Ghosts in Fiction

• In Shakespeare's play Hamlet, a ghost taking the form of Hamlet's recently deceased father appears to Prince Hamlet one night. The ghost says that he was in fact murdered by his brother Claudius, who now (by virtue of having married Hamlet's mother Gertrude) occupies the throne. The ghost exhorts Hamlet to take revenge on Claudius. When Hamlet sees the ghost, he is not sure if it is in fact his father's spirit, or a demon whose aim is to deceive him.


• Julius Caesar's ghost appears to Mark Antony in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar to warn Antony of his impending defeat.


• There are ghost superheroes who fight for justice such as DC Comics' The Spectre and Deadman.


• In the Ghostbusters film and television franchise, the protagonists use special technology of their own design to hunt and capture/exile the ghosts they encounter.


• In The Matrix, ghosts are explained as obsolete or malfunctioning programs which choose to hide in the matrix to escape deletion. A program's other option is to return to "the Source," which is like the heaven of the matrix.


• In Ghost in the Shell, ghost is a word used to describe a person's inner being, similar to the concept of a soul.


• Other famous ghosts in fiction include the Headless Horseman, who appears in Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn visit a haunted house in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Algernon Blackwood was a British writer of horror fiction who is well known for writing ghost stories.


• Other authors who are well known for writing ghost stories include M. R. James, J. Sheridan Le Fanu, H. R. Wakefield, and E. F. Benson.


• Several ghosts exist in Harry Potter books, including Nearly Headless Nick, the Bloody Baron and Moaning Myrtle.