Hamlet †What Makes Polonius Indispensable? :: GCSE English Literature Coursework

Hamlet What Makes Polonius Indispensable? Polonius, father to Laertes and Ophelia in the Shakespearean tragedy Hamlet, is vitally important to this play. Without his involvement there would be something seriously lacking. Let us dwell on the lord chamberlain in this essay. In Tragic Alphabet Lawrence Danson explains Polonius employ of lie-detector acting For the lie-detector use of acting is one we see much of in Hamlet, and though it shares certain characteristics with Hamlets use of acting, it is decisively not the same. Polonius is the abundant master of it of using, that is, the indirection or downright falseness of acting to discover a truth. Polonius was in his time an amateur actor himself appropriately, he played Caesar and was killed in the capitol. unless we now see Polonius either as a theater critic (and it is a flat sort of criticism he practices, multiplying rigid categories while demanding that he be kept entertained), or as a director of Laertes, Reynaldo, O phelia, Gertrude. To each he recommends the use of seeming in the case of Laertes it is to be nothing brusk of a life-style, but with the others it is specifically a means for getting at a hidden truth. (83) In the Introduction to Twentieth Century Interpretations of Hamlet, David Bevington presents Polonius as corresponding to Hamlet in various ways Polonius, his Hamlets seeming opposite in so many ways, is, like Hamlet, an inveterate punster. To whom else but Polonius should Hamlet direct the trounce of Words, words, words? The aged counselor recalls that in his youth he suffered much extremity for love, very near this, and he has been an actor at the university. Polonius too has advice for the players Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. When Hamlet jibes at so capital a calf enacting Julius Caesar, killed in the Capitol, he reinforces the parallel to his own playacting and anticipates the capital punishment of Polonius behind the arras. (4) Polonius entry in to the play occurs at the social get-together of the royal court. Claudius has already been crowned Queen Gertrude is there Hamlet is present in the black fit out of mourning. When Laertes approaches Claudius to give his farewell before returning to school, the king asks Polonius Have you your fathers leave? What says Polonius? And the father dutifully answers