著者

中村 裕英

出版者

広島大学文学部

雑誌

広島大学文学部紀要 (ISSN:04375564)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.44, pp.p176-198, 1984-12

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The audience feels an incompatibility between Hamlet as he is before and as he is after pursuing the task of revenge given to him by the Ghost of his father. But this incompatibility disappears at the end of the play. The incompatibility felt on the part of the audience seems to shed light on the revenge theme in Hamlet. Revenge is, essentially, treated as something that seizes the revenger and that perverts the mind of the revenger. The theme has its variation in the case of Laertes, who, among the three sons trying to revenge themselves because of their father's deaths, changes from an honourable man to a horrible avenger. Hamlet could escape from taking the hideous path of the avenger by the work of "divinity" or "providence". This is why the audience feels an incompatibility in the middle of the play and does not feel it when the hero no longer pursues his revenge personally in the fifth act, where he is to acquire the higher recognition that surpasses the futile world of "an eye for an eye".