Is Hamlet powerless against his destiny?
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Indeed he is the opposite of powerless. His famous soliloquy (To be or not to be...) is all about how he is torn over what action to take next against Claudius.\n\nHamlet creates his own destiny by carefully choosing his actions. Examples: hiring the players to perform his play, choosing to not kill Claudius during Confession, stabbing the figure who turned out to be Polonius. Some scholars argue that Hamlet even pretended to be mad rather than actually being crazy.
1187481
People are born believing they're the centre of the universe. Everything that happens is judged as good or bad from a self-centred viewpoint. Sure we all want to see good things in the world, but effort is bad, so if it takes effort to counter somebody else's evil & it doesn't directly affect you, why bother? It's possible to remain in denial until the world kills you as an "innocent victim", and life will seem easy. As Shakespeare so aptly put it through Hamlet\n"To be, or not to be, that is the question. \nWhether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, \nOr to take arms against a sea of troubles\nAnd by opposing, end them...."\n\nOf course we've all been brought up not to interfere, to give in to anything so that others' peace isn't destroyed, so we don't risk our own lives or disrupt their rest as they wait for the destruction of the world. \n\nThe real question is, do we want to be or not to be something? If so, it involves effort, fighting against apathy, others getting upset at us, risking losing our lives & all we care about sooner than we might if we did nothing. If we just let it happen, that's a recipe for certain anihilation, if we do something, then there's only a 99.999% chance of anihilation.
873818
The question is asking what two things made Macbeth realize that he is human and might possibly lose the battle (battle for the throne, his mind, and the actual physical battle) and even die. During most of the play he thought he was unstoppable or rather, invincible. Invincible means that he cannot be conquered. \n\nAfter Macbeth completes the murder of Duncan, he is paralyzed with the inability to cope with his actions. He cannot accept what he has done and is filled with tragic guilt, sleeplessness, and haunting images of his own fate. The fight of good versus evil is fierce within him throughout the entire play. He suffers great despair and a complete loss of joy in his life once he realizes the enormity of murdering someone. Other factors might include the tide of the battle tipping against the castle, the fall of the castle without a struggle, the nature of Macduff's birth (cesarian or not born of a woman as the Weird Sisters said), or the wicked truth about the witches' words. \nhttp://www.classbrain.com/artaskcb/publish/article_137.shtml\n\nI didn't thumb down anything.  I actually thought it was a good question.  so i hit the thumbs up thing
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Not necessarily pointless. Perhaps you have taken a dislike to Shakespeare's literature. It's okay to find it boring, but if it's an assignment try to focus. There is some meaning behind all these dialogues. If you have time study them and look deeper into the events taking place within the play itself. Shakespeare is a complicated, yet terrific writer.
111700
This was one of the pieces of "advice" Polonius gave to his son Laertes in Hamlet. The irony, of course, was that none of the advice was heeded by Polonius himself.
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First, I would have acted quickly.  Hamlet hems and haws and does basically nothing for a long time.  And that antic disposition?  What's the point of pretending you're insane?  What, really, did that buy him in the end?\n\nHere's what I would have done.\n\n1. I wouldn't have changed the way I acted--especially acting insane.\n2. I would have tried to verify what the ghost said.  Specifically, \na: Where was the uncle when Hamlet's father was killed?\nb: Where was the king's guards (the "Switzers" referred to when Laertes barges in on the king later in the play)\nc: Where might the uncle have found such poison?  (In Shakespeare's world this may not have been hard... Romeo sure finds poison easily enough)\n\nThe play Hamlet devises is a clever choice, but he more or less ruins the effectiveness of the play as a test by acting out during the performance.  It becomes impossible to tell wether Hamlet's uncle is reacting to the matter of the play (as Hamlet supposes) or to the bizare behavior of Hamlet himself.  Again, the antic disposition only brings Hamlet problems (and we are left to wonder whether it's all an act or if he really is insane).
600048
One of the reasons that Iago is considered among the greatest villians in Shakespeare, if not Western Literature, is his lack of any real motivation.  The SparksNotes page below does a nice job, however, of providing passages with insight into your question.  As there is no single answer you can use passages in the play to support many different thesis.
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Topic? Like a summary?\n\nHamlets father is killed by his uncle. His uncle becomes his stepdaddy. Hamlet wants revenge and to be the next king.\n\nHamlet is known for a lot of soliloquies. (My whole AP Lit Class could chose had to memorize their own) \n\nFor a research paper, choose one of the soliloquies and write about that, you should rewrite it in normal "speech" and research about the allusions used. There paper practically done.
