Essay Hamlet's Foil

In his plays, William Shakespeare often adds antagonists in similar or opposite circumstances to display the problems of the main character. In his play “The tragedy of Hamlet” Shakespeare uses Young Fortinbras as Hamlet's foil, a secondary character that highlights various facets of the main characters´s characteristics. The presence of Fortinbras helps the audience understand Hamlet andidentify his virtues and defects.

Named as one of the best plays in English language, “The Tragedy of Hamlet” was written by William Shakespeare between 1599 and 1601. Shakespeare is known as the world´s greatest writer in the English language. During his lifetime, the arts flourished with the support of Queen Elizabeth I. In the Elizabethan era there was a huge demand for new entertainment, so manyauthors like Shakespeare started innovating the arts and displaying human emotions through male actors who played roles as females. Shakespeare became a member of the Lord Chamberlain´s Company, where he developed as a playwright and dramatist. Shakespeare produced many plays for the company incluiding his most familiar and recognized plays “Romeo and Juliet”, “Julius Caesar”, and “Hamlet”. Oneof Shakespeare's many positive characteristics is the variety of realistic characters that he succesfully created. He reflected his feelings and passion through his characters, and his emotions with vivid images.

A foil is a secondary character who contrasts with a major character. The presence of foils highlights the various facets of the main character´s personality, and emphasizes thesimilarities between the characters in order to easily appreciate their differences. William Shakespeare often includes these characters to compare and reveal the conflicts of the main character. “The tragedy of Hamlet” is not the exception; Shakespeare uses Young Fortinbras, the prince of Norway as a foil for Hamlet. Foils are used in plays so that the readers can be able to understand theprotagonist. In this play, the main character is Hamlet, the prince of Denmark, who appears as a weak, peaceful, and religious man. Hamlet possesses several foils in this play, including Laertes and Claudius, but the most appropiate for him is Young Fortinbras. It is important to start defining their own personalities, defects and virtues, so the audience can identify their differences.

Thesecharacters share two important characteristics; they are both sons of kings, and they both have the same desire, which is to avenge the deaths of their fathers. They are both guided by their emotions, and devise their plan to avenge their relatives. Shakespeare presents Young Fortinbras, the prince of Norway, as a strong, powerful, intelligent and strategic man. He shows a strong personality; he appearsas a wise person who takes coherent decisions and possesses the gift of leadership. His plan of avenging his father has two motives, avenge his father for loyalty, and feed his ambition. His major desire is to obtain money, weapons and territory. Through this character, the audience can perceive that Hamlet does not possess the ability to act as a king because of the intense contrast ofcharacter´s and attitudes, Young Fortinbras strong, and Hamlet weak with lack of leadership.

On the other hand, Shakespeare describes Hamlet as a person with a weak personality, as well as an insecure man when taking decisions, and at the same time religious and intelligent. “To be, or not to be” (pg 64), is the most important phrase in the entire play. It shows the insecurity of Hamlet, and one of thewell-known phrases of Shakespeare. The word that better describes Hamlet is THINKER; he is a thinker not a doer. Hamlet is unable to act quickly in avenging his father´s death due to his endless quest for the truth. He is not a natural killer that is why he is delayed in killing Claudius. “But in our circumstance and course of thought, '' ´Swounds, I should take it: for is cannot be but i am...