#1

   Shakespeare's Hamlet is written during a time in which reason has begun to triumph over superstition.  The ghost of Old King Hamlet appears to men on the night watch, when they see this apparition, one of the men, Horatio says: "In what particular thought to work I know not/ But in gross and scope mine opinion/ This bodes some strange eruption to our state" (I.I.78-80).   This reaction is conflicted, the men know what they have seen yet they not that reason says it cannot be.  This consternation reflects the changing time of Shakespeare's day.  As scholars gained more worldly wisdom, superstition seemed false.  Yet the old practices and folklore were things that people still wanted to hold onto.  In Hamlet, Shakespeare shows that either reason or superstition will triumph in the end.  Whichever one triumphs determines the ends of all who are in the story.  Reason is rational, superstition is the irrational that is justified within a person's mind.  It will be young Hamlet's challenge to choose the rational or irrational in avenging his father's death.