Hamlet Essay 2

Hamlet’s use of language has a great impact on the characters in the play. Beowulf has also had a great impact but not in the same way; Beowulf affects his characters through his actions. Hamlet’s use of language is through his soliloquies, through the power of his voice. Beowulf uses past knowledge such as beliefs we are trained to believe. Take the term “epic hero”, which instantly makes you think “good guy”. There are all these things expected from this one person, such as the greater good. But with Hamlet we learn who he is, what his character is like through his use of language.

Pride would be a key theme that helps explain the difference between Hamlet and Beowulf. Pride is something mostly seen in a typical male figure, but then came women’s rights and now men better respect the equality between genders. In the time era of these two plays though things were still biased. The idea of a hero might start off as humble; to help the greater good but as time passes the respect that others have for this hero grows which makes the hero feel superior; this would be Beowulf. Hamlet on the other hand is “only human”. Humans can be strong or weak, and Hamlet is a weak human. Weakness can be seen in flaws and Hamlet’s flaw is indecisiveness. Indecisiveness is seen in Hamlet’s soliloquy “to be or not to be”. Because of hamlet’s flaws, especially his indecisiveness, we are able to understand and relate to his life much more than Beowulf.

Beowulf is a hero and Hamlet is set to be the future king. This has great significance because even though they are both high in society they are nothing alike. Something with more value than a social status would be reputation. You could be royalty but if your reputation has everyone thinking you are crazy no one is going to want to follow you, on the contrary they would want to be rid of any type of problem that you would cause. Hamlet wasn’t crazy; he was going through a tough time trying to get past the tragic events from his father’s murder to his mother remarrying the murderer.   

Not only his use of language but Hamlet himself differentiates from epic heroes such as Beowulf because the reader can relate more easily with Hamlet than Beowulf.  Beowulf kills monsters and Hamlet tells us what he is feeling and thinking through his soliloquies of thoughts.