Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Hamlet's character analysis
Character analysis of Hamlet in Hamlet by Shakespeare
Analysis of the power of revenge in Hamlet
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Hamlet's character analysis
How does the average person act when it comes to a time of great distraught? Certainly not like Hamlet. Hamlet in the story displays many ways in how he is in distraught after he learn about the death of his father. Hamlet becomes a victim of fate in the events that follow in his life after the ghost of his dead father appears. At the same time he's a tragically flawed hero who can't always bring himself to perform the actions he wants to and backing out by rethinking his scenario. Hamlet is also a renaissance man by how he displays himself in being a good and well rounded person in times of when everything around him turns to the worst. Most of all though Hamlet is a slave of his passions, it's difficult to step away from his everyday life …show more content…
Hamlet can be described as the tragically flawed hero that couldn’t have courage inside of him sometimes to bring himself to perform the action he really wanted to. Hamlet does commit acts of violence that were not necessary, but every hero has their flaws. So the reason he does this is to give Claudius what he deserves. In a sense that Hamlet cannot step away from who he is, he always thinks about what more he could do to have bettered himself. What he lacks in action though he gains in knowledge of the leading situation. But with Hamlet’s delay in his revenge he learns more and more of the truth that than he did before, but he also had to prove that Polonius killed his father instead of believing a mysterious ghost. Since in the same time that all of this is occurring Hamlet does care about himself, to avoid any possible damnation, he continues to wait on his revengeful plan (Beauregard). Throughout the course of what Hamlet tries to do, he still sticks to what he knows will be the right action in the end, even though he doesn’t take action a lot of the time when he has the chance. Hamlet can speak what he wants to, but he’s not going to speak his mind because he trusts no one besides Horatio. “I will speak daggers to her heart, but use none” (III.ii,366). Even though Hamlet has a lot of talk, he could never bring himself to use a dagger on
Another interpretation could be that Hamlet is melancholy and indecisive, and is not trying to control anyone. He is trying only to take revenge on Claudius, at which he fails for lack of an opportune time. "Hamlet: Now might I do it pat, now'a is a-praying, And now I do it. And so'a goes to heaven. And so I am revenged…But in our circumstance and course of thought, 'Tis heavy with him; and then I am revenged, To take him in the purging of his of his soul…No.
Hamlet does not take that chance because he desires kill Claudius "when he is drunk asleep, or in his rage/ Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed," so that "his soul will be as damn'd and black/ As hell, wher...
The answer is simple, he is too smart to get around to doing it. Hamlet is a mind to be reckoned with. He thinks things out rather than just act on impulse. No matter what the situation, there is always something that stands in his way that a more impulsive, emotional man might overlook or just ignore. By thinking things over, he gives Claudius time to figure out what he knows.
This scene is in fact a visual representation of Hamlet’s problem throughout the play, this focal problem is open to two different interpretations: either Hamlet has the ability and passion to kill Claudius but he doesn’t have the right time to do it, or Hamlet doesn’t have the self-assurance and courage to do ...
In the modern day, William Shakespeare’s tragedy plays fascinate readers by highlighting characters’ flaws that lead them to their downfall. In the play Hamlet, William Shakespeare demonstrates the characters’ flaws make individuals victims of their own. According to Aristotle
Shakespeare consists of classic tales, as some would say. He uses such a beautiful language and a strong depiction of his characters, atmosphere, background and even the overall message he tries to send through his productions. Specifically, Hamlet is a very important play because it covers a broad range of themes that we encounter today in the 20th century ranging from love, betrayal, politics, war, death, insanity, espionage and so on. Shakespeare’s work was a form of art and you can get a lot out of his
In Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, the character of Hamlet is often portrayed as a weak-minded individual, whose lack of purpose leads to seven unnecessary deaths. This is a valid interpretation, but not a very interesting one.
With his thinking mind Hamlet does not become a typical vengeful character. Unlike most erratic behavior of individuals seeking revenge out of rage, Hamlet considers the consequences of his actions. What would the people think of their prince if he were to murder the king? What kind of effect would it have on his beloved mother? Hamlet considers questions of this type which in effect hasten his descision. After all, once his mother is dead and her feelings out of the picture , Hamlet is quick and aggressive in forcing poison into Claudius' mouth. Once Hamlet is certain that Claudius is the killer it is only after he himself is and and his empire falling that he can finally act.