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Nostradamus wrote coltrains (poetry) that was to have reflected many events from the future.  Human beings have interpreted his poetry to mean what is convenient for its time.  Did he actually predict anything at all?\n\nWith free will choice, the threads of history have been bent and knotted many times.  Predictions are only as good as having all the information and nothing changing over time and living.
289660
I would imagine it would have to be Shakespear. Even though I love other poets such as Edgar Allan Poe, Shakespears writtings have become more popular and widely distributed. I have no hard facts, but, I would imagine this to be true since so many allusions to his work come in so many movies and songs. Entire movies are made of his writtings. I could, however, be wrong since it is only my own mere speculation.
852677
The two main families, Montagues and Capulets, are the leading powers in the area. In the feudal system, in very basic terms, there is a strong class structure in which the leading classes control the land and therefore the lives of all the workers (also known as peasants or serfs). That's a very basic way of describing it, I'm sure any history professor would put it a better way. In the play, their desire to control their offspring (Romeo and Juliet) could be linked to their usual capability to control the people around them.\n\nI wouldn't quote me on this in an essay, I'm just thinking off the top of my head - could be a useful starting point.
749381
I don't think so.  It was Julius Caesar who was the dictator.
929466
Go to:  http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/hamlet/\n\nyour satisfaction is guaranteed.
592405
No one has power solely by their own hand.God allows some to have power but in an earth sense some although are confidants of the dark one and achieve power through wasting their years away pondering on how to become more powerful.This also is true with the rich they are never content with what they have they must always maintain a step ahead of what was once thought to be suitable in their gain.The fact is power is only obtain by to ways on this earth God or satan.I desire neither because as one answered there is great responsiblity attached to it.
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It's always seemed that way to me, anti-Semitism was quite common in Shakespeare's day, and nothing in his life or writings suggest that he was any kind of a social reformer.  He wrote what the people paying him wanted to hear because that was his job.  Almost none of what he wrote about Richard III was true, he was, after all, writing for the Grand-daughter of the man who usurped Richard's throne, just as Sir Thomas More, the originator of most of the mis-information, was writing for the man himself, but he told it so brilliantly that the play has eclipsed the facts.  Most performances of "Merchant of Venice" that I've seen show Shylock as an evil man getting his just deserts, it is the mark of Shakespeare's brilliance that it could be just as validly played other ways.  A truly great play doesn't have only one interpretation, I've seen both Lawrence Olivier and Derek Jacobi as Hamlet, the interpretations were total opposites and both worked, that is what the actor contributes.  Never forget, Shakespeare's plays were meant to be watched, not read, you never get the full effect any other way.  I used to live in London, and I've seen several performances by the Royal Shakespeare Company, all of them enriched my appreciation of the plays far beyond what I could get just reading.
1131307
Et tu' Brute? You can always start off with that and lead in to whatever you're going to talk about on him. What is your subject besides him. are you going to speak about his rule? His rise to power? The play by Shakespeare?\n\nHere's another lead-in. \n\nGeneral, polotician, god? Only one man in history could be all three. He rose to the power of a king in a republic, without violence to secure his rule. He then transformed that republic into an empire, one of the greatest empire's known to man. [No, this is not Emporer Palpatine, this is Julius Ceasar]*\n\n*Add this last part in only if you know your teacher is lax with things like this.....\n\n(Why does that look like it's describing Star Wars?)
634978
hindsight is 20/20 when dealing with his predicitons after his death...they are so vaugely written that practially anything could be related to them, like the predicitons of the "anti christs" supposedly napoleon, hitler & one yet to be revealed, they are still pretty vague.  Nobody knew at the time of hitler or napoleon that they were "anti christs" untill well after the fact... kind of defeates the purpose of "prophecy" but  but he did make some accurate predicitions that occured in his lifetime, he predicted the exact day & hour of his death, he predicted the date when his grave would be excavated, he predicted that his predictions would gain in populatity after his death, and he did predict the seating of at least one pope, and the death of at least one king in his lifetime... i am not a scholar on the subject.. i am sure there are more... but i am of the opinion that his quatrines (poem premonintons) were so prolific & so vague that you can find "prophecy" in them... but only after the fact...