Hamlet
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Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet” transcends boundaries which were in place over four hundred years ago when it was written. Shakespeare’s tragic play incites revenge and rage in the characters, while toying with moral corruption and incest. Shakespeare shocked the audiences with unordinary themes; meanwhile, he also made them think of his play more in depth. The ghost and its true nature are never expressed in great detail throughout the play. During the play the Catholic, Protestant, and Skeptic views are all implied. Hamlet is supposed to make the audience think for themselves and challenge their believes and decide what the ghost represents.
The protestant view on the ghost is this thing is a demon trying to tempt man to sin (history.wisc.edu). This holds true when hamlet first sees the ghost. Horatio and the guards warn hamlet not to get to close to the ghost for he might want to harm him. Hamlet does not let this dissuade him from following the ghost. As hamlet approaches the ghost he said to the spirit of his father,
“Angels and ministers of grace, defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn’d,
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou comest in such a questionable shape”
Act 1 Scene 4
These lines focuses on Hamlets protestant view. The reason for this is he went to Whittenburg which was made famous from the philosopher Martin Luther. He is not of your average intelligence. Hamlet questions whether a ghost would present itself to kill or harm him. He wants to find out more to satisfy his curiosity and also why the ghost takes the shape of his dead father. Either it is his father or it is something imitating him, and the risk is worth it for him. Hamlet then speaks with the ghost directly, all the while continually doubting his sanity and the apparition of the ghost. He claims no one has died and come back to life.
Hamlet throughout the play has had noticeable changes in his believes. He at first doubts he sees a ghost, but then as time passes it become more and more believable. The mousetrap play is the culmination of his changing believes. After the reaction from Claudius, Hamlet is certain the ghost is real.
Hamlet realizing the ghost is real only solidifies the catholic view on the ghost. The Ghost is telling the truth. This means the ghost of hamlets father is truly in purgatory.
“I am thy fathers spirit,
Doomed for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day confined to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away.”
What the ghost speaks can really only be taken to mean he is in purgatory. Purgatory is a belief not held by Protestants, they believed you went directly to heaven or hell. (history.wisc.edu) Doomed for a certain term to walk