Hamlet himself says, "That I essentially am not in madness, but mad in craft." He thought about everything he was doing, and everything he was going to do. Hamlet did in fact act like he was mad, just so he could follow through on his plan to avenge his father's death. Hamlet acted like he was mad because he did not want to outright kill Claudius, because he would probably go to heaven, and Hamlet wanted to make him suffer like Claudius had made his father suffer. Hamlet also knew that he could not go around telling people that Claudius killed his father just because a ghost told him so.
Prince Hamlet seems keen to avenge his father’s death, but throughout the narrative we see Hamlet hesitate to kill Claudius, he may be finding it hard as Claudius is the King and also a relative. The Ghost says he’s going to suffer in Purgatory until Prince Hamlet avenges his death by killing Claudius, as the way he died he didn’t have a chance to confess his sins, so he would go to heaven. “Doomed for a certain
In the soliloquy, Hamlet is at first upset with himself about finding ways to avoid avenging his Father’s murder, like his spirit in ghost form told him to. This complaining turns into self hatred and then Hamlet is insulting himself outright. The main reason for this is he has agreed to get revenge on Claudius so his father’s spirit can be at peace, but he hasn’t done it yet. The fact that the Player seems to be more able to get into the mindset of revenge than he can further discourages him. This on top of the fact that Hamlet’s dad is dead and his mother married that man he hates most in the world makes for a pretty melancholy fellow.
Hamlet also expresses the possibilities that the ghost could have been the devil. Although hamlet gets upset with himself he believes that the play he arranged would display Claudius’ guilt and then he will know for sure he killed his father. This reveals to the audience that Hamlet is a procrastinator and he is a coward. In Hamlet’s fifth soliloquy he contemplates the idea of suicide, he suggests that maybe the only reason we choose life is because we know so little about death other than it Is final. After contemplation Hamlet decides not to take his own life.
The first sentence he is debating whether or not to keep his pain within himself, and the second sentence he poses suicide as an option to lead him out of his misery. In the soliloquy, Hamlet states "Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished", stating that he wants his suicidal thoughts fulfilled. He wants to end all the pain and grief that his father's death brought upon him. But then again, he might just be saying all this because he knows that Polonius and Claudius are listening in. But in fact, nobody will ever know if Hamlet’s intentions to commit suicide were in any way, shape, or form true.
Andrew Bittmann English 102-b05 Weathers Unmainly Grief Claudius could hardly be considered to be a model of upright behavior, given that he seduces Gertrude while the grief over her husband’s death is still fresh. While he is obviously advancing his own motives, his speech to Hamlet about “Unmanly Grief” is oddly compelling. Claudius takes the view that all men die, all men lose their fathers. They enter a period of appropriate grief and then move on. Because hamlet is not conforming to this norm, Claudius suggests that Hamlet’s grief is not only unhealthy, but unmanly.
However, a tragic hero is a character who experiences conflict and suffers greatly as result of his/her choices. Despaired through the death of his father and his mother’s marriage to his uncle Hamlet then begins to possess feelings of grief, anger and frustration. With these flaws weighing on his conscience it contributes to the making of a tragic hero. This is due to the forced objective of avenging his father’s murder and his mother’s incestuous marriage, Hamlet’s lack of being able to dictate his own choices and his cowardly sense of committing suicide to avoid the suffering. Hamlets anger, which stems from his mother marrying Claudius, bears him serious thoughts of suicide.
Hamlet’s father tells him that he must get revenge on his uncle for him; he wants Hamlet to kill Claudius. Hamlet promises his beloved father that he will do whatever it takes to make sure Claudius lives no more, but as he will find out it is not as easy as it seems. Many philosophers have come up with different reasons to why they think that the main character, Hamlet, delays in killing Claudius. S. T. Coleridge came up with the solution that Hamlet was incapable of killing Claudius because he thought about the action too much (Coleridge). Hamlet over analyzed everything he did from the time he first saw his father’s ghost, until the time he had finally got around to doing he deed he promised his father.
He laments that “the Everlasting”, which is symbolic for the eternal God, has deemed it immoral to commit suicide, for he would rather commit suicide than endure pain. However, it is because committing suicide goes against the bible, that he continues his struggle through life, unlike Ophelia who upon losing her sanity, also loses her faith. This is the first time we see Hamlet contemplating death, which remains a very compelling idea in his mind. For example, in his “to be, or not to be (73)”, soliloquy, Hamlet is again contemplating whether it is a more noble task to bear all of life’s burdens or to escape it though death. However because there is much uncertainty in death, as no one knows what comes after, Hamlet declares himself too cowardly to commit suicide.
In Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy, the tones of grief and misery overtake him at that very moment and reveal his fears of the ongoing situation in his life. He is anguished and tormented, and complexly contemplates the decision of whether or not to commit suicide because of the way it would stand as a morality issue. Throughout the scene he is constantly deliberating whether taking the pain and suffering of his life would be worth the consequences he would receive after death. The diction used in Hamlet’s soliloquy is important to understand the true depth and complex meaning behind his words. Hamlet begins with the ever so famous line: “To be or not to be,” for at that moment, Hamlet literally poses the question of “life and death”.