Hamlet: What If
He would then later not have seen Aphelia being carried off into her grave. Here Hamlet fought with Alerts about how many crocodiles that they would eat to prove their love to Aphelia. Alerts would not have been back if Aphelia and Polonium had not died. This anger during this funeral lead This duel is an integral part of the play because of the very many events that occur in correlation to one another. Prior to the duel, Claudia and Alerts set up the several ways and backups for Hamlet to be killed. First they poisoned and sharpened the epee that Alerts would use.
If Alerts did not strike Hamlet, they would use a poisoned chalice that Hamlet could drink from between rounds. During the duel, Hamlet wins the first two rounds (which does not matter), refusing the chalice twice. If he did not refuse, then Gertrude would have never drank from it, killing herself. A controversial topic is why she drank from it. Did she not know better? Was she suicidal? Did she do it to save Hamlet? Hamlet knew that Claudia was out to get him after his mother died to the poisoned chalice that was offered to him.
In the third round, in the confusion of rage, he is poked by Alerts’ poisoned epee. “It is here, Hamlet. Hamlet, thou art slain; No medicine in the world can do thee good. In thee there is not half an hour of life. The treacherous instrument is in thy hand, Unabated and envenomed. The foul practice Hath turned itself on me. Lo, here I lie, Never to rise again. Thy mother’s poison’s. I can no more. The King, the King’s to blame. “Knowing the imminence of death, Hamlet then killed King Claudia of Denmark using he poisoned epee out of revenge for both of his parent’s.
Alerts dies also from the poison-point. Hamlet is the last to die from the poison, in Hortatory arms, naming Fortifiers the new king of Denmark. This is the only way the duel scene could have played out, the only variables were Gertrude drinking the poison (and her knowledge of it) and Hamlet getting poked by Alerts’ poisoned point. If Gertrude DID know about the conspiracy to kill Hamlet, she could have been possible for to have thrown herself in front of Alerts’ point. Either way, she would not have gotten out alive.
If here was no way for her to live, then Hamlet would have always killed Claudia. If Hamlet did not get poisoned, then he would have ruled Denmark. However, the “hero” living at the end of a tragedy is not characteristic of Shakespearean plays. Hamlet would have probably killed himself at the end, anyways, with his mother, lover, and still yet his father, dead. Shakespeare was well aware of how multiple outcomes could play out and probably made a hundred drafts of his play, trying to make it the most attention- grabbing possible. He, as proven, had most definitely succeeded in doing so.
