In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the titular hero and tragic figure of the play constantly finds himself unable to act on the Ghost’s instructions to take revenge on King Claudius despite the compelling reasons he realizes for doing so. The reason for this delay is Hamlet’s tragic flaw – his tendency towards thought and introspection rather than impulse and action. Because of this flaw, Hamlet is unable to ignore the moral aspects of his actions and “thereby becomes the creature of mere meditation, and [he] loses his natural power of action” (Coleridge, 343).
Hamlet is not a man of action; rather, he is a man of thought. Passion and extreme anger are simply not natural emotions for Hamlet, and consequently, he finds himself unable to maintain any of these emotions for an extended period of time. Coleridge mentions this, stating, “In Hamlet [Shakespeare] seems to have wished to exemplify the moral necessity of a due balance between our attention to the objects of our senses, and our meditation on the workings of our minds,- an equilibrium between the real and the imaginary worlds” (344). It is this equilibrium that Hamlet is unable to achieve as he strays passionately into the real world then falls back into the realm of the mind, usually due to moral or philosophical speculation. In his first soliloquy, Hamlet is extremely depressed, and speaks very passionately about his wish to commit suicide. However, he realizes that the law of God has forbidden “self-slaughter” (1.2.136) and consequently he cannot bring himself to violate his own moral code by taking action and killing himself. Later in Act One, after hearing the Ghost’s revelation that he was murdered, Hamlet promises to take his revenge as quickly as he can. He asks the Ghost to...
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...ever, Hamlet cannot figure out that it really is his “craven scruple / Of thinking too precisely on th' event” (4.4.42-3) that has been preventing him from taking action.
Hamlet naturally tends towards over-thinking everything he does and makes himself too aware of the larger moral implications of any act to perform it. Consequently, he hesitates and delays until circumstances force his hand after much procrastination. Hence, as Coleridge writes, “we see a great, an almost enormous, intellectual activity, and a proportionate aversion to real action consequent upon it” (344).
Works Cited
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Lectures and Notes on Shakspere and Other English Poets. London: George Bell and Sons, 1904. pp.342-368. Print.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. The New Folger Library. ed. Barbara Mowat and Paul Werstine. New York: Washington Square Press, 1992. Print.
Jorgensen, Paul A. “Hamlet.” William Shakespeare: the Tragedies. Boston: Twayne Publ., 1985. N. pag. http://www.freehomepages.com/hamlet/other/jorg-hamlet.html
Hamlet (The New Folger Library Shakespeare). Simon & Schuster; New Folger Edition, 2003.
Throughout the Dramaturgic Analysis of Hamlet Prince of Denmark the indecisiveness of Hamlet is noted. He does not immediately seek vengeance but continually schemes, rants and raves (both in his rational and insane moments). Whether cowardice, caution, or simply indifference dominate his persona is unclear - what is clear is his distaste for his own behavior: "How stand I then, That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,...And let all sleep, while to my shame I see The imminent death of twenty thousand men... (sic)." (Shakespeare, 116).
After his meeting with the ghost, Hamlet becomes obsessed with death. It is obvious that Hamlet is wrestling with the idea of whether or not he can commit the act. At this point he is capable of reasoning, but prior to this he was wily enough to invent his false madness. He has not lost his ability to discriminate right from wrong; therefore, he is not mad. To be mad a person loses total reasoning. Still he is determined to discover whether or not Claudius did really murder his father. So, Hamlet organizes a play that reveals the truth about his father’s death. This play serves as a strategy to force Claudi...
This passage from the last soliloquy of Hamlet tries to explain the position Hamlet is placed in in. For example, line 34 “How all occasions do form against me...35 and spur my dull revenge!” These two lines critically reveal that Hamlet is being triggered by some actions to carry out revenge against the person who killed his Father (203). In the passage, the question to take action is not only affected by the sensible contemplation, such as the call for certainty, but also by emotive, ethical and psychosomatic factors (Shakespeare
Ay, sure, this is most brave, / That I, the son of the dear murdered, / Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, / Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words / And fall a-cursing like very drab, / A scullion! Fie upon’t, foh! -About my brain” (2.2.585-590). Here Hamlet himself reveals that he has been thinking too much about needs to be done instead of acting on what should be done. In fact, Hamlet goes on to insult himself because of how appalled he is with his own actions of thinking, and speaking instead of just doing what needs to be done, and killing Claudius. It seems that Hamlet is also trying to convince himself that he needs to just do it however that fails once he starts questioning, and insulting himself because by allowing himself to question his behavior he has already gone back into his same way of thinking. Hamlet tries to break his nature here by pondering why he hasn’t done anything and cursing himself for not acting yet Hamlet fails his attempts as soon as he starts them because with this pondering if his own behavior Hamlet has already gone back into his thinking ways and was questioning why he was so much of a thinker. By trying to overcome his nature using his normal method Hamlet reveals that his true nature is to be a thinker because not even when he tries to convince himself to act another way can he break his analysis of the possibilities.
