The Fakeer of Jangheera by Henry Derozio

THE FAKEER OF JANGHEERA

                             -Henry Derozio

                   The Fakeer of Jungheera written by Henry Louis Vivian Derozio. Derozio wrote wonderful poems in English. “The Fakeer of Jungheera” is one of the most significant landmarks in the history of patriotic poetry in India. In his days Bengal faced many problems of caste and creed. The reassessment and inclusion of Derozio in the canon of Indian writing in English has to do with many factors. Like communism, religious aspects, colonial aspects.

                     “The Fakeer of Jungheera” is the masterpiece creation of Henry Derozio. In his poems, he deals with the theme of patriotism, of love, of nature, of death. The central theme of ‘The Fakeer of Jungheera’ is the ignoble and in human practice of ‘sati’ in the contemporary orthodox Indian society. This rotten system had been in vogue in the Indian society for centuries, and Derozio vehemently protested the ‘sati’ system both in his social life and in the classroom as a teacher at the Hindu college, Calcutta. He wrote this poem to highlight the issue. Derozio writes in it of various aspects of natural scenery, the evils of love which leads to confrontation at different levels. First the funeral pyre, and later when Nuleeni’s relatives, with the help of the Mughal army, try rescue her from the Fakeer a fierce battle goes on. The Fakeer fights bravely but is ultimately killed, in the battle field. Nuleeni joins him and dies in his embrace and their souls depart from this mundane world, bound by the considerations of customs and creed.

                             The Fakeer of Jungheera is a long narrative poem in two cantos, each running into about a thousand lines. Each canto, again, is divided into different metrical sections in various measures. This subject-matter in conventional because most of the epics, ballads and narratives deal with the subject of love, unsuitable marriage, separation by death, reunion with the former lover followed by the reaction of the society and relatives who rise in revolt to take revenge upon the person outraging the social norms.

                     The character of Fakeer is secondary to that of Nuleeni. It is Nuleeni who is at the center of the tragic tale. She is a figure of misery and a helpless, hapless, forlorn object of social religious regimentation. First of all there is the theme of social injustice. Dr. Jabir Jain also says, “at the thematic level the unifying idea is the suffering of women at the hands of society.”

                       The holy Ganga has religious and ritual association with her. She prompts the poet to write about the theme of religion which we get in the chorus of Brahmins and that of women. The theme of happy life after death achieved through the rite of sati has also been projected.

                    Instead of belaboring upon the misery of slavery, Derozio embarked upon a mission of resolving some of the inherent evils of Hindu society especially the practice of widow burning. In his notes on canto 1, Derozio criticizes the mistaken belief that the practice of Hindu widow burning examples “an act of unparalleled magnimity and devotion” and explains at length the problem of sati and his position on it, He writes,

                “The fact it, that so far from any display of enthusiastic affection, a suttee is a spectacle of misery, exciting in the spectator a melancholy reflection upon the tyranny of superstition and priest craft. The philanthropic (the practice of helping people in need) views of some individuals are directed to the abolition of widow burning; but they should first ensure the comfort of these unhappy women in their widowhood otherwise, instead of conferring a boon upon them, existence will be too many a drudge, and a load.”

                    Derozio approvingly quotes a writer from the Indian magazine and endorses the latter’s opinion that sati constitutes the most barbaric and degrading aspect of Indian society which can be overcome through education and intellectual development. During the 19^th century many upper caste Hindu women willfully committed sati mistakenly believing in the veracity of the Hindu ritual, an abominable act through a long process of socialization.

    Analysis of Fakeer poem:                        

                   The protagonist of the Fakeer poem is a robber Fakeer or a mendicant, who belongs to some unidentified Muslim sect, while the heroine, the widow Nuleeni, comes from an upper cast Bengali Hindu family. Derozio’s uses Christian imagery, such as heaven and juxtaposes it against the Hindu tradition of sati, Muslim prayers and tantric tale of raja Vikramjit and Baital to create acquaint, romantic atmosphere.

                        There are however conflicting opinions about his character. There are some who say that he is saintly wise and holy while other talk of his mindless cruelty, treachery and devilry. In stanza four the poet comments that there are cases when evil men may take to religion to hide their criminal intense.

                       The wonderful play of light and shade bring out a deceptive human nature and the evil that lies buried in the human soul.

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

ROBINSON CRUSOE

                   -Daniel Defoe

                   Robinson Crusoe tells his own story retrospectively from his personal point of view. This means we get to read every little detail that goes on his head – very important, since we'll be interested in the interior spiritual awakening that Crusoe undergoes over the course of the novel.

