Laertes’ Place in Shakespeares Hamlet :: GCSE English Literature Coursework

Laertes’ Place in Hamlet      Ã‚  Ã‚   A.C. Bradley depicts the Shakespearean characters of Laertes and Fortinbras in Hamlet as ones who throw into relief the character of the protagonist in Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth:    And secondly, we find among them two, Laertes and Fortinbras, who are evidently designed the throw the character of the hero into relief. Even in the situations there is a curious parallelism; for Fortinbras, like Hamlet, is the son of a king, lately dead, and succeeded by his brother; and Laertes, like Hamlet, has a father slain, and feels bound to avenge him. And with this parallelism in situation there is a strong contrast in character; for both Fortinbras and Laertes possess in abundance the very quality which the hero seems to lack, so that, as we read, we are tempted to exclaim that either of them would have accomplished Hamlet’s task in a day. (94)    The son of Polonius and brother of Ophelia, Laertes must suffer the demise of both father and sister during the course of Hamlet. Helen Gardner, by way of overview, compares Laertes to Hamlet and King Claudius in â€Å"Hamlet and the Tragedy of Revenge†:    Hamlet’s agony of mind and indecision are precisely the things which differentiate him from the smooth, swift plotter Claudius, and from the coarse, unthinking Laertes, ready to â€Å"dare damnation† and cut his enemy’s throat in a churchyard. (222)    Laertes makes his appearance in the drama after Marcellus, Barnardo and Horatio have already seen the Ghost and have trifled with it in an effort to prompt it to communicate with them. Horatio and Marcellus exit the ramparts of Elsinore intending to enlist the aid of Hamlet, who is dejected by the â€Å"o’erhasty marriage† to Hamlet I’s wife less than two month’s after the funeral of Hamlet’s father (Gordon 128). After this scene, Laertes is one of many in attendance at a post-coronation social gathering of the court at Elsinore. Laertes, like Fortinbras a rival of Hamlet (Kermode 1138), comes with his father, Polonius, who manipulates both him and his sister (Boklund 122).G. Wilson Knight says, â€Å"Instinctively the creatures of earth—Laertes, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, league themselves with Claudius: they are of his kind† (N. pag.). Claudius insincerely pays tribute to the memory of his own deceased brother, the former king, and then conducts some items of business, for example dispatching Cornelius and Voltemand to Norway to settle the Fortinbras affair.