Laertes and Fortinbras as complements for Hamlet Hamlet, the main character of Shakespeare's play of the same name, had to make a decision after learning that Claudius had killed his father. Should he believe the ghost and avenge his father's murder? Or is the ghost evil and trying to force him to kill Claudius? Throughout the play we see Hamlet's struggle with this problem. He is presented with many opportunities to kill Claudius, but he is unable to act because he cannot bring himself to believe the Ghost. Shakespeare uses Laertes and Fortinbras as complements to Hamlet, to help us understand why Hamlet acts the way he does. Complements are used in plays so that readers are able to better understand the main character (Hamlet). In a foil, the minor character is similar in many ways to the main character, so we will compare the two. However, it is through these similarities that we are able to see the most important differences between the two. Hamlet's main obstacle is Laertes, Polonius' son. The most obvious similarity is that they are both young. They also come from relatively similar backgrounds, a Danish aristocratic upbringing. Both also have some college education. This brings us to another similarity; [Semicolon vs. colon] both have the ability to use logical and rational reasoning. However, they differ in their applications of logical reasoning. We see this logical and rational reasoning in Hamlet, in Acts 1 and 2 when he sets the “mousetrap” for Claudius, in order to determine if he is guilty of killing his father. . Hamlet's ability to think about many future moves and to predict what the king's reaction will be if he is guilty, shows a type of reasoning beyond the norm... middle of the sheet... of the cards in this series, you will see that the similarities between Fortinbras and Hamlet they are not so obvious: few writers have caught them and no one has done as good a job of specifying them as this writer has done. Again, the writer supports the statement with numerous specific examples. Some weak writers who are also weak thinkers will use words like "obvious" when they have no evidence and may in fact be wrong. In these cases, the use of the word "obvious" is an attempt to intimidate the reader by implying that if the reader does not see what should be "obvious", then he is stupid. Be careful when using such words and pay attention when you encounter them in your reading. (Another favorite phrase is “of course.”) Works Cited: Shakespeare, William. The tragedy of Hamlet. approx. 1600-1601. Ed. Edoardo Hubler. A classic with a seal. New York: Penguin Publishers,1963.