The play develops several important themes, the major ones being DISEASE, CORRUPTION, REVENGE, PROCRASTINATION, MADNESS, and POISONING. The following is a set of notes on each of these topics. 1. DISEASE AND CORRUPTION Through Hamlet the character, the Shakespearean audience experiences the frustration and sadness of a state gone to ruin because of the evil conniving of Claudius. As for Hamlet himself, he suffers a lack of purpose and self-confidence that can't be rectified unless the …showed first 75 words of 3175 total…

…showed last 75 words of 3175 total…same time, however, he talks of how 'diseases desperate grown/ By desperate appliance are relieved' [IV.iii.9-10]. If this is true, why doesn't he realize that this judgement must be applied to his own soul as well? Perhaps Shakespeare is demonstrating for us, in the futile attempts of Claudius to make livable again his poisoned kingdom, the exact process of how punishment in Hell starts and works on the human mind. - F. McKen, 1986