                   Robinson Crusoe, as a young and impulsive wanderer, defied his parents and went to sea. He was involved in a series of violent storms at sea and was warned by the captain that he should not be a seafaring man. Ashamed to go home, Crusoe boarded another ship and returned from a successful trip to Africa. Taking off again, Crusoe met with bad luck and was taken prisoner in Sallie. His captors sent Crusoe out to fish, and he used this to his advantage and escaped, along with a slave.

                   He was rescued by a Portuguese ship and started a new adventure. He landed in Brazil, and, after some time, he became the owner of a sugar plantation. Hoping to increase his wealth by buying slaves, he aligned himself with other planters and undertook a trip to Africa in order to bring back a shipload of slaves. After surviving a storm, Crusoe and the others were shipwrecked. He was thrown upon shore only to discover that he was the sole survivor of the wreck.

                   Crusoe made immediate plans for food, and then shelter, to protect him from wild animals. He brought as many things as possible from the wrecked ship, things that would be useful later to him. In addition, he began to develop talents that he had never used in order to provide himself with necessities. Cut off from the company of men, he began to communicate with God, thus beginning the first part of his religious conversion. To keep his sanity and to entertain himself, he began a journal. In the journal, he recorded every task that he performed each day since he had been marooned.

                   As time passed, Crusoe became a skilled craftsman, able to construct many useful things, and thus furnished himself with diverse comforts. He also learned about farming, as a result of some seeds which he brought with him. An illness prompted some prophetic dreams, and Crusoe began to reappraise his duty to God. Crusoe explored his island and discovered another part of the island much richer and more fertile, and he built a summer home there.

                   One of the first tasks he undertook was to build himself a canoe in case an escape became possible, but the canoe was too heavy to get to the water. He then constructed a small boat and journeyed around the island. Crusoe reflected on his earlier, wicked life, disobeying his parents, and wondered if it might be related to his isolation on this island.

                   After spending about fifteen years on the island, Crusoe found a man's naked footprint, and he was sorely beset by apprehensions, which kept him awakes many nights. He considered many possibilities to account for the footprint and he began to take extra precautions against a possible intruder. Sometime later, Crusoe was horrified to find human bones scattered about the shore, evidently the remains of a savage feast. He was plagued again with new fears. He explored the nature of cannibalism and debated his right to interfere with the customs of another race.

                   Crusoe was cautious for several years, but encountered nothing more to alarm him. He found a cave, which he used as a storage room, and in December of the same year, he spied cannibals sitting around a campfire. He did not see them again for quite some time. Later, Crusoe saw a ship in distress, but everyone was already drowned on the ship and Crusoe remained companionless. However, he was able to take many provisions from this newly wrecked ship. Sometime later, cannibals landed on the island and a victim escaped. Crusoe saved his life, named him Friday, and taught him English. Friday soon became Crusoe's humble and devoted slave.

                   Crusoe and Friday made plans to leave the island and, accordingly, they built another boat. Crusoe also undertook Friday's religious education, converting the savage into a Protestant. Their voyage was postponed due to the return of the savages. This time it was necessary to attack the cannibals in order to save two prisoners since one was a white man. The white man was a Spaniard and the other was Friday's father. Later the four of them planned a voyage to the mainland to rescue sixteen compatriots of the Spaniard. First, however, they built up their food supply to assure enough food for the extra people. Crusoe and Friday agreed to wait on the island while the Spaniard and Friday's father brought back the other men.

                   A week later, they spied a ship but they quickly learned that there had been a mutiny on board. By devious means, Crusoe and Friday rescued the captain and two other men, and after much scheming, regained control of the ship. The grateful captain gave Crusoe many gifts and took him and Friday back to England. Some of the rebel crewmen were left marooned on the island. Crusoe returned to England and found that in his absence he had become a wealthy man. After going to Lisbon to handle some of his affairs, Crusoe began an overland journey back to England. Crusoe and his company encountered many hardships in crossing the mountains, but they finally arrived safely in England. Crusoe sold his plantation in Brazil for a good price, married, and had three children.              Finally, however, he was persuaded to go on yet another voyage, and he visited his old island, where there were promises of new adventures to be found in a later account.

