Hamlet Is Not A Coward Analysis

Hamlet is the main character of the historical play ‘the Tragedy of Hamlet’, by William Shakespeare. Both his character and his actions have been discussed and debated amongst scholar and critics. Critics have analysed Hamlet with many viewpoints, often considering him a hero as the protagonist of the play. However, I disagree with this viewpoint as I believe that Hamlet is truly a coward, simply forced into taking revenge by circumstance. From Act 3 scene 3 we can already see a cowardly side to Hamlet when it comes to following through with his father’s wishes from beyond the grave.

As Dana Ramel Barnes wrote in her Critical Essay about shakespeare’s play ‘the Tragedy of Hamlet’, ‘Hamlet and the modern dilemma’, “...Hamlet is not a coward.”. This is quite a commonly shared opinion amongst scholar and critics. Throughout the play Shakespeare tries to portray Hamlet’s character as the heroic Prince who has the mission of avenging his father’s death. However, Hamlet fails repeatedly to complete this task, rethinking himself and giving himself excuses not to kill Claudius. For example, when Hamlet failed to avenge his father in the

De Paulo has a similar opinion to me. “Hamlet wants language to be an escape from subjectivity, but as he ostentatiously puns and quibbles, words seem to multiply on their own and cloud his mind.” Indicating that due to the fact of his clouded judgement, Hamlet is using this as an excuse to cover up the fact that he is indeed just a coward trying to avoid getting revenge on Claudius for poisoning and killing his father. As he repeatedly fails to complete the task at hand, his cowardly nature comes more and more into focus as the play continues. Even though manu scholar and critics feel that Hamlet is indeed the hero of the play, there are very clear moments where he is in fact a weak coward who doesn’t take revenge on his father’s murderer until the very end when he almost, accidentally kills