 The notion of revenge acts as the driving force in Hamlet. Indeed it is the appearance of the ghost to Hamlet and this ghost reveals to Hamlet that his father was killed by Claudius. This is what triggers the theme of revenge and of course also the series of steps that Hamlet takes that leads towards this tragic place ending. So the notion of revenge really is a driving force of display. This idea that Hamlet has to avenge his father's death okay and remember contextually especially during the Elizabethan order era even. The notion of avenging one's family protecting one's family's honor was something that was very central to men's identity okay especially more so if they belonged in the aristocracy. Honor killings and revenge killings were very common okay and this is something that is explored within this play and actually it's interesting that on the one hand Hamlet who has clear evidence that his uncle betrayed and killed his father he seems to procrastinate on this he seems to procrastinate on whether he should avenge his father and then when he decides he kind of starts and stops he sees Claudius praying so then he decides it's not a good time to kill and then when he finally you know carries out the notion of revenge and the act of revenge against his father this happens too late and he ends up successfully killing Claudius but also he dies in the process. Now Hamlet his approach to revenge is used in contrast to the approach of leiertes so this is Pelonius's son towards avenging and seeking revenge for his father's death but of course also Fortinbras a young Fortinbras whose dad was killed by King Hamlet this is Hamlet's own father okay so you could argue that leiertes and especially Fortinbras act as a foil to the character of Hamlet when we consider the theme of revenge both leiertes and Fortinbras are very quick to act they are driven by revenge they are driven by establishing the family honor and restoring the glory of their fathers by doing the killing themselves by seeking revenge themselves however on the other hand Hamlet isn't really driven by this actually he procrastinates he takes a bit of time with dilly dally's and then acts but he acts in a time that's way too late and ultimately he loses his own life okay so this theme is very very important it's a driving force of the play and hence if you're writing about it you need to be able to bear in mind certain quotations and as you can see behind me I've prepared the most relevant quotations when it comes to the theme of revenge as well as the word level analysis you can do when writing about this theme so let's begin with the first one now the first quotation is tied to the ghost of King Hamlet and this is when he reveals to Hamlet that his father died through Claudius's poisoning and the ghost calls Hamlet to avenge his murder okay he states revenge his foul and most unnatural murder and remember the words foul and unnatural belong to the semantic Lord of Evil remember the reason why it's even called unnatural is because at the time it was seen as acting against God if he killed the king remember that the king or any monarch at the time was a representation and a representative of God's will on earth so if you did go ahead and kill the king and you went against divine right of kings then this was seen as something that was unnatural because you're going directly against God now here of course this ties into the theme of revenge because essentially what this establishes from the opening of the play okay because it happens in act one this establishes the role and the duty that Hamlet has to avenge his father's spirit okay however Hamlet doesn't act quickly he doesn't act in according with what would be expected of Elizabethan men at this time during this era this idea of going and honoring a family by doing a revenge killing he doesn't do so he then decides okay I'm gonna faint an attic disposition he takes a long time before he finally avenges his father's death okay the second quotation tying in so now this is illustrating how whilst Hamlet when we you know see how he approaches this issue of revenge is very slow Liat he's on returning from Paris realises Hamlet had a hand in killing his father and he's quick he says I dare damnation ellipses I'll be revenge most thoroughly for my father so he's very quick at first he's really angry he wants to kill Claudius because he exploded somewhere behind it Claudius then tells him no no no it's Hamlet then he wants to seek out Hamlet and kill him okay so again as I mentioned the character of Liat he's stands as a foil to Hamlet remember a foil is a character another character that's used in contrast to the main character and what they do is they reveal the shortcomings of the main character okay so a foil is somebody that reveals the flaws in another character so going back to this when it comes to the theme of revenge Liat he's is a foil to Hamlet because whilst Hamlet is really slow he takes his time he wants to find out for sure that Claudius did this Liat he's quick to act I'm gonna kill him okay now this is illustrated in terms of word love analysis through the alliteration of D in dare damnation what this is illustrating is how angry Liat he's is he wants action he wants blood and also the alliteration of F in for and father okay so here we can see that Liat he's he is very quick to seek revenge the next rotation you could tie in is now what Hamlet says okay so when he finds out okay yep definitely my father was killed by Claudius he then says from this point forth my thoughts be bloody okay so here he's basically saying yep okay I'm gonna be turning my thoughts to killing the king okay I'm gonna be have nothing but bloody thoughts in my mind in terms of killing King Claudius now here he shows a willingness in order to avenge his father but of course whilst even if he says outright you know he says what he's expected to do as an Elizabethan man yes I'm going to avenge my father his actions don't necessarily match up okay and of course here the word love