviously Shakespeare believes in the ghost/spirits aspects, and decides that he wants the ghost to represent something which is the late King Hamlet. Now if you were the reader and had a strong belief that ghost are not real and do not have any meaning to them, then this will have an impact on how you perceive the story. As for me ghost are not real, so reading this section in the play made me ponder the idea of the whole “ghost” thing as being a scheme.

The reason behind believing that the appearance of the ghost is a scheme is because the men who have claimed to seen this ghost might have something against Hamlet or his family. They could then use the appearance of the ghost to their advantage to persuade Hamlet with their thoughts and ideas. The men claim that the ghost appears still in his armor from his last battle with the King of Norway. Having made the “ghost” with his armor still on, could hit that something is unfinished or not right. With putting these ideas in Hamlet’s head they could advance their status in the kingdom by maybe killing off the new king or an important player in Hamlet. The ghost can be interpreted in many ways, and the way that I see the ghost is just another way to advance one self’s in the kingdom.

*In my first Hamlet blog I would like my readers to focus mostly on the mechanical conventions in my blog. Since this is the first blog without having a structured question i would like to know if my writting flowed and if I got my point across in my blog.