On The Justice Of Hamlet's Revenge From The Perspective Of Law And Ethics

William Shakespeare depicts Hamlet as an image of an avenger who is subject to legal and ethical dilemmas and inner conflicts through the plotline of Hamlet’s revenge.The present thesis mainly interprets the justification of Hamlet’s revenge from the perspective of legitimacy and ethics,and explore Hamlet’s revenge with the theory of "Poetic justice"."Poetic justice" is a critical perspective of humanism,a judgment based on human nature,legality and ethics.Through literary imagination and empathy,it sympathizes with everyone’s ethical situation,attaching great importance to human subjectivity and achieving the neutrality of fiction and reality,sensibility and rationality.In the play,the aim of Hamlet’s revenge is to realize legal and ethical justice,though frustrated by legal and ethical dilemmas,leading to deaths of innocent people,which they do not deserve.Based on the critical theory of "poetic justice",the hero avenges himself on the basis of the legal and ethical situation and his own sense of justice.Hamlet acts as a law enforcer against the background that public power is unable to sanction criminals.He avenges the murdered father,corrects the injustice,and thus reforms the society by finding the root of evil,establishing a new realm of justice.Therefore,revenge here is justified as it is to safeguard the justice of the old social order established by Old Hamlet,and to eliminate the injustice of the new order established by Claudius,because the establishment of the new order violates the cognition of legal justice and ethical justice.Pretending to be mad,mistakenly killing a minister and conspiratorially harming friends is caused by revenge dilemma and accidental situation,explaining the tragic hero’s revenge rationality.Deaths of other people are not expected in the revenge,but caused by Claudius in order to maintain the "justice" of the new order.In the end,Hamlet brings about the penalty to the king,and in turn,he is punished by the power of the new order,hurt by Laertes poisoned sword.Fortinbras’ s reconstruction of law and ethics embodies with humanism and recognizes Hamlet’s revenge as a just act in the form of public power.The justice represented by Hamlet’s revenge transcends the injustice of law and ethics,characterized by the contingency of situations and legal and ethical dilemmas.Revenge can be good or evil,entailing conflicts and ruptures between individuals and groups in the form of tragedy,presenting the complexity of human nature,advocatingjustice,purifying the hearts of audiences and achieving a poetic justice.