analysis you want to fix on is the alliteration of B and B bloody okay here we can see that Hamlet feels a real intense pressure to live up to the memory of his father and also to live up to the standards that are expected of men at this time which is seeking revenge for any wrong done against one's family member the next quotation tied into the theme of revenge is when Hamlet creeps up and Claudius he creeps up he creeps up when he's in the church and Claudius is praying and he sees Claudius he believes Claudius is praying but of course who then realizes the audience that Claudius isn't praying because he's too guilty okay however Hamlet sees him and says hmm now he's praying ellipses so he goes to heaven so I am revenge so he's basically saying hmm I think this guy's praying Claudius this guy I'm supposed to kill I have the perfect opportunity right here to kill him however he's praying and if he prays I might not be revenge okay so he's going to go directly to heaven okay so there was the idea at the time if somebody was praying and they were killed or if they were doing an act of service for God and they were killed during that act of service they would go directly to heaven now this can be interpreted again as Hamlet kind of procrastinating because he has this perfect opportunity to kill Claudius Claudius his back is to him he could have just stabbed him and done the job and committed this act of revenge however he says no I'm not going to kill him I'm going to withdraw and kill him at a later stage again here what this is illustrating is Hamlet is not very quick to seek out revenge even when it's irrefutable that his father was killed by Claudius okay so again going back to what I was saying this is in direct contrast clear he's just really quick to act and also for Timbrad this is the son of the previous king of Norway he was quick he wants to invade Denmark as quickly as possible in order to avenge his father's death okay the next and of course here before I move on to the next quotation the word level analysis you want to focus on is the words praying in heaven which belong to semantic field of religion so Hamlet is using this as an excuse not to kill Claudius the next quotation tying in to the theme of revenge is when Learty's of course returns he first initially thinks that it's Claudius that's behind his father's death however Claudius quickly convinces him no no no it's Hamlet that kills your father and then Claudius then sees this as a really good opportunity to get Hamlet killed because if he uses Learty's to kill Hamlet then that's great because he's killed two birds with one stone okay no pun intended now here Claudius to really encourage Learty's to do his duty to his father his family duty he says revenge should have no bounds okay and this is what we call declarative sentence remember declarative sentence is a sentence that states a fact feeling on mute now here Claudius is basically telling the Learty's not only is your duty is it your duty as you're silent to avenge your father and Hamlet has killed him but also you should never ever ever you know limit the extent of your revenge go and go the whole way kill Hamlet okay now the word of analysis you want to focus on here is the essence of oh and should no and bounds how also we could tie in what Hamlet later says on it within the play when he kind of reflects on how Claudius is really taken away from his family okay and again this is another reason why he should seek out revenge he reflects how stand I then that have a father killed a mother stained okay so how stand I then that have a father killed and a mother stained and here what he's basically saying is Claudius not only killed his dad but also stained his mother sexually okay so you know his mother remarrying Claudius is also another thing that Claudius did again that harmed Hamlet okay and again here what this is illustrating are the two major reasons that Hamlet is seeking revenge this idea that not only has Claudius harmed his father but he's also harmed his mother these are the two major reasons which probably for the other characters such as Learty and Fortinrod that would have pushed him quick to action however Hamlet procrastinated a little bit now the word love analysis you want to focus on here is the literation of tea and then that of course here we can see Hamlet's growing really angry but of course also the words father and mother which belong to semantic field of family we can see here his reasons for seeking revenge against Claudius however he doesn't take revenge quickly enough the final quotation this is tying into Fortenbrösser this is the son of the king of Norway who is again quick to act he wants to invade Denmark he's you know the threat of him Washington invade Denmark is there from the opening of the play okay so he is really quick to act he is gathering the troops he really wants to invade Denmark in order to avenge his father's death and we learned this when Horatio states young Fortenbrösser ellipsis half in the skirts of Norway ellipsis shocked a shanked-up list of lawless residents in other words what he is stating is we know reports that Fortenbrösser he really wants to avenge his father's death so he's getting all of these lawless convicts all of these people who are just you know they just want to go killing killing killing and he's getting them all together gathering his troops in order to come and start a war with us in order to avenge his father okay and again what this is illustrating is whilst Hamlet is very slow to avenge his own father Fortenbrösser is very quick he is a fall to Hamlet's character the one level answers you want to focus on is firstly the literation of El in list and lawless and also the verb shot okay so again here what we can see is that Fortenbrösser unlike Hamlet is very quick to act and to revenge the memory of his father so that's it when it comes to key quotations to bear in mind if you are talking about and writing about the theme of revenge in Hamlet thank you so much for listening