The Noble Youth: Hamlet

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Recommended: Themes in Hamlet

As every Shakespearean character, Hamlet is a multi-faceted person. He is a man characterised by high moral standards, intelligence and a deep sensitivity. He is brave, noble and witty.This essay will analyse his complex personality showing how the text conveys his main features: nobility, loneliness, melancholy and suffering.
First of all, right from the beginning of the play, Hamlet appears as a noble-minded youth. The reader sees him inspiring affection in his fellows Horatio and Marcellus, which follow and protect him, and showing loyalty to his father’s memory and abhorrence at his mother and uncle’s immoral wedding. He praises his dead father, defining him “so excellent a king that was to this Hyperion to a satyr” . His respect he has for him is enhanced by the comparison of the new king to the satyr, Hyperion antithesis, a creature famous for being usually drunk and immoral. He mistrusts Claudius, the villain of the play, from the start: he hates him even before knowing he is the murderer and this is what suggests from the beginning that he is the hero of the play. He knows who his enemy is, defines him as “treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain” and starts his own battle, triggered by the arrival of the ghost. He also expresses his hatred towards his mother to “post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets” . He criticises her choices in a misogynist first soliloquy, showing once again his filial fidelity towards the dead king. He is always guided by his strong sense of morality, which is most noble and estimable quality.
Hamlet is also characterized by and impressive intelligence, often shown in his long soliloquies. This ability to transform his thoughts in wonderful words portrays a young man who is highly philo...

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... die, to sleep--
No more--and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to.”
SEGNALIBRO
In this monologue, he is delaing his revenge asking himself whether his life is worth the effort it takes to live it. He has, also, commented that his life is not worth “a pin’s fee” trova(I.iv.65) nd said that there is nothing he would says that there is nothing he would “more willingly part withal; except my life, except my life” trova . (II.ii.209-210)

In conclusion, Hamlet is a complex figure hard to explore and comprehend. He is brave and strong, but cannot control his emotions and his despair. These are the reasons why he is still up-to-date and considered a prime example of the modern man. He is a hero, the hero of inaction and delay, this is what makes him human and what makes the reader want to go deeper in his analysis.

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