Shakespearean Paradigm of Villainies from Hamlet by Shakespeare and Locating Villainies in Modernity and Modern Politics
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53103/cjlls.v4i6.185Keywords:
Hamlet, Modernity, Modern Politics, Shakespeare, VillainiesAbstract
Hamlet by Shakespeare gives rise to discussion on Hamlet’s attitude to women, fulfillment of the readers’ expectation of justice, connection of Hamlet’s death with socio-moral values, impact of the pirate politics of the Elizabethan period on Hamlet, and Hamlet’s revenge maintaining morality. But there is an unexplored area of unearthing the nature of the villainies by Claudius and Gertrude to understand the Shakespearean paradigm of villainy and applying the paradigm to locate the villainies of the modern world. Thus, this study aims at exploring how, from the villainies of Claudius and Gertrude in Hamlet, Shakespeare constructs his paradigm of villainy and how, by applying the paradigm, villainies in modernity and modern politics can be located. To conduct this study, the approaches of moral criticism and New Humanism were utilized. The results show that ingratitude, vulgarity, chaos, amoral ambitions and their amoral means, and deceptions, as held by Claudius and Gertrude, construct the Shakespearean paradigm of villainy. By applying this paradigm, villainies have been identified in modernity and modern politics, especially that of the USA. The findings of the research may contribute to enlightening the readers by unmasking the intricate doings of evil both in Hamlet and the modern world.
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