Summary
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Hamlet: The Archetypal Three-Part Quest
Essentially, the entire plot of Hamlet embodies the archetypal quest, containing an inciting factor, trials and tribulations, and some form of resolution. In the case of Hamlet, Prince Hamlet is on a quest to avenge the death of his father, King Hamlet. The inciting factor of his journey occurs when Hamlet encounters his father's ghost who tells him that Hamlet's uncle Claudius, who has recently married King Hamlet's wife and assumed the throne, is responsible for his murder. From there, Hamlet experiences many trials and tribulations as he questions the truth of the ghost's accusations and battles inaction. The resolution to the conflict occurs at the end when Hamlet does avenge his father's death by killing Claudius; however, Hamlet, his mother, and Laertes all die in the process. Though Hamlet dies, he completes his quest for revenge nonetheless.
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How do Rosencrantz and Guildenstern contribute to Shakespeare's play?The two main characters of Stoppard's play are actually minor characters in the original Hamlet. In Shakespeare's play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Hamlet's friends from Wittenberg, come to Elsinore by request of Claudius and Gertrude to discover the source of Hamlet's apparent madness. Gertrude and Claudius use their names interchangeably, as if their individual identities are insignificant to their characters. Hamlet sees through their efforts and eventually orders that they be killed. At the end of the play, after the final murder scene, an English ambassador enters and announces that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead, the premise of Stoppard's play. The announcement of their death happens after the deaths of almost all other characters, reinforcing the insignificance of their minor roles.
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