Danish Society in Hamlet

understand Denmark and Danish society happens in scene 4 of act 1 when the king carouses the streets as part of Danish custom. Here, being a man of the higher court and also being a man, he denies any love for her and asks that she not marry him and join a convent instead. Hence, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Hamlet, not only a literary masterpiece constructed by the theatrical mind of William Shakespeare, but also a historical work that documents the social interaction and society of the Danish kingdom. When Hamlet’s love for Ophelia appears to be a sham to the King, he decides to send Hamlet to England – another tool of the court used to exile men of unlike thought and manner. The play itself begins by stressing the themes of treason, murder, and incest – something the King was aware of, and obviously a common problem within kingdoms due to rivalry and power struggles. The king is not questioned, rather greeted and unquestioned about the death of the old king.

In act 3, scene 1, Hamlet declaims the monologue, “To be or not to be,” and is stopped by Ophelia.

The play in act 3, scene 2, that Hamlet formulated to expose the King is also a tool formulated by Shakespeare to express Danish society. This shows that, even though European cultures are unlike, struggles for power are common and in fact, the nature of man. Hamlet’s subsequent soliloquy at the end of this scene, after the banquet, establishes his melancholy and desperation over his father’s death, and also shows the importance of religion and sin when Hamlet questions suicide and its status as a sin. When the carousing begins and the trumpets are blown, the ghost of the dead King appears again, to show the tragedy of a Danish custom improperly used. ”

Danish society reflects itself in the initial banquet of the King in scene 2 of act 1. The Queen, knowing her court’s Danish customs, accepts the marriage of the King with very little expressive remorse because it may come across as treason in Danish society.