I recently read Hamlet, a tragedy play written by Shakespeare. The play Hamlet is about the ghost of the King of Denmark who was murdered by his brother. The play follows Hamlet, the kings son, to meet the ghost of his father.. His father tells Hamlet that Hamlet’s uncle killed him and that he wants him to murder his uncle out of the love he has for him.. Ever since Hamlet’s dad died, het has been deemed as crazy by society.
The people who surround him, including his closest friends and his family, all call Hamlet crazy after experiencing his fathers death. It shocked me to see this lack of awareness happening in this play. Hamlet’s friends and family ridicule Hamlet, days after his fathers death.
Of course after Hamlet’s fathers death, Hamlet does start to behave oddly. He would talk in tangents, and sing songs that didn’t make sense. When his friends and family saw him behaving this type of way, they started to ridicule him and call him crazy. They thought he was acting foolish for no reason. They begin to isolate him away from his close ones all because he was behaving crazy.
After reading this play, I felt a great deal of sadness. Hamlet was misunderstood and neglected. Once his father died, no one gave him any type of support. He was on his own. He was being treated as an outsider. Once Hamlet started to act differently than society would, he was even more isolated. Hamlet’s family was even going to send him away to England to “act better”. Hamlet was never crazy; he was grieving. This play shows how grieving in society has a deadline. There are expectations of grief. Hamlet was basically told to get over it on multiple occasions. In retrospect, one can’t get over the death of a loved one. It is okay to grieve and there’s no rules behind it. Grief doesn’t have a timeline. Grief is a way to remember your loved ones.