Ghost in Hamlet

Ghost in Hamlet

The ghost in hamlet plays a very important and significant role. In most of Shakespeare's plays we have supernatural machinery like ghosts whiches etc. For example we have ghost in hamlet, Julius Caesar, and witches in Macbeth ... In Elizabethtan world the appearance of supernatural creatures was a common belief, as according to Moulton, " supernatural agency has a place in the world of Shakespeare ".
The appearance of ghost in the play leads the play to its climax, that's the point where the audience suspense and tension start to rise and this is one of the techniques writer use to stir the reader's interest. Hamlet is a revenge tragedy, but If there was no ghost there would be no such play as hamlet. Most part of the first act of the play is about the appearance of the ghost. The appearance of the ghost also adds to hamlet's tension as he is not sure whether the ghost is real or a devil in disguise because at that time it was a belief as well that there are two types of ghost, the real and the false ghost. so it makes hamlet confused, but there is no doubt that the fire of revenge in hamlet's heart is lit by the ghost as hamlet says after he meets the ghost, " my father spirit in arm! All is not well,
I doubt some foul play"
The action of the play starts from the moment when the ghost tells hamlet about the murderer of his father.
There is a controversy among critics about the appearance of the ghost, as some say that it is a subjective phenomena,  a hallucination springing from imagination whereas, there are others who call it objective as in the first scene, when the ghost appears, not only hamlet but Mercellus, Bernardo and horatio see the ghost, so we can say that it's physical not imaginary.  But later on, somewhere in the play we have again the appearance of the ghost, where hamlet hear it but the queen doesn't,  so in that case we can say that its imaginary.
So in short, the ghost in hamlet play the most significant role and its the appearance of the ghost which pave the way for the revenge to be followed.