![]() ![]() Because of this, his mind is in one of the most delicate states a Shakespearean protagonist has ever experienced, and following the crime, it begins to fall to pieces entirely. His panic to ensure that the throne remains hiseven causes him to kill someone he once considered a friend. He is pushed along by both the prophecy that proclaims him king and his determined wife’s goading, yet held back by his own conscience. Macbeth is tormented by the power of his own ambition clashing with his embedded morals that condemn acts of regicide. Moorman notes that “A ghost is demanded in Macbeth by virtue of the peculiar constitution of the ghost-seer’s mind” (195-96), echoing the idea that in this tragedy, a ghost’s presence is indicative of Macbeth’s mental state. In Macbeth, ghosts and apparitions are central to the title character’s development. In Hamlet, Hamlet’s famous soliloquys play the most salient role in disclosing his thoughts especially towards the end of the play when he is troubled more and more over his delay in killing his uncle, his deliberative asides become frequent and quite revealing. In Julius Caesar, we learn the most about Brutus through his interactions with others, particularly through his arguments with Cassius earlier in the play. While these figures, as previously discussed, do make appearances in Julius Caesar and Hamlet, there are more obvious ways in which we learn about the characters’ mental states. These elements of the supernatural, however, do not figure as prominently into these early plays as they eventually do in Macbeth.Shakespeare’s use of ghosts and apparitions progresses over time. We didn’t learn of these, though, until the ghost appeared-King Hamlet’s ghost serves as a driving force, revealing Hamlet’s troubled thoughts and transforming them into actions that will ultimately lead to his downfall. 40), confirming the notion that he’d had his suspicions long before they were confirmed. Upon hearing the truth, Hamlet’s first words are “Oh, my prophetic soul!” (I. Something similar occurs in Hamlet, when the ghost of Hamlet’s father appears to confirm what the young prince has suspected all along: that his father’s death was a murder, and that someone very close to him-Claudius-was responsible. Though we never explicitly hear Brutus’s thoughts in this scene, his conversation with the spirit makes it clear that he is anxious about facing the consequences of his actions. Moorman makes the important point that “the spirit of Caesar is the embodiment of Brutus’s sense of the failure and impending ruin of his cause” (195). Before he murdered his leader, Brutus had misgivings about his actions now, these misgivings have escalated. ![]() The ghost of Caesar appears to Brutus in Julius Caesar and declares to him that they will meet again at Philippi, the site of the battle at the end of the play in which Brutus dies. In Shakespeare’s earlier tragedies, Julius Caesar and Hamlet, ghosts of deceased figures that played an important role in the protagonists’ pasts return to them, and in both cases, serve as a manifestation of their inner turmoil. Though the ghosts, apparitions, and hallucinations in these tragedies always serve as an inside glimpse into a character’s mental state, they do this mostprominently in Macbeth. From Julius Caesar, where the ghost of Caesar has a brief interaction with Brutus, through Hamlet, where King Hamlet returns to his son to reveal the truth, and finally to Macbeth, where spectral images torment the ambitious king to insanity, Shakespeare continuously develops his use of the supernatural as an important method of characterization. In some instances, Shakespeare chooses pensive soliloquys to relay the inner workings of a character in others, he chooses otherworldly hallucinations. Rather than merely to delight his readers, though, Shakespeare incorporates ghosts and apparitions into his plays to serve a very specific purpose in the advancement of the story. Supernatural elements in any story intrigue, thrill, and capture the attention of readers, adding an extra dimension to the text and performance.
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