The Lovely Destruction

The familial relationships throughout "Hamlet" lead to revenge and death. The family unit is so twisted and warped throughout "Hamlet", it is outrageous. Shakespeare has a brother killing his other brother to get at his wife, and two sons bent on revenging their father’s deaths. It seems as though none of the characters can trust one another, and eventually all of their scheming turns around and is their undoing. In "Hamlet", love is a direct path to destruction, and the presence of any type of devotion ultimately leads to death. It starts with Claudius, jealous of Hamlet Sr.’s marriage with Gertrude, deciding to murder the King. Because of Hamlet Sr.’s death, Hamlet turns against his mother and uncle out of fury and grief. Hamlet’s love for his father leads him on a path of destruction, and his grief from the loss of his father inadvertently sets off a chain reaction with all the other characters, causing them to fall to their doom. His love kills Polonius, which makes Laertes mad with grief. His love destroys Ophelia, first breaking her heart by “deflowering” her and then proceeding to drive her mad with the death of her father. It seems the only character unaffected by the entire tragic scheme is Horatio, who has no family connections in the play, and because of just being an onlooker, he is the only character left alive at the end of the novel. Perhaps Shakespeare is trying to highlight the problems love can cause once it turns around and becomes evil. Love breeds revenge and jealousy, which are both present in the play in familial relationships or other types of connections between the characters.