Get out of the room: The dysfunctional family

William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a play in which the central conflict results from a disruption in social order. Hamlet portrays how the upset of natural order within a family unit causes the gradual decay of the family. Although the scenarios in the play are extreme, involving murder and revenge, the point of chaos within a family is still made. The causes for the decay are the murder of King Hamlet, the short-lived grief of Gertrude, and the marriage of Claudius and Gertrude. Firstly, the patriarch of the family, the providing and authoritative figure, is removed to create an unstable family unit. While the mother is criticized for her display of a short-lived grief for her deceased husband and therefore ultimately criticized as a female.