Hamlet Delay In Hamlet

Throughout the play, Hamlet, the lead character, Hamlet, continually delays avenging his father’s murder for unclear reasons. Many different scholars have offered explanations for the delay in action, from the ludicrous idea of Hamlet being a woman to the more serious explanation of Hamlet questioning whether the ghost is from heaven or hell. Above all I believe that Hamlet waits to enact his revenge because he has incestious feelings toward his mother. At one point during the lecture, Johnson introduces the idea Hamlet can not kill Claudius because he then be forced to recone with his own feelings towards his mother, and this “overwhelms him and disgusts him.”

This rationale appears to be the most logical explanation for the delay to me because

By removing himself from his mother’s presence Hamlet remove the temptation of her and also hopes to eliminate his thoughts of incest. These thoughts have greatly troubled Hamlet since the death of his father which left an opening in which Hamlet desired to fill, until Claudius beat him to it. Elsinore itself also has a noticeable impact on Hamlet, by showing him “as a noble prince in a corrupt and evil world.” During the opening scenes of the play, Hamlet is not content with the marriage of his mother and uncle, but works through it. The lack of content stems from Claudius taking his place besides his mother in bed, even though Hamlet knows it is best that he and his mother do not have an incestious love. Throughout the progression of the play “the unsatisfactory moral and emotional climate” wears down the barrier between what Hamlet knows as right and wrong. Eventually the only barrier between Hamlet and his desire to be with is mother is Claudius, and this barrier must remain. Leaving it so that the very thing that Hamlet needs the most, a barrier between his mother and himself, is