ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Yorick’s skull in the Hamlet skull scene is a symbol of death, the ultimate destination of life. Hamlet holding the skull represents the duality of life and death. Hamlet symbolizing life, the skull in his hand portraying death.

Detailed explanation-2: -Yorick’s skull has impressed upon Hamlet the decay of the human body after death. Here, Hamlet tells Yorick’s skull to go to his mother and tell her that no matter how much makeup she applies to appear young and beautiful, she too will die and decay one day.

Detailed explanation-3: -Hamlet, contemplating death as the certain end of all human life, throws down his skull and turns to act out the life remaining him.

Detailed explanation-4: -The Relevance of Yorick in Hamlet His importance is that he is dead but was once alive, because the scene is a comment on the futility of life. In the end, all lives come down to a lonely skull in a graveyard.

Detailed explanation-5: -The gravediggers talk jokingly about the people they once were. One of the gravediggers points to one of the skulls and says that it’s been in the earth for twenty-three years, Hamlet asks who it was and they tell him it was the king’s jester, Yorick. Hamlet picks it up. This is where he says, ‘Alas, poor Yorick.