Revenge is a harmful action that many people never consider the full outcome of what their actions might bring. In William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, it can be seen that Polonius deserves some punishment for his interference with Hamlet and his snooping but certainly not the repercussion of death. Additionally, Ophelia is no more innocent than her father, as she is killed by her own madness. Finally, Laertes, Polonius’s son, is rushed back to Denmark to avenge his father’s death, only to result in his own demise. Nonetheless, the main plot following is Prince Hamlet’s attempt to avenge his father’s murder.
The context of Hamlet leaves enough evidence to prove that Hamlet was sane and only pretended to be mad. The first time that the reader sees Hamlet, he is distraught due to his father’s death and the marriage of the Queen and Claudius, Hamlet’s mother and his father’s murderer. Hamlet describes his thoughts by saying, “O, that this too too solid 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!
He falls to his knees and begins to pray. Hamlet slips quietly into the room and steels himself to kill the unseeing Claudius. But suddenly it occurs to him that if he kills Claudius while he is praying, he will end the king’s life at the moment when he was seeking forgiveness for his sins, sending Claudius’s soul to heaven. This is hardly an adequate revenge, Hamlet thinks, especially since Claudius, by killing Hamlet’s father before he had time to make his last confession, ensured that his brother would not go to heaven. Hamlet decides to wait, resolving to kill Claudius when the king is sinning—when he is either drunk, angry, or lustful.
Hamlet faced himself with a painful loss and feels the betrayal towards his mother due to the reason that she married the murderer of her husband. Hamlets emotions start to change drastically due to the indecision of how to proceed his situation. Should he go towards revenge and fallow his duty as son or fallow his duties and expectations as Prince. Hamlet finds a way in which he could fallow his duty as son by killing Claudius in a manner in which he would not find fault in. Hamlet gathers evidence against Claudius and then has the right to comply with his revenge towards Claudius but also stays as Prince to fallow his responsibility.
Through out the play, Hamlet has many opportunities to avenge his father's death by murdering Claudius, how ever there seems to always be something that give us the impression that Hamlet is holding back. There are many reasons as to why Hamlet might be delaying the revenge. It could be said that Hamlet fears the consequence of killing, or it could be that Hamlet didn't want to hurt his mother, or maybe its simply because one does not simply walk up to a king and kill him, especially if you're going to follow that up with It's ok, he murdered my father, the ghost told me so. One of the many reasons as to why he delays the killing could be that he is afraid of the consequence as to what will come after killing. It could be said that Hamlet is quite religious seeing that he fears his fait if murdering Claudius during his prayer, "Now might I do it pat, now a is a-praying, and now I'll do't - and so goes to heaven, and am I reneged.
Everyone became more cautious and many had lost the trust of foreign societies, even society itself. This concept is modeled by William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, where immense adversity shapes the character of young Hamlet in his search for vengeance in his father’s name. In the play, Hamlet is first confronted with adversity when a ghost explains that his father was murdered by his uncle. This situation shifts his identity and forces the already mourning Hamlet into a deep depression where he is hell bent on revenge. At the start of the play, Shakespeare introduces Claudius as a wise and confidant ruler with no apparent flaw.
“The similarities seem drawn, however, mainly to highlight the eventual differences between the two male heirs’ responses” (Drewry 26). The contrasting means of revenge is what sets Hamlet and Laertes the most apart, and is what the reader judges their character by. When Hamlet learns from his father’s ghost that he was murdered by his Uncle, Hamlet swears to him “with wings as swift…May sweep to my revenge” (1.5.7), promising his father a quick and speedy revenge. However, he spends most of the play brooding about killing Claudius and chastising himself for not taking action: “O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!” (2.2.58). And even after he renews his resolve to avenge his father, instead going over to Claudius and killing him right away, Hamlet goes off and puts on a
Hamlet’s inability to take revenge, his constant procrastination throughout the play builds up his emotional and psychological complexity and results in the deaths of many. In the play there are two foils of Hamlet, Laertes and Fortinbras who are sons seeking revenge for the death of their fathers however unlike Hamlet they are resolute and headstrong in their acts of revenge. Hamlet’s rationality tells him that revenge is a mode of reprisal rather than restoration however he is his father’s son, his namesake and bound to his vengeance, bound to his cause. Hamlet a typical Shakespearean tragic hero of noble stature, who has been cast far from grace, learns of his father’s murder by his uncle and decides to go down the path of revenge. The ghost of Hamlet’s father the late King Hamlet comes to him in warlike apparel and tells him: Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand Of life, of
To kill or not to kill; that is the question. While Hamlet is devastated to learn the true nature of his father’s death and vows to avenge him, he is unable to take action. Hamlet is a victim of self doubt and procrastination and so cannot act upon his instructions. Only when he recognizes his weakness, can he avenge his father. Ironically in the process he also succumbs to death by poison.
It is always important to know where your values lie because as the old saying goes "if you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything." In Shakkespeare's Drama Hamlet, Prince of Dinmark, Hamlet struggled with his morals and in the end he payed the ulimate price. In the drama Hamlet struggles with revenge, murder, and suicide. It is the desire for revenge that lies behind the motives of Hamlet. Hamlet's moral struggle for revenge becomes an obsession causing a change in his character.