Pennsylvania College of Technology   Dr. Vavra's ENL 121: Lit & Comp

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(1)      There are several foils in the play “Hamlet.” [sic]  The foil that just about anyone can depict is the one of the ghost foiling Hamlet.  The ghost brings out what Hamlet really thinks about the death of his father.  The ghost is an image of his father[,] and he looks exactly like Hamlet’s father.

(2)     The similarities between the ghost and Hamlet are fairly easily picked out.  They both are males.  They are also discussing of [delete "of"] who killed Hamlet’s father.  They know that Claudius killed his father and want to revenge his father’s death. [What evidence is there that Hamlet knows that Claudius killed his father?]

(3)     The differences between the two are not quite as easy to pick out.  One obvious difference is that they differ in their appearance.  The ghost is an apparition while Hamlet is a real flesh-and-blood human being.  The ghost is also supposed to be Hamlet’s father so that would make them different in age.  The ghost is very positive of the fact of who supposedly killed Hamlet’s father while Hamlet doesn't know for sure who killed his father until he meets with the ghost and the ghost tells him. [Doesn't this contradict the previous paragraph?]
 
(4)     The ghost is in the play foiling Hamlet for multiple reasons. For one reason, the ghost is really driving Hamlet that Claudius is the murderer of this father. The ghost knows right from the beginning about Claudius. Second reason, the ghost wants revenge of Hamlet's father's death. The ghost really drives Hamlet to thinking that Claudius killed his father so that they both can revenge his father's death. Without the ghost in this play, Hamlet might not have been driven to find the murderer of his father, which he knew was Claudius. The ghost in the play drew all the attention of the killing of his father. [?] If the ghost wasn't there, the play could possibly not have been about Claudius and Hamlet's father. Hamlet wouldn't have had so much intent to prove that Claudius killed his father.

(5)     To sum all this up, without having any foils in a story, you might never know what a character is really thinking or feeling. A foil usually brings out a different side to a character. A foil can also change the course of a story or play as we saw in this play.

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