I accept that he is very smart because he knows how to play or to manipulates people around. For instance, he set Ophelia up in order to Polonius. However, the behavior is very childish. I keep on believing if someone kills my father, it will be between me and the murderer, I will not be using tricks which will cause others to lose their life. So Hamlet's friend childhood are not died because the king and queen use them against Hamlet. A king and a queen with all of their power is not someone that you can say No to. Which means, if Hamlet was not acting crazy, Claudius and queen wont have them like.

So Hamlet being a tragedy, the audience already know that this is a play in which the fate of the hero is set. In other words, all action or reaction is a build-up made leading to a dramatic end of the story. Moreover, sometimes because of dramatic irony tricks, tragedy is the most captivated play where the audience will keep on watching although they already know how everything is going to end.

I really don't understand what Shakespeare is trying to suggestion by the character of the ghost in the play. It seems that it is to establish a difference between the ancient Greek period to the Romantic period people belief. During ancient Greek, it was all about the gods such as Athena, Zeus, Aphrodite, etc.. I am pretty sure, in Greek literature, instead of Hamlet father's spirit, he will be visited by Erinyes who the god of revenge. So, maybe we wouldn't see all of the Hamlet hesitations to take some actions.

The whole thing about acting crazy his childish. Someone kills your father, so you have to take some great and logical steps to revenge him if it is what you looking for. But you don't do anything that can put the life of others in danger. The behavior of Hamlet is the cause of so much many people die, especially his childhood friends. We can always think that his two friends were not loyal to him etc... However, the truth is if Hamlet was not acting crazy, the king and queen won't use them to know what was in his Hamlet's mind to the point where they try to use them to kill Hamlet.

Hamlet has always known how to hide his feeling, or what is in his mind. That exactly what brought the story to the first place. Even in this conversation with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern he was not open his heart to him. It was his tricks to discover the reason behind them coming to talk to him.

Yes, Eken! This is a capital point in the story. Hamlet hesitates take action when he has to. In (2 act 2, page 695 and 670) we see him wondering whether or not he has to follow what his father spirit told him after already playing everyone as fools and prepare the play's actors. Those are the thoughts that he should have had before putting in effect his plan. Hamlet doesn't understand that sometime there is no turning back. So when you're in, you're in for real!

This is so true and I am always wondering why Shakespeare have to bring the readers to words' questioning in order for them to understand certain information. A great example has to do with his use of "Fishmonger" which mean fish seller. I have to take a great pause when I first meet with this word. Right there, I have to go through different process until that I come to understand that it was his way to fool Polonius who came talking on the behalf of the king and queen. So he want them to really understand throughout Polonius that he is really crazy. Also the other meaning of the word "Fishmonger" was to tell Polonius that he is a pimp, so his daughter has stopped talking to Hamlet because of him.

Hey Paola, this is really great the way that you go through the story to make readers understand your thesis. Homer really showed for all or any wrongdoing of man, followed some consequences. Some of the example that you give to support your ideas were clearly stated with the respective page and lines of the book so that we can follow your food steps with the story. Now if we can all understand that Zeus punished Odysseus by making it hard for him to go back to Ithaca, I am wondering where did the gods or Zeus stand in the case of Penelope who was waiting for faithfully, suffering hardly, dealing with all of the annoying suitors in her house? What kind of mistakes that Penelope herself had made for her to be punished or suffer the way Homer presents it?

Greatly described! The Odysseus book really presents a time period that is unique in the history of men kind. No strong law, no justice system; it is a society where people simply practice an eye for eye sort solution. For such society and as the Odysseus story goes along, it is not strange to see the one who has more is always right. For instance, just like you mentioned in the story of the book nine, Odysseus reaching Cicones with his men, he says “ I pillaged the town and killed the men. The women and treasure that we took out I divided as fairly as I could among all hands” ( Lines 43-45 ). Therefore, he finds wrong and decides to kill all suitors because they were eating his house, slept with his women, and tried to marry the queens when the suitors didn’t even know that he was alive.