Our first experience with Hamlet’s tendency to wander into the realm of the abstract comes even before he meets the Ghost. In Act I, Scene iv, as Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus await the spirit, they observe Claudius, who is drunk. His scholarly mind always searching for new intellectual morsels, Hamlet uses the king’s seemingly commonplace actions as the springboard for a discussion of the causes of evil in men. What stands out is how quickly he forgets about practical matters ¾in this case, meeting the spirit of his dead father¾ in order to ponder over a vague, philosophical question. As the play develops, it is this very trait that prevents him from achieving the prompt revenge he has promised.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 2nd ed. Vol. C. Ed. Sarah Lawall. New York: Norton, 2005. Print.
In Hamlet, the motif of a young prince forsaken of his father, family, and rationality, as well as the resulting psychological conflicts develop. Although Hamlet’s inner conflicts derive from the lack of mourning and pain in his family, as manifested in his mother’s incestuous remarrying to his uncle Claudius, his agon¬1 is truly experienced when the ghost of his father reveals the murderer is actually Claudius himself. Thus the weight of filial obligation to obtain revenge is placed upon his shoulders. However, whereas it is common for the tragic hero to be consistent and committed to fulfilling his moira,2 Hamlet is not; his tragic flaw lies in his inability to take action. Having watched an actor’s dramatic catharsis through a speech, Hamlet criticizes himself, venting “what an ass am I! This is most brave, that I, the son of a dear father murdered, prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell… [can only] unpack my heart with words” (Hamlet 2.2.611-614). Seeing how the actor can conjure such emotion over simple speech, Hamlet is irate at his lack of volition and is stricken with a cognitive dissonance in which he cannot balance. The reality and ...
One single moment or event during the course of an individual’s life can effectively alter their priorities and transform their identity drastically. In The play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, Shakespeare introduces the readers to the protagonist Hamlet who is draped in anger and emotions and has a new-found mission in life. Initially, Hamlet is portrayed as an individual in mourning over his father's death and his mother's haste in remarrying to her brother-in-law and Hamlet's uncle, Claudius. However, Hamlet’s character and personality were drastically altered after meeting the Ghost and discovering the true nature of his Father’s death. Hamlet is now a man with a lust for revenge and a willingness to do anything that will enable him to accomplish this goal. When burdened with the task of killing Claudius, Hamlet chooses to sacrifice all he holds dear by transforming his identity in a noble effort to avenge his father’s death.
...nts itself. Hamlet is so determined to do something he does not wish to think about the consequences anymore.
Hamlet, while not a man of many actions, is a man of many words. Though like many others, Hamlet gets caught up in the moment; saying or committing himself without fully understanding the consequences or what is going to be entailed. When he is with his father’s ghost, Hamlet promises, “Haste me to know’t, that I with wings as swift. As meditation of the thought of love/May sweep to my revenge.”(1.5.35-37) Hamlet did not keep his word to his father, his actions were not swift nor where they an act of revenge. Hamlet does not strike in an act of revenge, but in an act of anger and self preservation after the murder of his mother. He is hesitant at an opportune time, while the King was praying, for the reason that when committing himself to the act of revenge Hamlet did not fully understand what was being asked of him. That he would not only have to take the life of another man, but commit treason by slaughtering the King.
Self-image plays a big role in how people act. Hamlet’s inability to know himself or to understand his own motives leads to the restless battles between right and wrong in his conscience, which is the reason for his unpredictable tragic actions, and behaviors. Hamlets’ confusion is clearly shown in his soliloquies. His confused mind can be broken into five categories. Hamlet suffers from his own moral standards, the desperate need to seek the truth, lack of confidence and trust in his own impulses, self-hatred, and melancholy. Each of these categories contribute to Hamlet’s troubled mind.
Hamlet seems incapable of deliberate action, and is only hurried into extremities on the spur of the occasion, when he has no time to reflect, as in the scene where he kills Polonius, and again, where he alters the letters which Rosencraus and Guildenstern are taking with them to England, purporting his death. At other times, when he is most bound to act, he remains puzzled, undecided, and skeptical, until the occasion is lost, and he finds some pretence to relapse into indolence and thoughtfulness again. For this reason he refuses to kill the King when he is at his prayers, and by a refinement in malice, which is in truth only an excuse for his own want of resolution, defers his revenge to a more fatal opportunity, when he will be engaged in some act "that has no relish of salvation in it."
Another reason Hamlet procrastinates is that his psychological feelings confuse his ability to confront his destiny. Hamlet's dilemma has little to do with what decision he should make, but if he would be able to make any at all. Hamlet could have also lost his ...