A_Circus_Surrounded_By_Death

A Circus Surrounded By Death In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, he creates different scenes that contrast the previous scene. One of these contrasts occurs in 5.1, in the graveyard. The common reader has preconceived perceptions of a graveyard. Those opinions consist of mostly unpleasant thoughts and images. Before the graveyard, Shakespeare created a dramatic scene which consisted of Queen Gertrude telling Laertes that his sister, Ophelia had drowned. Gertrude says, “One woe doth tread upon another’s heel, / So fast they follow. Your sister’s drown’d Laertes” (4.7.163-164). Shakespeare has created a somber mood already which adds to 5.1 right off by talking about a graveyard. However, it is at this point that Shakespeare twists the play’s mood. Act five, scene one, opens with two “gravediggers” who are considered “clowns.” The purpose of these characters is to act as a comic relief. This is necessary after the tension of Ophelia’s death and the tone of most of the play. Just a few lines before, Queen Gertrude gave a very depressing image of Ophelia, “When down her weedy trophies and herself / Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide, / And mermaid-like awhile they bore her up” (4.7.174-176). Right after the reader reads this image, the hamlet, play, one, shakespeare, reader, scene, gravediggers, clown, skull, about, now, humor, graveyard, clowns, throws, might, little, laertes, just, gravedigger, comedy, burial, before, asks, after, two, sing, right, out, ophelia’s, once, moves, makes, make