378 After something bad has happened to somebody and there is somebody to blame, it is human nature to want to revenge what had happened. In Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, the theme of revenge is very prevalent. Hamlet’s father was killed by Claudius, and after learning about this, Hamlet started a plan to avenge his father’s death. Hamlet was in a very tough place as a teenager, having to deal with his father’s death, and then having to live knowing that his mother is married to the killer. He became depressed and contemplated suicide. Hamlet pondered his life and whether or not he wanted to continue living in his famous “To be or not to be” speech. Like many others, Kenneth Branagh appropriated this scene in an attempt to add to the scene. In his appropriation of this speech, Branagh enriched the scene as he brought Hamlet’s intensity for revenge to a new light.…show more content… When I watched this appropriation, it helped me understand the theme of revenge more because it gets at why Hamlet wants revenge. Hamlet walks into a room, nothing like I imagined, and it does not look like he has anything planned. He then sees himself, in the mirror, and then starts contemplating suicide and what it means to live in this speech. Branagh really emphasizes the mirror - from the moment Hamlet looked at it, he did not look away from the mirror until he was done, and he actually gets closer to it as the speech progresses. What this emphasizes as we get closer and closer to his face is the emotional struggle he is facing. This struggle is masked by a rage, which explains the serious intensity Hamlet has and why he wants revenge. From reading the play, we have no insights to how Hamlet is saying this speech and, and Branagh including the mirror really highlights what it means to be Hamlet at this moment in