Play Hamlet (Essay Sample)

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Hamlet
Hamlet’s inability to move with resolve and avenge the death of his father is caused by many factors that control his character. The circumstance in which he finds himself in is difficult and competes with his relative inexperience because of age such that matters of conscience weigh in to affect the level of his resolve. In essence, the play illustrates a combination of forces that affects the Prince of Denmark at both the conscious and the subconscious level. Another important reason that could be attributed to his delay to kill Claudius is uncertainty. Hamlet is not very sure about whether the message and the story of the play are real or whether he was being misled by the ghost (Rosenberg 61). As a result, he is not aware whether the action of killing Claudius would be the right kind of thing to do at any moment. As the protagonist of the play, all actions are focused on him. His actions are weighed in terms of their contribution to the parent theme of vengeance. The play revolves around a tragedy that revolves around a royal family. Family associations and the value of the family as an institution also affect the character of the protagonist. The preservation of this institution and the awareness of the relevant of the throne to the society may have contributed to the difficult situation that complicated Hamlet’s desire for revenge. For instance, the current king is not just a murderer as alleged by the ghost and the other characters. He is also his uncle by blood. The weight of this relationship was more troubling for Hamlet particularly because he is shown as a youngster who was brought up in ways of righteousness and strong moral values.
Hamlet is an heir to the throne. As a possible future king, he must conduct himself with absolute decorum, caution, and strength of character. These qualities must be brought out even more strongly in a situation that involves vengeance against a serving king. However, the manner in which he exercised his caution was more complicated and hinted at some weaknesses of character. These weaknesses exposed him to the evil design of his uncle who began to organize his parallel scheme of ending Hamlet’s life. The uncle began to realize the danger posed by Hamlet’s existence because of his delay and indecisive nature. The result would have been very different had he acted more swiftly at the point of confirmation.
Hamlet arranges the confirmation to be some kind of a play that would enact events in the same sequence as the ghost had explained them to him. According to him, if the story of the ghost were true, then Hamlet would see it in the reaction of the new King as the play progresses (Shakespeare 182). He would then find some good reason to kill Claudius after the justification. The problem is that the more he attempted to find the right kind of confirmation the more he moved himself to the danger of being killed by the vengeful forces within the kingdom. One of his weaknesses is that he had failed to understand the kind of evil intentions that were directed around him by the new King.
Claudius knew that his hold on the throne would not be safe as long as Hamlet was alive. It was because of this that he endlessly sought ways of ending the young man’s life. Claudius order for Hamlet to be taken to England is one of the ways in which he plots to have Hamlet killed. This was after Hamlet had killed Polonius while imagining that he had indeed killed the Claudius. The sequence of events is made even more complicated when Ophelia decides to commit suicide. The double act of the tragedy involving both Polonius and his daughter Ophelia are enough justification to make Laertes seek his revenge against Hamlet. The king who insists that Hamlet is squarely to blame for the death of the two supports this idea. The outcome of this sequence of events is that the match is arranged between Laertes and Hamlet in which Laertes will be given a poisoned sword for the purpose of bleeding and eventually killing Hamlet.
The sequence of events would not have become very complicated if Hamlet had acted swiftly in killing Claudius. Instead, he keeps on postponing the action of revenge until the moment when he can only do it after the death of his mother. It is one of the motives that lead to his eventual downfall. One of the rationales that could be attributed to this sequence of events is that Hamlet had some weakness of character that prevented him from acting with the necessary kind of speed against the villainous king. It might be argued that Hamlet was a perfectionist who only wanted to achieve the right kind of results in situations. This aspect of his character is clear from the very beginning of the play. His character is not consistent. His desire for perfection is the one reason that leads him into the near state of madness. He is not able to hold his composure and execute a well-designed plan for revenge. In this regard, it might be argued that Hamlet’s weaknesses are necessarily caused by the various forces that determine aspects of character within the understanding of the subject of revenge.
Hamlets near state of madness and his descent into melancholy could be explained through a range of factors that concern his weaknesses of character. For instance, he cannot act in a manner that shows his ability to engage meaningfully with the mission for revenge. He is very indecisive as he plans his course of action and brings about doubt to defeat his own plans. As a result, of this Hamlet fails to come up with the best plan to end a complicated situation that had the blessings of the spirit of his dead father. Some of the reasons that have been used to explain the nature of difficulty that confronts the Prince of Denmark are that he acts very swiftly on other issues but he is unable to act in the same manner when it comes to the matter of avenging his father’s death (McEvoy 43). On this score, it might be argued that Hamlet’s character epitomizes some kind of a dual character. He hesitates at a point when he is supposed to act with resolve and end the Kingdom’s injustice.
Hamlet was unable to act decisively despite the fact that he had the support of most of the righteous people within the Kingdom. The popularity of the new King could not match his own father’s popularity. In essence, the new king was simply a murderer and a villainous individual whose only interest was to plot evil for benefitting his private goals. His yearn for power led him to murder the previous king that was his own brother. Hamlet should have realized the weight and necessity of revenge before his uncle schemed for his death in similar circumstances. He should have used the first-hand information he had received from Horatio the scholar, the apparition of his deceased father, and the reports of the two guards to act in a more decisive manner that could capture...