Quotes About Death In Hamlet

Jacob Grimm once wrote “I’m Death and I make sure everyone is equal.” There has long been this idea that death brings everyone to a common ground, and while one might not think of Hamlet’s message as one regarding the powerful equalizing effect of death, this line of reasoning is prevalent throughout the play. Death in Hamlet, is presented as a cycle, one that levels humanity. In a play where most of the characters die, death itself is therefore an underlying theme throughout the play, but some of the most interesting reflections on death happen in the scenes we least expect them to. In Hamlet’s discussion with the King after Polonius’s death, and in Hamlet’s conversation with the skull of the court jester, death and what happens after death,
He asks Horatio “Dost thou think Alexander looked o’ this fashion i’ th’ earth?” (5.1.187-188). To which Horatio answers yes and which causes Hamlet to begin reflecting on death much in the same way as in the scene with the maggots. This time he describes the cycle as “Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth to dust; the dust is earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that loam whereto he was converted might they not stop a beer barrel?” (5.1.198-202). This time it’s not an anonymous king but Alexander the great, and it’s not a beggar he ends up feeding but a beer barrel that he helps stop, whose contents will probably end in a commoner’s stomach. Why has hamlet repeated this similar idea twice? Perhaps it’s because it helps to put death and therefore life in perspective. The first time Hamlet comes upon this idea, he uses it to frighten the king, but the second time it almost seems to frighten him. Because although it may seem satisfying that at death all men are equal it’s also daunting to think that when you die, your greatness and the deeds you did are meaningless, even Alexander the Great is not exempt from the fate that awaits all men. This thought makes all the other deaths that follow seem all the more