CHARACTERIZATION: Laertes and Hamlet
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Two Traits:
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Noble Hearted
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Honest
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Hamlet's Characteristics
Laertes' Characteristics
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Two Traits:
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Emotionally Unstable
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Predetermined Faith
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NOBLE HEARTED
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“But (till) that time/ I do receive your offered love like love/ And will not wrong it” (5.2.265-267). Most people would not accept any apology from the man that killed their father, Laertes shows here by accepting Hamlet’s offered love that he has a noble heart and that forgiveness for Hamlet is not out of the question.
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“My lord, I’ll hit him now./ And yet it is almost against my conscience” (5.2.322-324). Here Laertes shows just how badly he wants to kill Hamlet for killing his father and even wants to hit him while he is conferencing with his mother, but the nobleness in his heart keeps him from striking.
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“Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet./ Mine and my father’s death come not upon thee,/ Nor thine on me” (5.2.361-363). Here in his final moments of life Laertes realizes that everything bad that has happened so far up to this point has been Claudius’s fault, and so he shows his noble heart by forgiving Hamlet of killing his father and him.
HONESTY
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“I am satisfied in nature./ Whose motive in this case should stir me most/ To my revenge; but in terms of honor/ I stand aloof and will no reconcilement” (5.2.259-262). Here Laertes straight up tells Hamlet that he is satisfied with his apology but that an apology does not make it right and that he will try to get his revenge, here Laertes is both upfront and honest.
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"I do confess’t” (5.2.311). Here is not a big example of honesty but it is still important, during a duel of vengeance for Laertes he is still honest and admits to the judge that Hamlet did hit him instead of lying and trying to wound him again.
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“It is here, Hamlet. (Hamlet,) thou art slain./ No med’cine in the world can do thee good./ In thee there is not half an hour’s life./ The treacherous instrument is in thy (hand)” (5.2.344-347). Here Laertes comes clean with Hamlet and admits that he had been trying to kill him with a poisoned blade the whole time, in the end Laertes told the truth because he is an honest man.
Emotionally Unstable
Predetermined Faith
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“Now get you to my lady’s (chamber,) and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favor she must come. Make her laugh at that” (5.1.199-202). Here upon seeing the bones of a friend he once knew Hamlet goes a little mad with sadness and begins speaking to the skull, it shows that Hamlet’s sanity hangs on the edge of a knife and is heavily influenced by his emotions.
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“Woo’t weep, woo’t fight, woo’t fast, woo’t tear thyself/ Woo’t drink up eisel, eat a crocodile” (5.1.291-292). Here the reader is shown just how much Hamlet cared for Ophelia, which up until this point had been unclear. It shows that news of his death has driven him back into the mental state that he was in right after his father was killed
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“Here, thou incestuous, (murd’rous,) damned Dane,/ Drink off this potion. Is (thy union) here” (5.2.356-357). Here we are shown the last of Hamlet’s emotional instabillity when after learning that it was a poisoned cup and a poisoned blade killed both him, Laertes, and his mother he snapped and all thoughts of a swift vengeance left him, so in a fit of maddness he forced the king to drink and choke on his own poisoned wine.
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“If it be (now)’ tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it (will) come” (5.2.234-236). Here he’s basically saying only God knows when we will die and if that time is now then so be it.
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“Since no man of aught he leaves knows, what is’t to leave betimes? Let be” (5.2.237-238). Here he is saying that there is no point in worrying about when we die because only one person knows.
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“When our deep plots do pall; and that should larn us/ There’s a divinity that shapes our ends” (5.2.9-11). Here Hamlet again references that it is God’s will for us to live or die and that the actions and consequences of our actions are always shaped by a higher power.