Paradise Lost Book - IX by John Milton

PARADISE LOST BOOK – IX

                             -John Milton

                   Paradise Lost is about Adam and Eve's loss of Paradise; their eating of the Forbidden Fruit has often been called the "fall" (as in, "fall from innocence" or "fall from grace"), so it's no surprise that images of falling occur throughout the poem. The first characters we meet – Satan and his legions – are newly fallen, both morally (they disobeyed God and attempted to overthrow him) and literally (in Book 6 they actually fall out of Heaven and into Hell). Satan's first words to his legions are: "Awake, arise, or be forever fallen." To be fallen, in this poem, is to have sinned, or to have disobeyed God.

                   It is important to note that in this poem people make themselves fall; there is no "fate" or other force that causes Adam, Eve, Satan, and the rebel angels to fall. Thus, in Book 3 God says that he created Adam "Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall" (3.95-96, our emphasis). And in Book 6, God doesn't push Satan and his legions out of Heaven. They actually throw themselves out of Heaven. Let's repeat that: God doesn't throw them out, they throw themselves out! In Milton's words: "headlong themselves they threw/ Down from the verge of Heav'n" (6.864-865).

                   In addition to these two falls, Milton also uses a number of other connected images. Now, an object that has fallen is no longer standing; it is no longer upright. In Book 11, Michael tells Adam that "man's woe" begins with "man's effeminate slackness". Michael implies here that Adam was effeminately "slack" when he listened to Eve and ate the fruit. In other words, he implies that Adam was like a woman, not a man (it is hard not to associate "slackness" with something that is supposed to be hard but is not – wink, wink). Just remember that "slackness" is associated with something going limp, with not being a 'real' man, with the Fall, and with a general lapse in judgment.

                   Paradise Lost is about Adam and Eve's fall, the original sin! So it's no surprise that sin is a prominent theme in the poem. Don't forget that we also learn a lot about Satan's major sin (he tried to overthrow God) and a lot about the sins that Adam's descendants will commit. Oh, and Milton constantly reminds us of our sins, or rather of the fact that we are sinners in a fallen world. Fate and free will are major topics in Paradise Lost. God reveals that he knows what will happen to Adam and Eve, but resolutely denies that there is any such thing as fate. Huh? God knows what will happen (that Adam and Eve will disobey him) just like we know the sun will rise tomorrow. So it might seem sometimes like Adam and Eve never had a chance, but according to Milton, that's just not true. After all, it's not God's fault that he can see everything that will happen as if it has already happened!

                   Paradise Lost takes place almost exclusively in a time and place when death, sin, and lying didn't exist. In other words, it deals with a time when humanity was still innocent. While Milton is very good at painting a picture of innocence, he realizes and reflects on the difficulty of attempting to describe something as alien as a deathless, sinless existence. Satan is the ultimate trickster. He flat out lies to Eve, telling her the Forbidden Fruit has powers that it doesn't. Beyond that, however, he is somehow able to convince a third of the angels that God is unjust and that they should rebel. You've got to be pretty good at lying and deceiving people to convince them to risk losing Heaven.

Kanthapura by Raja Rao

KANTHAPURA

                   -Raja Rao

                   Raja Rao’s first novel Kanthapura (1938) is the story of a village in south India named Kanthapura. The novel is narrated in the form of a ‘sthala-purana’ by an old woman of the village, Achakka. Kanthapura is a traditional caste ridden Indian village which is away from all modern ways of living. Dominant castes like Brahmins are privileged to get the best region of the village whereas Sudras, Pariahs are marginalized. The village is believed to have protected by a local deity called Kenchamma. 

                   Rather than being a traditional novel with a neat linear structure and compact plot, Kanthapura follows the oral tradition of Indian sthala-purana, or legendary history. As Raja Rao explains in his original foreword, there is no village in India, however mean, that has not a rich legendary history of its own, in which some famous figure of myth or history has made an appearance. In this way, the storyteller, who commemorates the past, keeps a native audience in touch with its lore and thereby allows the past to mingle with the present, the gods and heroes with ordinary mortals.

                   The story is narrated in flashback by Achakka, a wise woman in the village. She, like her female audience (whom she addresses as “sisters”), has survived the turbulence of social and political change which was induced by Mohandas K. Gandhi’s passive resistance against the British government. Achakka provides a detailed picture of the rural setting, establishing both an ambiance and a rhythm for the novel. It is clear that her speech and idiomatic expression are meant to express a distinctively feminine viewpoint an extraordinary achievement for a male Indo-English novelist. Achakka quickly creates a faithful image of an Indian way of life, circumscribed by tradition and indebted to its deities, of whom Kenchamma, the great and bounteous goddess, is made the village protectress. She is invoked in every chapter, for the characters never forget that her power resides in her past action. It is she who humanizes the villagers and their chants and prayers ring out from time to time.

