Part one of term paper
“What a piece of work is a man”. In this statement, Shakespeare through the words of Hamlet acknowledges man as a brilliant and complex creature. This inherit complexity may be the reason for Shakespeares use of foil characters. We can see examples of these foil characters in Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the form of Fortinbras, Laertes a ...

Part two of term paper
... Fortinbras and Laertes, is their murdered fathers. Hamlets father King Hamlet was killed by his brother Claudius, Fortinbras’s father was killed by King Hamlet during battle and Laertes father Polonius was slain by the hand of Hamlet. These three near identical situations give rise to three very different courses of action (or inaction). It is here that Laertes and Fortinbras display their true purpose in the play. If we first examine the acts of Fortinbras we can see numerous occasions ...