Laertes and Fortinbras serve as significant foils to Hamlet, contrasting his character and illuminating key themes throughout Shakespeare's play "Hamlet." Their actions, motivations, and responses to their respective situations highlight Hamlet’s complexities regarding duty, action, and sanity.
Laertes
Traits Highlighted in Hamlet: Laertes is impulsive and quick to action, especially after the death of his father, Polonius. His determination to avenge his father’s death starkly contrasts Hamlet’s philosophical and contemplative nature. While Laertes immediately seeks revenge against Hamlet, whom he blames for his father's demise, Hamlet grapples with moral quandaries and the implications of his own quest for vengeance.
Themes:
- Advice and Duty: Laertes embodies the notion of following duty with a sense of immediacy. Upon receiving advice from his father, Polonius, and his sister, Ophelia, Laertes acts out of a strong sense of familial loyalty without hesitation. His straightforward adherence to his duty amplifies Hamlet's internal struggles with his own sense of duty to avenge King Hamlet's murder.
- Action vs. Inaction: Laertes's decisiveness emphasizes Hamlet's hesitance. Where Laertes represents action, Hamlet represents a philosophical contemplation that leads to paralysis. This contrast illustrates Hamlet’s struggle to act on his feelings and beliefs, ultimately making him more relatable in his inaction.
- Sanity vs. Madness: Laertes's emotional turmoil after Polonius's death showcases a different kind of madness—one spurred by grief and anger. His willingness to plot against Hamlet demonstrates that madness can stem from both external events and one's responses to them, contrasting Hamlet's complex façade of madness that serves as both a strategy and a response to his existential struggles.
Fortinbras
Traits Highlighted in Hamlet: Fortinbras's character represents the traits of decisiveness and ambition. His willingness to reclaim his father’s lost lands and honor in Norway contrasts Hamlet’s inaction in avenging his father’s murder. Fortinbras’s ability to mobilize and take decisive action—even for relatively trivial land—forces Hamlet to reflect on his own failures to act decisively in a far more significant moral and personal context.
Themes:
- Advice and Duty: Fortinbras is portrayed as a character who follows a clear sense of duty without the moral complexities that plague Hamlet. His determination to restore his father's honor and his willingness to fight for it underscores the theme of duty as a noble cause. Hamlet’s awareness of Fortinbras’s actions serves to critique his own procrastination and the hesitance stemming from the burden of moral responsibility.
- Action vs. Inaction: Fortinbras exemplifies the effectiveness of action in achieving one's objectives. While Hamlet is concerned with the ethics and implications of killing Claudius, Fortinbras’s single-minded focus on his goal provides a stark comparison, highlighting Hamlet's philosophical debates and procrastination.
- Sanity vs. Madness: Fortinbras’s rationality and clarity of purpose emphasize Hamlet’s struggle with sanity. Hamlet often questions his own sanity amidst feelings of confusion, madness, and despair, while Fortinbras maintains a clear head and sense of direction. This difference raises questions about the foundations of real madness versus the madness of circumstance and introspection, bringing depth to Hamlet’s character arc.
Conclusion
Through Laertes and Fortinbras, Shakespeare presents contrasting perspectives that serve to illuminate Hamlet's character and the thematic elements of duty, action versus inaction, and sanity versus madness. Laertes’s emotional impulsiveness and Fortinbras’s straightforward ambition highlight Hamlet’s intricate psychological landscape, ultimately deepening the tragedy of his character, his inaction, and his struggle in a chaotic world. These foils not only enrich the narrative but also invite the audience to reflect on the consequences of action, the responsibilities of duty, and the nature of madness.
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