Bonus Blog - Phillip Vo

“Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”

As Horatio spoke these words I couldn’t help but feel genuine sadness. I have seen a lot of myself in Hamlet as we’ve read this work, not because of the family issues but because of his internal struggle that created external chaos. As he has constantly gone between speaking to the ghost and struggling with the feelings of anger and betrayal, he has now reached the moment where the king and queen die. I imagine he, as I sometimes do, was expecting a feeling of freedom, a righteous power that would overtake him, a pride. However, as we discover from reading, it is all but that. He is left with emptiness as he coddled it through the rest of the book. He drinks the cup of bitterness and dies. 

Yet Horatio’s words cut like a dagger. In the midst of the chaos and madness, Hamlet is called a man with a “noble heart… [a] sweet prince”. We see that he was fighting for what he believed to be the right cause, though many called him crazy. 

I’ve begun to notice that that is a recurring theme throughout a lot of these works. Luther called crazy for challenging the catholic church. Boethius is condemned to death for doing the right thing. Hamlet does what is right but dies in the end. 

The struggle for goodness is never easy, but it is always worth it. 

Thanks for coming to my TED talk. 

Commented on Kayla's (Only other post I see)