Custom Essays: Fortinbras and the Good Life -- GCSE Coursework Shakesp

Fortinbras and the Good Life  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚   Hamlet lives only part of the good life. He dies. Laertes lives only part of the good life. He dies. Fortinbras lives the good life. He becomes the king. The ultimate fates of these three characters describe how close each of them come to the good life. Hamlet and Laertes are at the edge of two extremes, while Fortinbras is somewhere in between. In a sense, not living the good life causes the demise of both Hamlet and Laertes, physically as well as mentally. In contrast, living the good life allows Fortinbras to become the king of Denmark and live out the rest of his life in peace. These three characters play out three very different aspects the good life; only Fortinbras lives the good life. The good life is one of overcoming obstacles, being true to oneself, and combining reason with emotion. The ability to deal with extreme losses--and even losses that are not so extreme--is a necessary part of anyone's life. Life is never perfect; all humans must deal with that state of imperfection. Hamlet is totally incapable of dealing with the death of his father, a major setback in his life. His state of mourning, at the beginning of the play, is not intrinsically terrible, as all humans must mourn the deaths of loved ones at some point in time. However, when Hamlet takes this mourning to extreme depression, saying of his father, "'A was a man, take him for all and all, / I shall not look upon his like again" (1.2, 187-188), he is implicitly telling the audience that it is beyond his capacity to cope with his father's death. In this admission, he is denying the first component of the good life: working through the difficult times in life. In his efforts to make his coping easier, and fo... ...onstructs of society. Anything else would be uncivilized. Works Cited Erlich, Avi. 1977. Hamlet's Absent Father. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Fineman, Joel. 1980. 'Fratricide and Cuckoldry: Shakespeare's Doubles.' In Representing Shakespeare: New Psychoanalytic Essays, edited by Coppelia Kahn and Murray M. Schwarz. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins Press, 70-109. Fleissner, Robert. 1982. ' "Sullied" Or "Solid": Hamlet's Flesh Once More.' Hamlet Studies 4:92-3. Fowler, Alastair. 1987. 'The Plays Within the Play of Hamlet.' In 'Fanned and Winnowed Opinions': Shakespearean Essays Presented to Harold Jenkins, edited by John W. Mahon and Thomas A. Pendleton. London and New York: Methuen. Freud, Sigmund. 1953-74. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works. 24 vols, trans. James Stachey. London: Hogarth.