Through the entirety of the play “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare, the characters were overcome with the need for revenge as the outcome of many deaths. Therefore, no one was happy through “Hamlet” and it resulted in a tragedy. The character Hamlet played a big role in turning towards revenge and never would classify himself as being happy. Hamlet displays positive and negative behavior throughout the play. Hamlet exhibits strengths and weaknesses as well, although his weaknesses of over-thinking, bitterness, and his inability to accept the death of his father overshadow his strengths.
In act 2 of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the prince expresses his disappointment with himself due to his lack of courage. “O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I,” (2.2.123) says Hamlet in his third soliloquy. He begins to question whether he has the strength to go through with his plans to kill the king. In this emotional speech Hamlet expresses his feeling that he is “a coward because he feels he has done nothing to take revenge on Claudius,” (Newell). This third soliloquy brings forth the theme of frustration in the play.
Regarding Hamlet is a revenge tragedy, madness is a theme of the play but he’s not truly mad. He pretends to be mad to distract his uncle and mother so that he can reveal the truth of his father’s murder. Even though he gives the signs of his feigned madness throughout the play he first articulates these words to his friend Horatio at the end of act I scene
Hamlet finds out that this was a setup of Claudius and Polonius to spy on him, so they can find out if he is truly mad. All of Hamlet’s comments towards Ophelia suggest that he feels betrayed. Hamlet and Ophelia showed each other true love but both were mad after their fathers’ deaths. Hamlet was acting mad to have revenge while Ophelia was truly mad. During Ophelia’s funeral, Hamlet stated “I loved Ophelia; forty thousand brothers could not with all their quantity of love make up my sum”, expressing his true feelings towards her.
As Hamlet expresses his anger at his mother, he hears a noise from the tapestry, and, thinking it is a rat, kills Polonius with his sword (3.4.24). Hamlet is overcome with revenge, and becomes easily irritable. As a result, he kills Polonius inadvertently. The fact that revenge overrides any rational instinct in Hamlet reminds students that vengeance causes illogical thinking, and, in turn, serious consequences. Towards the end of the play, Hamlet finally receives his chance at revenge in the form of a fencing match against Claudius.
Many tragic heroes holds pride as their primary cause to his downfall, but Hamlet’s hesitation throughout the play is his key weakness. During the play of The Murder of Gonzago schemed by Hamlet to confirm Claudius’s act of crime, himself was overwhelmed by self-contempt and guilt. Hamlet blames himself for just standing around cursing like a whore, and urges to seek revenge by heaven and hell. After the performance, Hamlet observes Claudius and found him guilty and prays for forgiveness. But Hamlet give up the good opportunity of killing Claudius because he hopes that his revenge for his father for a moral sake, not committing an impulsive revenge.
“To be or not to be?” is the question Hamlet often asks himself along his journey of revenge, where many emotional encounters and obstacles continue to test him. Violence arises when Polonius dies, Ophelia drowns herself, and the killing of Claudius after the intense fencing match between Hamlet and Laertes. These violent decisions all relate back to Hamlet’s scheme of how he plans to retaliate for the death of his father, whether he uses mental or physical sources of violence. Shakespeare creates violence throughout the plot to contribute to the overall meaning of the play. Each of these violent segments have the readers asking questions to figure out what the purpose and reasonings are behind all of these heartless acts of brutality that take place during the play.
The progression of Hamlet is quite astonishing he begins as a young prince with the world in his hand, to a lunatic who becomes obsessed with revenging his father’s death. The revenge theme is acted upon throughout the novel and is essentially what drives Hamlet. He believes that Claudius has killed his father (we later find out this is true), this begins his investigating. “Hamlet O, from this time forth, my thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!” Hamlet 's pursuit to revenge his father 's death blinded his morals and intelligence and lead to his untimely death. It can be argued that Hamlet is the most complex character Shakespeare has ever written, there has been many debates revolving around his insanity (real or fake).
The ghost of his father leads him to contemplate murder; this is an emotional decision for him due to the apparent lack of evidence. Commanded by his father’s ghost to, “revenge his foul and most unnatural murder,” by his brother Claudius, who has robbed him of his wife and throne as well as his life. At this point, his inner turmoil has left him emotionally unavailable and completely disenchanted with humanity in general. Hamlet is so bent on doing it but swears that “with wings as swift/ As meditation, or the thoughts of love,’ he will ‘sweep to [his] revenge”, but keeps on the procrastination due to the voice of reason within him. These two sides within Hamlet offers a spectacle of conflict, that is, whether he wants to avenge his father’s murder or not.
When King Hamlet’s ghost approaches Prince Hamlet in Act I, he soon finds out that he, along with many others, were lied to about his father’s death. When King Hamlet’s ghost informs Prince Hamlet that King Claudius poisoned him, he cannot let anyone know that he is aware of this information. When Hamlet finds out that King Claudius murdered his father, it ignites a fire in him that drives him to complete his father’s request and murder Claudius. If he were to let the other