Hannah Brandel
Dr. Marty Wood
ENGL 257
5/10/15
The Internalized and Externalized Conflict
In Shakespeare’s Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark and A Midsummer Night’s Dream Drama is based on conflict. Conflict is essential to create problems for one or more characters and to draw in the audience. We tend to emphasize with one character, because of the problem and not because of the character. This understanding and sympathy is a natural part of human nature. We as humans are programmed to want to help and be compassionate toward other people. Shakespeare’s plays, Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream explore the theme of internalized and externalized conflict, and its consequences, each play highlighting different aspects of the theme due to differences in genre and subject. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, conflict is “a serious disagreement or argument, typically a protracted one,” and would therefore seem to connect to the more tragic of the two plays, Hamlet. The two plays contain many different types of conflict, however they focus on the ideas of internal and external conflict. In both Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, conflict is introduced and sustained throughout the entire play. The play Hamlet opens with the line “Who’s there” (1.1.1), introducing a tone of suspicion and ambiguity to the play. This…show more content… In Hamlet the tangible object or rather, idea is the royal crown. Claudius wants to keep it and Hamlet is aware that he could gain it if he handled the situation skillfully. He is the genuine inheritor and the people would enjoy being lead by him. Hamlet knows that Polonius would certainly be on his side, because he would love to have Hamlet marry his daughter, Ophelia and make her Queen. But if Hamlet follows through and murders Claudius, it could absolutely hurt his chances of being designated the new king. He decides that what he needs to do is to reveal Claudius as the murderer, and then kill