Hamlet’s decision to avenge his father is affected by social, psychological and religious influences. Once Hamlet has learned of his father’s death, he is faced with a difficult question: should he succumb to the social influence of avenging his father’s death? The Ghost tells Hamlet to “revenge his foul and most unnatural murder” (1.5.31) upon which Hamlet swears to “remember” (1.5.118). Hamlet’s immediate response to this command of avenging his father’s death is reluctance. Hamlet displays his reluctance by deciding to test the validity of what the Ghost has told him by setting up a “play something like the murder of (his) father’s” (2.2.624) for Claudius.
After he learns about the treachery of his uncle and the adultery of his mother, his already negative countenance declines further. He struggles with the task of killing Claudius, feeling burdened about having been asked to find a solution to a situation that was forced upon him.Death is something he struggles with as an abstract idea and as relative to himself. He is able to reconcile with the idea of death and reality eventually. Hamlet appears to be a rather philosophical character. He is skeptical and expresses views that nowadays can be described as existential and relativist, but those terms did not exist in Shakespeare’s time.
The topic of his soliloquy is his consideration of committing suicide. Throughout the speech, Hamlet is over thinking between two extremes: life and death. In the monologue, he contemplates whether he should live and endure the pain or end his life. He also considers seeking revenge for his father’s death. If Hamlet choose to kill himself, he would no longer have to be responsible for avenging his father’s
In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Laertes and Hamlet both lose a father by unnatural and sudden death. The unnatural death of the father is brought on by someone close to the son. When Laertes discovers that his father is dead, he is outraged. When Hamlet learns from the ghost of his father’s murder, he weeps, and promises action, though he delivers none. Both Laertes and Hamlet grieve deeply for their fathers, but Laertes acts upon this grief while Hamlet carefully plots his revenge and waits for the perfect moment to avenge King Hamlet.
His flaw of being hesitant in the end leads to his own death, and also the deaths of Gertrude, Ophelia, Laertes, and Claudius. Hamlet's fatal flaw is his delay in avenging his father's death. Hamlet is still devastated by his father's death when the ghost appears to him, and he is unable to carry through with his reprisal until the end of the play. Hamlet's delay in killing Claudius not only causes his own death, but the deaths of everyone else in his life except for Horatio and Fortinbras. Hamlet's character lends itself to a possible motivation for his unwillingness to kill Claudius.
His task is twofold, he wants to avenge the murder of his father and he wants his mother to reveal her guilt about her hasty and incestuous marriage. Finally, Hamlet does not truly know who he is, and what he is to do until the very last act of Hamlet. This essay aims to explore why Prince Hamlet has trouble becoming a moral agent. When we first encounter Hamlet, his concerns are about his mother's remarriage to his uncle Claudius so soon after his father has died. The Prince is angry because Gertrude is not adequately mourning old Hamlet's death, and due to the insistence of Claudius that Hamlet consider him his father and king: O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason Would have mourn'd longer-- married with my uncle, My fathe... ... middle of paper ... ....
In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Hamlet's focus on thought and reason, as opposed to immediate action, leads to a tragic ending. Although Hamlet takes action throughout the play, he tortures himself with thinking through the situations instead of acting on his inclination. First, after agreeing to seek vengeance for his father's death, Hamlet is torn by his conscience and his idealism, resulting in Polonius' death. Also, he reasons himself away from suicide, which only delays his own end. Finally, he's able to excuse his own role in Polonius' death, ending with both his and Laertes' demise.
Since Claudius wronged Hamlet and his father the audience wants to sympathize with Hamlet and see him triumph over Claudius. When his decency and moral appeal are seen as questionable Hamlet becomes a story immersed in the positive and negative qualities of character and the ambiguity of life. In the beginning of the play the audience sees Hamlet struggling with his father's death and his sincere mourning appeals to us; it is something that makes us feel for him. After his encounter with the ghost we are given a Hamlet with a horrible mission, to murder. Anyone can imagine how being faced with the truth of his father's death would anger Hamlet, but to murder in cold blood is something that wouldn't come easily to a young man.
69-71). Here, Shakespeare uses the word sleep to refer to death and the heartaches and shocks as the struggles of life. There is also a peace in sleeping that Hamlet wants to obtain in death. By using these metaphors, Shakespeare shows the simplicity of death compared to the hardships of life. This is especially evident with Hamlet because the revenge he is seeking is much more difficult than giving up and taking his own life out of grief.
(I,ii) Gertrude's apparent disregard of his honorable late father causes his suicidal dejection.When he hears from the ghost of his father's murder, he does indeed vow revenge. However, that revenge never seems to materialize, he thinks and worries but commits no action to fulfill his vow. For some reason, he plays the fool and delays his revenge. Significantly, he presents the play with the scenes altered to mirror the circumstances of Claudius' crime so Hamlet can watch his reactions with his own eyes. "For I mine eyes will rivet to his face, / And after we will both our judgments join / In censure of his seeming."