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.
Hamlets anger, which stems from his mother marrying Claudius, bears him serious thoughts of suicide. This results in an attempt at a religious and moral sin which shows a weakness in his character. Hamlet shows some moral sense when he decides not to kill himself due to religious beliefs, which is a paradox that leads to Hamlet’s downfall. His statement “thy commandment all alone shall live within the book and volume of my brain” (I.V.102-103) establishes his tragic decision to let nothing stand in the way of his vowed revenge assuring the death of Claudius, a longer life span and the immunity of punishment towards his mother. As act III begins, the reader sees Claudius’s plot against Hamlet progress.
Hamlet has been instructed by the ghost of his late father to avenge his death by killing King Claudius. This is what brings mistrust and eavesdropping into the picture. Claudius has suspensions about Hamlet’s peculiar behavior, and has summoned his school chums, Guildenstern and Rosencrantz, to spy on him. Before they even start their expedition of eavesdropping, the King and Polonious have already made plans to hide being a wall hanging during Hamlet and Ophelia’s exchange of love gifts. King Claudius is determined to discover an alternative motive to Hamlet’s madness besides depression.
Hamlet decides to kill Claudius to seek revenge over his father’s death. In the meantime, Hamlet is given endless opportunities to kill his uncle, one being the time where Claudius is in prayer and Hamlet says: "and so ‘a goes to heaven; /and so am I revenged. That would be scann'd:/A villain kills my father, and for that/ I, his sole son, do the same villain send/to heaven." (3.3.74-78) Although Hamlet is determined to avenge his father through the death of Claudius; he takes any opportunity he can to procrastinate, which includes the excuse of this uncle’s peaceful state of mind. Considering the thought that being in a position with God may cause his death to be less painful, Hamlet chooses to wait, whereas he could have killed him off and ultimately saved his life in the end.
The theme of action vs inaction was most striking in my personal response. This theme is shaped through the strong values of hatred and revenge, characterising Hamlet and his existential dilemma. Hamlet is a man uncertain of which course to take in the circumstances he has been presented with; should he murder the murderer of his father, seducer of his mother, the man who pushed in front of his claim to the throne and made an attempt on his life? Existentialism, particularly Soren Kiekegaard's works, focus on individual existence, freedom and choice, and the existence of the afterlife. Hamlet's courses of action, shaped by his hatred and revenge, and the consequences each bare lead to his existential dilemma.
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.
In Hamlet, the passionate and hasty Laertes and the vengeful Fortinbras are foils for Hamlet's introspective personality and provide a basis for comparison of the hero's course of action. Laertes and Hamlet share a common goal of revenge for the murder of their father. Though their situation and the circumstances of their father's death coincide, their individual responses to the fatalities differ greatly, and serve to highlight Hamlet's tragic flaw. Upon hearing of his father's death, Laertes becomes totally preoccupied with thoughts of revenge. While Hamlet scrutinizes and evaluates the consequences of his actions, Laertes acts without forethought, saying, "Let come what comes only I'll be revenged / Most thoroughly for my father" (IV.v.138).
Kim Jensen Mark Brown English 1002 7 February 2012 Choosing Your Own Fate In Flannery O’Connor’s story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” the Misfit is portrayed as the one that is carrying out the fate that the family has decided for themselves. The Misfit says that “You can do one thing or you can do another, kill a man or take a tire off his car, because sooner or later you’re going to forget what it was you done and just be punished for it”(339). In a sence he is right. In this story the grandmother, Bailey, the children and the mother all have decide what type of lives they want to live. They all live with sins everyday between the lying and the disrespect that they have towards each other.
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
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.