In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Hamlet the king of Denmark is murdered by his brother, Claudius, and as a ghost tells his son, Hamlet the prince of Denmark, to avenge him by killing his brother. The price Hamlet does agree to his late father’s wishes, and undertakes the responsibility of killing his uncle, Claudius. However even after swearing to his late father, and former king that he would avenge him; Hamlet for the bulk of the play takes almost no action against Claudius. Prince Hamlet in nature is a man of thought throughout the entirety of the play; even while playing mad that is obvious, and although this does seem to keep him alive, it is that same trait that also keeps him from fulfilling his father’s wish for vengeance
Is someone’s ultimate fate based on their actions? In William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, this seems to be the case. Hamlet is a distressed young man with a desire to get revenge for his father’s murder. He eventually gets what he wants, but it comes at a great cost. Although Hamlet’s sanity is questionable throughout the play, his eventual downfall is an explicit result of his absence of fortitude and ambition in avenging his father’s death.
In “Hamlet';; Literary Remains, Samuel Taylor Coleridge describes Hamlet as an intricate planner who’s thought process is slow and methodical. He describes Hamlet as someone having “Supercilious activities…of the mind, which, unseated from its healthy relation, is constantly occupied with the world within, and abstracted from the world without…throwing a mist over all common-place actualities.'; Cooleridge is explaining the fact that Hamlet seems to always be in his own fantasy world when it comes to thinking about things that are going on in his life. Hamlet appears to be very caught up in his own thoughts that he doesn’t have the time or ability to carry out his plans efficiently and effectively. Cooleridge contrasts Shakespeare’s use of a tragedy in Hamlet to the play MacBeth. Cooleridge shows that Hamlet proceeds in his schemes with the utmost slowness, while MacBeth has a pace that is crowded and moves with breathless rapididty. These two plays with themes of Greed and Revenge are both rooted in the same systems of belief but are carried out in totally different directions. Cooleridge goes on to say that perfection is usually only found in one’s mind and is rare if impossible to find in reality. This is again shown through the fact that Hamlet’s planning seems to take a backseat to luck and fate as the others end up dying from the poison, which they had planned to use against Hamlet. Cooleridge also stresses the inconsistency of Hamlet and his plans for revenge throughout the play. One minute the audience believes that he cares greatly for Ophelia, and the next minute we see him showing a sort of disrespect for her at her funeral.
Hamlet's character lends itself to a possible motivation for his unwillingness to kill Claudius. He is a scholar, and a student of theology. It is a moral dilemma for Hamlet to kill without a just cause, or kill at all. He wants proof of the part his uncle and his mother played in his father's death. His royal birth leads him to consider his responsibilities to his country, which is Hamlet's internal conflict throughout the play.
This is shown by the fact that he is willing to wait a few months until he can "catch the king's conscience"; (II., 559) through the use of the mouse trap scene. Unlike Fortinbras, who would risk thousands of lives 'even for an eggshell'; Hamlet, before taking any revenge for his father's death, must be absolutely sure that Claudius is the true killer .Hamlet never embarrassed someone in public because he was a noble man and he would always speak to his mind fully, an example of Hamlet speaking to his mind is when he accuses his mother the queen fo living in the rank sweat of an en seamed bed, Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love Over the nasty
De Paulo has a similar opinion to me. “Hamlet wants language to be an escape from subjectivity, but as he ostentatiously puns and quibbles, words seem to multiply on their own and cloud his mind.” Indicating that due to the fact of his clouded judgement, Hamlet is using this as an excuse to cover up the fact that he is indeed just a coward trying to avoid getting revenge on Claudius for poisoning and killing his father. As he repeatedly fails to complete the task at hand, his cowardly nature comes more and more into focus as the play continues. Even though manu scholar and critics feel that Hamlet is indeed the hero of the play, there are very clear moments where he is in fact a weak coward who doesn’t take revenge on his father’s murderer until the very end when he almost, accidentally kills
Hamlet seems incapable of deliberate action, and is only hurried into extremities on the spur of the occasion, when he has no time to reflect, as in the scene where he kills Polonius, and again, where he alters the letters which Rosencraus and Guildenstern are taking with them to England, purporting his death. At other times, when he is most bound to act, he remains puzzled, undecided, and skeptical, until the occasion is lost, and he finds some pretence to relapse into indolence and thoughtfulness again. For this reason he refuses to kill the King when he is at his prayers, and by a refinement in malice, which is in truth only an excuse for his own want of resolution, defers his revenge to a more fatal opportunity, when he will be engaged in some act "that has no relish of salvation in it."