So my professor doesn't like long drawn out introduction paragraphs in our papers.
He prefers them to be 2/3 sentences, ending with the thesis.
So i need some help cleaning up what I currently have.

Thesis: Hamlet discovers the meaning of life through his manipulation of reality, his search for the courage necessary to avenge his father, and his acceptance of his true responsibility.

What I currently have.

At a moments glace one may define Hamlet as an absurd hero, "seeking inherent value and meaning in life while faced with the inability to find any.(cite)" However this is not the case, the focus of Hamlet is actually discovering one's purpose and the meaning of life. The character Hamlet discovers this knowledge through his manipulation of reality, his search for the courage necessary to avenge his father, and his eventual acceptance of his true responsibility.

Also I feel like I should be including the title of the actual play "Hamlet by Shakespeare" but not sure how.

lmk
all comments and suggestions are welcome.

A couple of thoughts:

You seem to be implying that Hamlet overcomes the dissonance related with searching for meaning in a meaningless universe (absurdism).
If this is your claim, you need to own it.

Don't simply tell reader's that Hamlet finds meaning or purpose; tell them what that meaning was.
What meaning did Hamlet find?

On a similar note, you mention "true responsibility."
I don't know what Hamlet's "true responsibility" is.

You could have an entire thesis along the lines of "Shakespeare intends for readers' to recognize Hamlet's true responsibility is x"
I would definitely consider changing your thesis such that the last few lines do not themselves represent a topic worthy of its own paper.

This post was edited by MidnightRider on Oct 14 2014 07:38pm

^ I agree

you need to be more concise, especially in your introductory paragraph

Your thesis at the moment, as MidNightRider suggested, is a tad confused and overambitious. Right now, you have a bundle of different thesis statements that you're trying to compress into a single thesis statement. I would recommend consolidating all those themes of "responsibility, self-discovery, meaning of life" under a single, more general theme such as Hamlet's "coming of age" or "growing up" or "becoming a hero" .

Example thesis statement: :Hamlet is a tale that focuses on an individual coming of age under extraordinary circumstances in an absurd universe. The play follows the maturation of a powerless and inexperienced boy, as he grows into new roles of avenger and hero and assumes true power over his identity and his fate, becoming, with his heroic suicide, an actuator in both life and death.


However, that still seems too broad.

Personally, I would pick one of those smaller themes (responsibility, self-discovery, meaning of life) and talk in great detail about it. You could hint at other themes, such as self-discovery and parley it into a discussion about "responsibility." For example, you could dedicate the majority of the paper on Hamlet's indecisiveness and unwillingness to "accept his true responsibility" and how, ultimately, Hamlet's acceptance of his true responsibility results in a moment of self-discovery.

You have great ideas, just too many of them. Pick one and go with it.

This post was edited by vvangough4 on Oct 15 2014 11:37pm