Rotting and Decay motif in Hamlet
Storyboard Text
- Motif of Rotting and Decay
- It is the poison’d cup: it is too late
- the imagery of poison is to show the decay of Denmark and corruption within
- the cup has been poisoned!
- The royals have now all died
- I am justly kill’d with my own treachery. The king is to blame!
- ahh! NO!
- I will make thee drink thy own poison!
- In Shakespeare's Hamlet, a reoccurring motif is of rotting and decay and toward the end of the play we see the whole royal family die. Their deaths in this final scene were a culmination of all the rotting corruption inside Denmark. Before Claudius gained power there was no plague, but his greed and corruption slowly trickled into the rest of the royals. This caused revenge to seep and the decay of Denmark to increase. Revenge is a strong theme in Hamlet and the death of the royals further shows the moral consequences of getting revenge. It overall shows the questionable morals of these characters and a take on human nature as a whole which lead to ultimately the collapse of Denmark and the people storming castle Elsinore.
Over 30 Million Storyboards Created