                   The narrator establishes the parameters of the story within old and new legends. While Kenchamma and Siva are remembered for their marvelous feats and interventions in human affairs, analogies are sometimes drawn with contemporary figures such as Gandhi who serve to turn fact and history into folklore, and who provide the motive for political struggle. At the beginning, while there are simply rumors of Gandhi’s activities, the villagers follow their customary routines. Then, Moorthy, a young, dedicated Brahmin, inspired by Gandhi, returns to Kanthapura to propagandize the cause of the Indian National...

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

GULLIVER’S TRAVELS

                             -Jonathan Swift

                   Gulliver's Travels, a misanthropic satire of humanity, was written in 1726 by Jonathan Swift. Like many other authors, Swift uses the journey as the backdrop for his satire. He invents a second author, Captain Lemuel Gulliver, who narrates and speaks directly to the reader from his own experience. The original title of Swift's novel was Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. Gulliver's name probably is an allusion to King Lemuel of Proverbs 31, who was a weak-minded prophet. Swift may also be connecting his character to a common mule, a half-ass, half-horse animal that is known for being stubborn and stupid. A gull is a person who is easily fooled or gullible. At the same time, Gulliver represents the everyman with his average intelligence and general good humor. The reader is able to identify with him and join him in his travels.

                   Gulliver goes on four separate voyages in Gulliver's Travels. Each journey is preceded by a storm. All four voyages bring new perspectives to Gulliver's life and new opportunities for satirizing the ways of England.

                   The first voyage is to Lilliput, where Gulliver is huge and the Lilliputians are small. At first the Lilliputians seem amiable, but the reader soon sees them for the ridiculous and petty creatures they are. Gulliver is convicted of treason for "making water" in the capital (even though he was putting out a fire and saving countless lives)--among other "crimes."

                   The second voyage is to Brobdingnag, a land of Giants where Gulliver seems as small as the Lilliputians were to him. Gulliver is afraid, but his keepers are surprisingly gentle. He is humiliated by the King when he is made to see the difference between how England is and how it ought to be. Gulliver realizes how revolting he must have seemed to the Lilliputians.

                   Gulliver's third voyage is to Laputa. In a visit to the island of Glubdugdribb, Gulliver is able to call up the dead and discovers the deceptions of history. In Laputa, the people are over-thinkers and are ridiculous in other ways. Also, he meets the Stuldbrugs, a race endowed with immortality. Gulliver discovers that they are miserable.

                   His fourth voyage is to the land of the Houyhnhnms, who are horses endowed with reason. Their rational, clean, and simple society is contrasted with the filthiness and brutality of the Yahoos, beasts in human shape. Gulliver reluctantly comes to recognize their human vices. Gulliver stays with the Houyhnhnms for several years, becoming completely enamored with them to the point that he never wants to leave. When he is told that the time has come for him to leave the island, Gulliver faints from grief. Upon returning to England, Gulliver feels disgusted about other humans, including his own family.

                    Part of what has helped Gulliver's Travels to persevere since Swift's time has been its appeal to people of all ages. The book has been read by countless children and has been made into more than one children's movie. At the same time, it has been widely critiqued and studied by literary scholars and critics, politicians, and philosophers. In addition, much like the works of Shakespeare, the comedy of the novel has something for people of all intellectual levels, from toilet humor to highbrow satires of political processes and of ideas.

Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe

DOCTOR FAUSTUS

                   -Christopher Marlowe

         

          Doctor Faustus is the story of a great scholar who decides a little magical mojo will cure his ennui. He has to sign his soul over to the devil in order to get that mojo working'. Marlowe was writing, a Protestant church reformer named John Calvin had developed a theory about human salvation called Predestination. This theory said that each human being was fated from the beginning of his or her life to be damned or saved. It raised questions about exactly how much control a person had over his or her own salvation.

          Faustus grapples with this same question at the beginning of the play, and eventually arrives at the shaky conclusion that he's damned no matter what he does. The way he handles this belief is the subject of the rest of the play. All along characters like the Good Angel and the Old Man try to convince Faustus that he does have a choice; they insist that he can repent and turn to God again. Are they right? That's a question only you can answer, because Marlowe is annoyingly coy.

