In the play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, the protagonist, Hamlet is obsessed with the idea of death, and during the course of the play he contemplates death from numerous perspectives. He ponders the physical aspects of death, as seen with Yoricks's skull, his father's ghost, as well as the dead bodies in the cemetery. Hamlet also contemplates the spiritual aspects of the afterlife with his various soliloquies. Emotionally Hamlet is attached to death with the passing of his father and his lover Ophelia. Death surrounds Hamlet, and forces him to consider death from various points of view.

In the first scene of Act 5, Hamlet discovers Yorick's skull in the graveyard. While Hamlet is speaking to Yorick, his father's jester's skull, as well as about him, Hamlet focuses in on the physical deterioration of the human body. He also touches on the...