Explain what makes Hamlet realistic enough to be relevant to audiences.

There many aspects of Shakespeare's Hamlet that make the story relevant to modern audiences, which is what makes Shakespeare's work so timeless.

Hamlet's father has died, and Hamlet misses him terribly.

Several other things deeply trouble Hamlet. First, his mother has remarried—much too quickly for it to be seemly. Hamlet and his friend Horatio discuss this when Hamlet asks Horatio why he has come to Elsinore castle:

HORATIO:

My lord, I came to see your father's funeral.

 HAMLET:

I prithee do not mock me, fellow student.
I think it was to see my mother's wedding. (181–183)

Horatio agrees that the one followed the other rather swiftly. Hamlet waxes hyperbolic in complaining that the marriage occurred so soon after Old Hamlet's passing that they might have used the leftover food from the funeral to feed the wedding guests.

Gertrude has married a man who is totally unlike her first husband, and the new king offends Hamlet's sensibilities. Claudius, instead of mourning his brother's—the old king's—death, is having a great celebration. In poor taste, every time Claudius takes a drink, the canons blast:

No jocund health that Denmark drinks today
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell....(I.ii.128–129)

Feasting and drunken revelry, not mourning, are taking place in Denmark.

His grief over his father's death, his mother's seeming ease in forgetting the husband she had doted upon, as well as his uncle's unethical and insensitive behavior, make Hamlet want to die.

O, that this too too sullied flesh would melt,
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew,
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God! (132–135)

Hamlet wishes he could just dissolve on the spot and bemoans that the Church has forbidden taking one's own life. He is crushed—despondent and filled with hopelessness.

Hamlet's sweetheart tries to obey her father and her king—but her behavior seems to convince Hamlet that she has betrayed him. Betrayal is also a timeless theme.

Ophelia ultimately suffers a mental breakdown over her father's death and drowns: another source of despair for Hamlet.

Claudius convinces Laertes that Hamlet is his enemy (as Hamlet killed Polonius). Laertes allows his king to turn his heart from what he knows is right; he plots to kill Hamlet during a fencing match. Laertes relinquishes his moral character and betrays Hamlet's trust.

Claudius is smart and politically savvy; he is also manipulative, greedy, and dangerously ambitious. However, at the same time, he is also grief-stricken over what he has done to gain the throne and his brother's wife—but he is unable to repent of his actions (before God) or make reparations. Claudius demonstrates the human characteristics of double-mindedness, as well as the unconscionable destruction of both the guilty and the innocent.

Hamlet obsesses over what has happened and cannot be swayed from his determination to avenge his father's death. His inability to look more objectively at what has happened leads to the young Dane's downfall, as well as the deaths of those around him, like Gertrude and Ophelia.

While most readers, or members of the audience, may not deal with kings and queens or castle intrigue, certainly issues of loss, remarriage of parents, dislike of a step-parent, feelings of betrayal, depression, and anger are things with which the modern audience can identify. The human condition—which includes the many flaws people often exhibit—has not changed since Shakespeare wrote his play, and Hamlet is therefore a story that encompasses realistic experiences with which one can still identify today.