          Doctor Faustus, a respected German scholar, is bored with the traditional types of knowledge available to him. He wants more than logic, medicine, law, and religion. He wants magic. His friends, Valdes and Cornelius, begin to teach him magic, which he uses to summon a devil named Mephistopheles. Faustus tells Mephistopheles to return to his master, Lucifer, with an offer of his soul in exchange for twenty-four years of having Mephistopheles and all his knowledge of magic at his beck and call. Mephistopheles returns to Faustus with a contract for his soul, which Faustus signs in his own blood. As soon as he signs the contract, words appear on his arm, which give him doubts about what he has just done. Mephistopheles calms Faustus' doubts by giving him valuable gifts and a book of spells to learn.

                   Later, Mephistopheles answers all Faustus' questions about the nature of the world, and refuses to answer only when Faustus wants to know who created the universe. This sets off yet another series of doubts in Faustus, but Mephistopheles and Lucifer quiet those doubts by bringing in the seven deadly sins in human form to dance for Faustus.

                   Mephistopheles then takes Faustus on a wild chariot ride through the heavens, landing in Rome, where Faustus torments Pope Adrian for his passing judgment on a rival pope by making himself invisible, stealing Pope Adrian's food and smacking his ears. He becomes famous for this and is invited to visit the German Emperor, Charles V, who is the enemy of Pope Adrian. Faustus impresses the emperor by conjuring up an image of Alexander the Great. One of the emperors' knights’ sneers at Faustus' magical powers and Faustus punishes him by making antlers sprout from his head. Meanwhile, Robin, the clown of Faustus' servant, Wagner, has picked up some magic on his own and, with a stable hand named Rafe, uses his new magical skills to get free booze, and even summons Mephistopheles, who threatens to turn them both into animals. Their misadventures add to the comic relief of the play.

                   Faustus travels to England, where he sells an enchanted horse to a horse dealer. When the man rides his new horse over water, it turns into a bale of straw. The Duke of Vanholt hears about this and invites Faustus to visit him and his wife, the duchess. The horse dealer shows up, along with Robin and Rafe, vowing to get even. Faustus casts a spell of silence on them so they cannot speak of his wrongs, and sends them on their way, which amuses the Duke and Duchess of Vanholt.

                    As the end of his contract approaches, Faustus begins to dread his impending doom, and has Mephistopheles call up Helen of Troy so that he might impress a group of his colleagues. An old man urges Faustus to repent and turn back to God, but he sends Mephistopheles to torment the old man, and drive him away. Faustus then summons up Helen again so that he might immerse himself in her ancient beauty. But time grows short. Faustus, filled with dread, confesses his misdeeds to a group of his colleagues, who vow to pray for him.

                   On the final night of his life, Faustus is overcome by fear and remorse. He begs for mercy, but it is too late. The clock strikes midnight and a group of devils enter Faustus' study to claim his soul. The next morning, his colleagues find his body torn limb from limb, and decide to give him a proper burial.

HAMLET by William Shakespeare

HAMLET

          -William Shakespeare

                   Hamlet is the first tragedy in Shakespeare's series of great tragedies which is believed to be published in between 1601 and 1603. This play is one of his successful, perfect and best plays ever known. Hamlet centers on the problems arising from love, death, and betrayal, without offering the audience a decisive and positive resolution to these complications for Hamlet himself is ambiguous and the answers to these problems are complex. In Shakespearean tragedies, the characters are presented with abnormal state of mind. But Shakespeare does not allow this abnormal state to be dominant action. It provokes the suffering to the protagonist. The supernatural elements in the dramas of Shakespeare are subservient to the main action. It provokes the protagonist to do certain actions. Shakespeare links the supernatural elements with the natural. Hamartia leads the downfall of the characters in Shakespearean plays. Hamartia is a kind of force that is already inherited in characters which works as a spiritual force. And it ultimately leads to destruction. The use of this force makes the Shakespearean tragedy different from the Greek tragedies.

                   Shakespearean Hamlet can be studied as a Revenge play influenced by Seneca, the father of this genre. Shakespeare has revived the Senecan tragedy, in this sense, it is a Renaissance play. Here, Shakespeare uses the scene of violence, killing, murdering and bloodshed as Seneca used in his tragedy to satisfy the need of Elizabethan audiences. This revival made it Renaissance play. As a Renaissance character, Hamlet is suffering from the hangover between the medieval belief of superstition and reason, the belief of Renaissance. But, as a Renaissance student, he doubts on the appearance of the ghost. Hanging on the verge of scientific and superstitious belief is one of the features of Renaissance man. He doubts on the ghosts and thinks that it may be devil attempts to lure him to the crime. As a Renaissance character, Hamlet feels deeply and watches others to see what their feelings are. As a student of psychology, he experiments the crime through the similar story that matches to his father's killing. He wants to take revenge against his uncle when the crime is identified. And man centered philosophy of the Renaissance could be seen in the figure of Hamlet.