Mario Altenor Prof: Jeff Peer Subject: English 2800 Date: 3/5/2018

According to Homer, the relation between the gods (immortals) and the mortals represent the mainstream during the ancient Greek time. The sky, the sea, love, sex, or war, all obey to the will of a god who has strong power over the happiness or sadness of the mortals. As I want to agree that the mortals need to follow certain steps to gain the grace of the gods, I also agree that they have to sometime blame the gods for their troubles. Specially in the case Penelope, the righteous, who was suffering and waiting for her husband Odysseus faithfully while the god prevented him from reaching Ithaca after the Troy war. For such a punishment, where Homer doesn't present in the book any reason to support so, she reclaims death instead of giving up on her heart to marry one of the suitors. It begins: So may the Olympians blot me out, Or Artemis, in her tall headdress, shoot me, That I may pass beneath the hateful hearth With Odysseus in my mind's eye, never To gratify the heart of a lesser man (569, Line 85-89). By this deprivation, Penelope suffering finds its source from the fact the goddess uses their divine beauty power to trap men, Zeus didn't protect the mortals, and women don't have a great value to the eye of the gods.

One of the biggest tools that a goddess has to trap a man is her beauty. It is what makes a human understand that they are not possessed. I mean, the physical appearance of the goddess is so real; this always gives their passion a reason to keep on growing no matter what. "But if you had any idea of all the pain/You're destined to suffer before you getting home,/You'd stay here with me, deathless/Think of it, Odysseus! - no matter how much/You missed your wife and wanted to see her again./You spend all your daylight hour yearning for her./I don't mind saying she's not my equal/In beauty, no matter how you measure it./Mortal beauty cannot compared with immortal." Calypso comparing herself to Penelope is a sense of selfishness that I discover about many gods. Could she realize also that as an immortal, she can have any other man she wants. I mean, a man who doesn't have a family waiting for him. Another example of selfishness of the goddess has to do with Helene, the wife of the king Menelaus. Aphrodite doesn't skip to make her betray her king whom she is really loves. "Aphrodite gave me when she led me away/From my native land, leaving my dear child,/ My bridal chamber, and my husband,/ A man who lacked nothing in wisdom or look (371, Line 280 - 285)." The gods take control of human free will, and they destroy her soon or later if you try opposite Through this book named Odysseus, a Greek hero was away from his son and his wife and kept captive in a goddess island for almost 20 years against his will. However, it is not clear to me that Zeus was not aware of Odysseus hardship to reach Ithaca where his wife lives after the Troy's war. "But it's Odysseus that I am worried about,/That discerning, ill-fated man. He's suffered/So long, separated from his dear ones/On an island that lies the center of the sea,/A wooded isle that is home to a goddess,/The daughter of Atlas, whose dread min knows/All the depths of the sea and who support/The tall pillars that keeps earth and heaven apart (333, Line 53-60). Knowing who Zeus is and the power that he has on all the mortals and immortal, I feel that this is very weak. I see a complete unbalance about his power. First, Agamemnon was able to come back even his wife was not expecting him because she had already fell in love with someone. Second, Menelaus also was able to come back to his kingdom when Helene had betrayed him with one of the Troy princes. They both come back and become happy lovers. However, Penelope who was a faithful queen was not capable to get the same privilege. Another Zeus' unbalance of power can be seen on the antagonism relationship between the god of the sea and Odysseus. "How could I forget godlike Odysseus?/No other mortal has a mind like his, or offers/Sacrifices like him to the deathless gods in heaven./But Poseidon is stiff and cold with anger/Because Odysseus blinded his son, Cyclopes/ Polyphemus, the strongest of all the cyclopes,/Nearly a god (334, Line 71-77)." Odysseus offers as much as sacrifices to the gods as he should do. Wouldn't it make more sense to assume the Olympians don't have some consideration for women's happiness?

Regardless a mortal or an immortal, women don't have a great value to the eye of the gods. They are easily targeted or hurt by the god whether they are right or wrong. "Your gods are the most jealous bastard in the universe - /Persecuting any goddess who ever openly takes/A mortal lover to her bed and sleeps with him./When Dawn caressed Orion with her rosy fingers,/You celestial layabouts gave her nothing but troubles/Until Artemis finally shot him on Ortygia - (388, Line118-123)." Homer demonstrates a problem of double standard in the ancient Greek society. The women….