Laertes: The Avenger Who Acts Where Hamlet Cannot
First appears: Act 1, Scene 3
Laertes is Hamlet's structural mirror. Both have lost fathers. Both are consumed by grief. Laertes responds the way Hamlet cannot: immediately, violently, without philosophical hesitation. When he storms the castle in Act 4, Scene 5 with a mob behind him, he is the play's image of what unthinking revenge looks like.
Claudius exploits this perfectly. He turns Laertes's raw grief into a weapon: the poisoned sword, the backup poisoned cup. Laertes knows the plan is dishonourable and goes along with it anyway, which makes his final confession and forgiveness of Hamlet more earned than sentimental.
His grief for Ophelia is the play's most unguarded expression of loss. When he leaps into her grave in Act 5, it is the only moment he is not performing strength for someone else.
Key Scenes
Famous Quotes
“Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, show me the steep and thorny way to heaven, whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine, himself the primrose path of dalliance treads.”
Laertes — Act 1, Scene 3
“I am justly killed with mine own treachery.”
Laertes — Act 5, Scene 2
Themes
Other Characters in Hamlet
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