                   Prince Hamlet is depressed. Having been summoned home to Denmark from school in Germany to attend his father's funeral, he is shocked to find his mother Gertrude already remarried. The Queen has wed Hamlet's Uncle Claudius, the dead king's brother. To Hamlet, the marriage is "foul incest." Worse still, Claudius has had himself crowned King despite the fact that Hamlet was his father's heir to the throne. Hamlet suspects foul play.

                   When his father's ghost visits the castle, Hamlet's suspicions are confirmed. The Ghost complains that he is unable to rest in peace because he was murdered. Claudius, says the Ghost, poured poison in King Hamlet's ear while the old king napped. Unable to confess and find salvation, King Hamlet is now consigned, for a time, to spend his days in Purgatory and walk the earth by night. He entreats Hamlet to avenge his death, but to spare Gertrude, to let Heaven decide her fate.

                   Hamlet vows to affect madness — puts "an antic disposition on" — to wear a mask that will enable him to observe the interactions in the castle, but finds him more confused than ever. In his persistent confusion, he questions the Ghost's trustworthiness. What if the Ghost is not a true spirit, but rather an agent of the devil sent to tempt him? What if killing Claudius results in Hamlet's having to relive his memories for all eternity? Hamlet agonizes over what he perceives as his cowardice because he cannot stop himself from thinking. Words immobilize Hamlet, but the world he lives in prizes action.

                   In order to test the Ghost's sincerity, Hamlet enlists the help of a troupe of players who perform a play called The Murder of Gonzaga to which Hamlet has added scenes that recreate the murder the Ghost described. Hamlet calls the revised play The Mousetrap, and the ploy proves a success. As Hamlet had hoped, Claudius' reaction to the staged murder reveals the King to be conscience-stricken. Claudius leaves the room because he cannot breathe, and his vision is dimmed for want of light. Convinced now that Claudius is a villain, Hamlet resolves to kill him. But, as Hamlet observes, "conscience doth make cowards of us all."

                   In his continued reluctance to dispatch Claudius, Hamlet actually causes six ancillary deaths. The first death belongs to Polonius, whom Hamlet stabs through a wall-hanging as the old man spies on Hamlet and Gertrude in the Queen's private chamber. Claudius punishes Hamlet for Polonius' death by exiling him to England. He has brought Hamlet's school chums Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to Denmark from Germany to spy on his nephew, and now he instructs them to deliver Hamlet into the English king's hands for execution. Hamlet discovers the plot and arranges for the hanging of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern instead. Ophelia, distraught over her father's death and Hamlet's behavior, drowns while singing sad love songs bemoaning the fate of a spurned lover. Her brother, Laertes, falls next.

                   Laertes, returned to Denmark from France to avenge his father's death, witnesses Ophelia's descent into madness. After her funeral, where he and Hamlet come to blows over which of them loved Ophelia best, Laertes vows to punish Hamlet for her death as well.

                   Unencumbered by words, Laertes plots with Claudius to kill Hamlet. In the midst of the sword fight, however, Laertes drops his poisoned sword. Hamlet retrieves the sword and cuts Laertes. The lethal poison kills Laertes. Before he dies, Laertes tells Hamlet that because Hamlet has already been cut with the same sword, he too will shortly die. Horatio diverts Hamlet's attention from Laertes for a moment by pointing out that "The Queen falls."Gertrude, believing that Hamlet's hitting Laertes means her son is winning the fencing match, has drunk a toast to her son from the poisoned cup Claudius had intended for Hamlet. The Queen dies.

                   As Laertes lies dying, he confesses to Hamlet his part in the plot and explains that Gertrude's death lies on Claudius' head. Finally enraged, Hamlet stabs Claudius with the poisoned sword and then pours the last of the poisoned wine down the King's throat. Before he dies, Hamlet declares that the throne should now pass to Prince Fortinbras of Norway, and he implores his true friend Horatio to accurately explain the events that have led to the bloodbath at Elsinore. With his last breath, he releases himself from the prison of his words: "The rest is silence."

                   The play ends as Prince Fortinbras, in his first act as King of Denmark, orders a funeral with full military honors for slain Prince Hamlet.