Death and Skull

In Act V Scene I of Hamlet we see the appearance of two very important objects that have a great effect on Hamlet's mental reasoning. I am referring to Yorick's Skull and Ophelia's corpse in Act V Scene I. In this scene, Hamlet is exposed to two lifeless bodies that make him value the unavoidability of death. Throughout the whole play, Hamlet deals with the inner conflict about whether he should or should not kill his uncle and avenge his father's death. Most of the play is made up of Hamlet's long intricate soliloquies in which he expresses his thoughts towards death. Watching David Tennant's version and reading the play, I feel that it is not until this part of the play where Hamlet sees and interacts with Yorick's and Ophelia's dead bodies that heactually decides that he must do something in order to avenge his father. The corpses instigate a certain change in Hamlet's mind and remind Hamlet of the frailty of life. It is because of this that I am convinced that if Hamlet had not been exposed to these emotionally upsetting stimuli, then he would have probably not been able to so aptly kill his uncle.

Philip H. Calderon. The Young Lord Hamlet, 1868.

I found this work very interesting because it depicts Hamlet as a young child. In the highly imaginative scene, Hamlet is actually riding on the back of Yorick. This helps us imagine the relationship that Yorick and Hamlet had and how the encounter with his skull may have affected Hamlet emotionally