Hamlet: Growing Pains

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Hamlet: Growing Pains

In the epic tragedy Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, Prince Hamlet is

entrapped in a world of evil that is not of his own creation. He must oppose

this evil, which permeates his seemingly star-struck life from many angles. His

dealings with his father's eerie death cause Hamlet to grow up fast. His family,

his sweetheart, and his school friends all appear to turn against him and to

ally themselves with the evil predicament in which Hamlet finds himself. Hamlet

makes multiple attempts to avenge his father's murder, but each fails because

his father's murder, but each fails because his plans are marred by very human

shortcomings. It is these shortcomings that Hamlet is a symbol of ordinary

humanity and give him the room he needs to grow.

The Hamlet that Shakespeare begins to develop in Act I is a typical

mortal, bowed down by his human infirmities and by a disgust of the evils in a

world which has led him to the brink of suicide. Hamlet voices his thoughts on

the issue: ‘O that this too too solid flesh would melt...' (I. ii. 135). He

is prevented from this drastic step only by a faith which teaches him that God

has ‘fix'd/ His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter' (I. ii. 131-2). To Hamlet appears

his dead father's spirit, and he must continue to live in the ‘unweeded garden,

/ That grows to seed' in order to fulfill the obligation he has to his father

(I.ii. 135-6).

Making Hamlet more a story of personal growth than a dark murder mystery,

Shakespeare emphasizes the emotional, rather than the physical, obstacles that

Prince must face in accomplishing his goal. Immediately, Hamlet must determine

whether the ghost speaks the truth, and to do so he must cope with theological

issues. He must settle the moral issue of private revenge. He must learn to

live in a world in which corruption could be as near as the person who gave

birth to him. He also must control the human passions within him which are

always threatening his plans. There are no more sobering issues than these

which would catalyze growth in any human.

Hamlet's widely recognized hamartia, or tragic flaw, is his inability to

make decisions on subjects with consequences of any weight. That he is aware of

his stagnation in such situations does prove to be helpful in defeating this

flaw. After passing up three oppotuities to entrap Claudius in the third act

(the nunnery scene on which the king was eavesdropping, during The Murder of

Gonzago, the scene in Gertrude's closet), Hamlet berates himself because of his

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