Revenge. Revenge causes one to act blindly through anger, rather than through reason. It is based on the principle of an eye for an eye, but this principle is not always an intelligent theory to live by. Young Fortinbras, Laertes, and Hamlet were all looking to avenge the deaths of their fathers. They all acted on emotion, and this led to the downfall of two, and the rise to power of one. Since the Heads of the three major families were each murdered, the eldest sons of these families swore vengeance, and two of the three sons died while exacting their acts of vengeance, revenge is a major theme in the Tragedy of Hamlet.
             William Shakespeare is the world renown author, poet, actor, playwright, director, producer, and theatre owner who composed in Elizabethan England. He wrote 37 plays, produced the majority of his sonners in the 1590s, and shared with others ownership in theatre, the most well known being The Globe. Critics belive Macbeth wsa written specifically for King James I, the first Stuart king of Englang who was also James VI of Scotland. It is one of four of Shakespeare's "dark" tragedies that include Lear, Othello, and Hamlet.
             On a dark winter night, a ghost walks the ramparts of Ellsinore Castle in Denmark. Discovered first by a pair of watchmen, then by the scholar Horatio, the ghost resembles the recently deceased King Hamlet, whose brother Claudius has inherited the throne and married the dead king's widow, Queen Gertrude. When Horatio and the watchmen bring Prince Hamlet, the son of Gertrude and the dead king, to see the ghost, it speaks to him, declaring ominously that it is indeed his father's spirit, and that he was murdered by none other than Claudius. Ordering Hamlet to seek revenge upon the man who usurped his throne and married his wife, the ghost disappears with the coming of dawn.
             Prince Hamlet devotes himself to avenging his father's death, but, because he is contemplative and thoughtful by nature, ...