Hamlet's Relationship With His Father

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Throughout the play Hamlet struggles with his inaction and enacting revenge for his father’s death. His inaction and his desire for revenge shape the relationships he has with others to where he either idolizes or condemns them. The internal debate he faces causes Hamlet to project enacting his revenge and his own inability of being loyal to his father onto other people so that he can either idolize or condemn them, as they represent different aspects of his own person which he honors or loathes, respectively.
Throughout the play, Hamlet has this internal struggle of whether or not he should act on his desires and if he should enact revenge for his father’s murder, which cause him to both honor and loathe himself. He has this inability to decide …show more content…

He loathes Gertrude for marrying his uncle and views it as dishonorable and an act of disloyalty to his father. This feeling is strengthened when he compares his distaste for his own actions that he perceives as disloyal to the disloyalty he believes Gertrude has, which only emphasizes her negative qualities. Rather than seeing anything else Gertrude does or forgive her, Hamlet devotes himself to condemning Gertrude for her supposed disloyalty, which serves as a distraction from himself on his guilt for how he wasn’t redeeming his father’s name. For example, when Gertrude tells Hamlet “thou hast thy father much offended.” (3.4.12), Hamlet quickly defects the blame back to his mother and responds “Mother, you have my father much offended.” (3.4.13). Hamlet then goes on to describe how his mother had dishonored his father by sleeping with and marrying his uncle. Instead of acknowledging his actions that Gertrude brought up, he only focuses on Gertrude’s actions, which exemplifies how he was quick to transfer his disloyalty to his mother's. Hamlet loathes himself for his perceived disloyalty, but he quickly transfers the loathing to his mother when he notices the quality of disloyalty in her. Therefore, Hamlet uses his mother’s disloyalty to his father to …show more content…

Throughout the play, Hamlet admires Fortinbras for his unwavering ability to act and do what is necessary. Hamlet views this as honorable, and desires to have this trait as well, especially when in regards to enacting revenge. Hamlet’s idolization of Fortinbras is exceedingly clear when on his deathbed hamlet says “On Fortinbras, he has my dying voice” (5.2.393), which means Hamlet wished for Fortinbras to take over the kingdom. This emphasizes Hamlet’s idolization as he could see no one else who was fit enough to take over the kingdom like Fortinbras, and this was do to the traits Hamlet saw in him. While idolizing Fortinbras for these traits, earlier in the play, Hamlet begins to compare himself to him and begins to perceive himself as honorable as well. Since he views Fortinbras actions and qualities as honorable, when he decides to act on his revenge, Hamlet views his own actions as honorable as well. He views himself as similar to Fortinbras and since he idolizes Fortinbras and thinks of his actions as honorable, when Hamlet commits actions in similar nature he perceives them to be honorable and justifiable. Therefore, Fortinbras represents the piece of Hamlet in which he honors since Hamlet views Fortinbras actions as honorable and Hamlet compares himself to these honorable

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