Translations

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Laertes: Mysterious, Revenge-Seeking, Honorable

Okay, let's face it. Hamlet is one of the best, most awesome piece of  work ever in the history of human literature. The legendary Will Shakespeare's talents are clearly expressed on this fabulous work of art. Hamlet is a story full of cheats, secrets, insanity, and small actions that may seem like nothing but then lead to a huge blowout- Just as the famous literary genius John Green has written on one of his greatest, most insightful works (Looking For Alaska), "If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions." Image result for hamlet Image result for hamlet laertes
In Hamlet, melancholy and revenge play a huge role. Today we're gonna talk about revenge.
Laertes, one of the main characters in Hamlet, is a character who makes use of important revenge and justice. Laertes is a honorable son and a loving brother, and he is willing to do anything- and everything- to protect his family. He blames Hamlet for both the death of his father, Polonius, and his sister, Ophelia's suicide.  Of course he would. I don't blame him. I sympathize the dude. I mean, Hamlet killed Polonius without regretting it, and Ophelia attempted suicide because she couldn't get over Hamlet. What a hopeless romantic.
Anyways, back to Laertes. He plots revenge with Claudius, Hamlet's stepfather who has murdered his own brother (Hamlet's father) to get the throne of Denmark. Laertes decides to kill Hamlet and make it look as if it were an "accident" by challenging him to a duel. However, the young prince is a lot better than Laertes is, so Laertes selected a sharp blade and dipped it into poison. He murdered Hamlet in the end and got his sweet bliss of revenge, but only after Hamlet stabbed him. So Laertes dies, Hamlet kills Claudius, Claudius unintentionally kills Gertrude (the Queen), Hamlet dies.
Ophelia died, Polonius died, Rosencrantz (soldier) and Guildenstern (soldier number 2) died.
SHORT (and by that I mean agonizingly short) SUMMARY FOR ONE OF THE BEST LITERARY WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE: ........................... EVERYONE DIES.
That's right, everyone dies. Oh wait, no. The homeless guy who collected the trash didn't die. Or did he?

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