Something and Nothing in Shakespeares Hamlet Essay

Can nothing be something? Or can something turn into nothing? Shakespeare would have the reader believe both are possible. A person can be something and nothing as exemplified when Ophelia asks Hamlet What is my Lord? and Hamlet replies Nothing.(3.2. 109,111) Shakespeare uses nothing multifariously in his tragic play Hamlet. Nothing becomes a way for the reader to draw parallels between Young Hamlet, and his slain father. Young Hamlets use of the word nothing, consistently borders on the realm of something. Still, nothing is more than a mere lack of something, nothing is the catalyst that enables the reader to see the coalescency that exists between Hamlet, and his father. The first mention of†¦show more content†¦What would he do Had he the motive and the cue for passion That I have? (2.2.533-9) Nothing suggests insignificance, and Shakespeare prompts the audience to remember Hecuba is fiction and unreality, merely a character. Young Hamlet becomes an actor, playing an actor, playing a character. Thus, the preceding scene turns Young Hamlet into a traverse between reality, unreality, and performer and audience. By speaking of his own position as to motive and cue, Young Hamlet brings himself to the same level as Hecuba. Young Hamlet is a character; he is a nothing. When King Hamlets appears to Young Hamlet for the second time, Young Hamlet identifies the ghost as nothing. Queen: To whom do you speak thus? Hamlet: Do you see nothing there? Queen : Nothing at all, yet all that is I see. Hamlet: Nor do you nothing hear? Queen : No, nothing but ourselves. Hamlet: Why, look you here. Look how it steals away. My father, in his habit as he lived. Look where he goes even now out at the portal. Exit GHOST (3.4.122-7) Even if the real ghost is not in the room, the ghost becomes a nothing. 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