The Dark Images Of Poison And Disease - 1324 Words

The dark images of poison and disease are portrayed throughout the story of Hamlet, and follower the corruption surrounding the recent and future events of the castle. The poison with which Claudius had murdered King Hamlet spreads in a sense throughout the country, until something is rotten in Denmark, as Marcellus notes (I.4.90). Shakespeare shades in words of sickness continually during the play, possibly helping best to exemplify the ill condition of matters plaguing not only Denmark, but the characters as well. Shakespeare immediately expresses the sense of cold and apathy in the opening scene. As the play opens in the cool, black night, Barnardo and Francisco are high atop the looming walls of Elsinore, keeping watch for the†¦show more content†¦Horatio believes that the vision of the haunting Ghost is a forewarning to Denmark, just as the pale, sick moon was to Rome an image of the ill events to come. Even future events are drearily portrayed to the reader, a sense of the power of Fortune. This force was also referred to earlier, in Hamlet s soliloquy of the slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune, going on to speak of being sicklied o er with the pale cast of thought (III.1.90), yet another image of disease. Still in the opening scenes of the play, even men outside of the country can sense the rotting inside. Scornfully, Claudius says Fortinbras thinks by our late dear brother s death, our state to be disjoint and out of frame (I.2.19-20), referring not only to the state s political confusion, but its sick state of health as well. He continues, and notes that the dying king of Norway is impotent and bedrid, and scarcely hears of his nephew s [Fortinbras] purpose (I.2.29-30) to attack Denmark. The universal illness besets all men regardless of their nationality; in particular, this idea of one not knowing about the hidden actions of another is reminiscent of the other plots in the play. The newly crowned villain, Claudius, later remarks Diseases desperate grown by desperate appliance are relieved, or not at all (IV.3.8), directly before the scene of Hamlet revealing the location of Polonius