It is here, Hamlet: Hamlet, thou art slain;HAMLET
No medicine in the world can do thee good;
In thee there is not half an hour of life;
The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,
Unbated and envenom'd: the foul practise
Hath turn'd itself on me lo, here I lie,
Never to rise again: thy mother's poison'd:
I can no more: the king, the king's to blame....
Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane,LAERTES
Drink off this potion. Is thy union here?
Follow my mother.
KING CLAUDIUS dies
He is justly served;
It is a poison temper'd by himself.
Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet:
Mine and my father's death come not upon thee,
Nor thine on me. (Act V, Scene II)
The final scene of Hamlet is very intense and involves many sudden deaths and changes of heart. Laertes knew about the whole plan and was going along with it until he was stabbed with the poisoned blade and was dying along with Hamlet. Laertes seems to have a change of heart when the queen drinks poison meant for Hamlet and is killed by mistake. After mortally wounding Hamlet, he tells him "thou art slain," and warns him that he has "not a half hour of life" left. Laertes says that the blade had "turned itself on [him]" and suggests that his death is a type of karma. However, he is very quick to put all the blame for Gertrude's and Hamlet's deaths completely on Claudius.
Laertes is very quick to say that "the king's to blame," even though he himself had a large part in creating the plan. He even insisted that he wanted to be the one to kill Hamlet. When he actually does kill Hamlet and he himself is mortally wounded, he blames Claudius and immediately asks for Hamlet's forgiveness. The sudden and complete change of heart makes the audience wonder if his request for forgiveness is genuine or if he is simply trying to confess his sins and avoid going to Hell. Of course, when Hamlet hears that Claudius is to blame, he is enraged and kills him. Laertes responds by saying "he is justly served," which is really ironic because he was just helping Claudius plan to kill Hamlet only a couple scenes ago. Damn, Laertes, I'm getting whip-lash from how quickly you're changing your mind about things.
Perhaps Laertes does genuinely feel guilty about what he has done to Hamlet. He begs for forgiveness and his last words are to say "mine and my father's death come not upon thee, nor thine on me". Since the theme of the afterlife is very prevalent in this play, it makes a lot of sense that Laertes would be concerned about the fate of his soul after dying. This seems like a sort of last-ditch effort to save his soul before he dies. Hamlet responds "heaven make thee free of it," as a final way to forgive Laertes.
"Good night, sweet prince"
This is a really interesting post about the last scene. I like how you really analyze Laertes and how often he changes his mind in so little time, it makes the point much clearer that his true intentions are quite unclear to the reader and change depending on his circumstances. I think more word analysis could help here but other than that you did a really great job!
ReplyDeleteI think this is an intriguing insight into Laertes's character. I like that you return to recurring instance of characters fearing punishment in the afterlife. Do you think that this quick changing of sides is only characteristic of Laertes or something most people do to always be on the winning side? Interesting post!
ReplyDeleteI really like this point of view. It's one that I hadn't considered for Laertes, but I think it compliments Hamlet's own battles with morality. Your organization is clear and helpful, and your content is extremely insightful. My one suggestion might be to use a few more quotations from the text, but otherwise I think that this is a really interesting and well-constructed post.
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