In Shakespeare's tragedy, Hamlet, the protagonist is constantly depicted as a melancholic character. This quality is evident throughout the work and will be the focus of this essay. In the general introduction to The Riverside Shakespeare, Harry Levin explains how the playwright uses imagery to further emphasize the hero's melancholic nature. The paragraph is well written and has no writing problems. No changes are necessary as this sentence contains a quote. The story opens on a cold, dark winter night in Denmark, as the guard changes on the ramparts of the royal castle of Elsinore. For two consecutive nights, at the stroke of one, a ghost appeared on the battlements. The figure is dressed in full armor and has a face reminiscent of that of the late king of Denmark, Hamlet's father (35). Horatio and Marcellus leave the ghostly ramparts of Elsinore intending to seek Hamlet's help. The prince is disheartened by his mother's "hasty marriage" to his uncle, which occurred less than two months after Hamlet's father's funeral. During a social meeting at court, Hamlet is present, dressed in black, the color of mourning for his deceased father. In his first soliloquy he expresses his melancholy and underlines the fragility of women, an evident reference to his mother's hasty and incestuous marriage with her husband's brother. "Do I need to remember? Well, she clung to him, as if what she fed increased her appetite. Yet, within a month - don't let me think - Frailty, your name is woman!"..... .half of the sheet......Ed. Leonard F. Dean. New York: Oxford University P., 1967. Rosenberg, Marvin. "Laertes: an impulsive but serious young aristocrat." Readings on Hamlet. Ed. Don Nardò. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1999. Rpt. from Hamlet's Masks. Newark, NJ: Univ. of Delaware P., 1992. Shakespeare, William. The tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1995. http://www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/hamlet/full.html No line nn.