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To Trust Or Not To Trust The Ghost In Shakespeare's Hamlet

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Throughout the play Hamlet most of the conflict comes from Hamlet's internal struggle of deciding whether he should trust the words and appearance of the ghost of his father. Just like a student trying to finish an essay, his procrastination has made him more eager to carry out the act but that dire obligation he so badly wants to fulfill can't be done without any sound proof that he strives to find. This comes to show Hamlet's inability to trust the Ghost because he didn't believe that the existence of the ghost of his father would be possible, he believed that the apparition might be a devil trying to lure him in to committing an unjustified act, and he needed to rely on Claudius’s reaction to the play to validate his trust with the Ghost. At the start of the play, Hamlet is awestruck and dubious about the Ghost because during his first meeting with the apparition, he was so stunned of the supernatural sighting that he felt skeptical if it was even possible for such an episode to happen. To point this out, Hamlet says, " Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death, Have burst their …show more content…

Therefore, he decides to depend on Claudius's reaction to the play to help him validate those words. To prove my point, Hamlet said, " I’ll have these players play something like the murder of my father before mine uncle. I’ll observe his looks. I’ll tent him to the quick. If he do blench, I know my course. Emphasizing on this, Hamlet is saying that he'll have the players play something of what the Ghost claimed about pouring poison in his ear "like the murder of my father" and then he'll observe his reaction for any signs of suspicions. If Claudius does indeed react in an apprehensive manner then Hamlet will know that he can trust the Ghost's words, otherwise he'll stay hesitant of doing

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