Shakespeare Hamlet's Flaws

Flaws are inevitable traits that all human beings possess, although the flaws may varies from person to person. These traits often lead to the downfall of a man who may have both courage and dignity, but who also has an error in judgment. In William Shakespeare's famous tragedy Hamlet, Prince Hamlet suffers a change in fortune as he falls from happiness to misery after the death of his father. Like other Shakespearean tragic heroes, he is endowed with exceptional qualities such as royal birth, charisma, and popularity. He is very sensitive and religious-minded. He is essentially a scholar and a thinker with a noble brain that conceives the finest thoughts. However, his deep thoughts ultimately destroy his life as they result in inaction,

which has unforeseen consequences and eventually causes his own tragic ending.

Hamlet’s intense identification with and understanding of his thoughts is both his talent and his problem.

From the very beginning of the play, the audience becomes aware of Hamlet’s on-going self conflict. Deeply impacted by his father’s unexpected death and his mother’s quick marriage to his uncle Claudius, Hamlet views the world as “weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable,” and contemplates ending his seemingly miserable life (1.2.56-61). However, he hesitates because of the moral implications, lamenting that “the Everlasting had not fixed/ His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God, God!...Fie on ’t, ah fie”( 1.2.134-136)! Hamlet weights the benefits against the drawbacks of ending his own life. He recognizes that suicide is a crime in God’s eyes and could thus make his afterlife worse than his present situation. In his famous “to be or not to be” soliloquy, he questions the righteousness of life over death in moral terms and discusses the many possible reasons for either living or dying. When Hamlet utters “To be, or not to be that is the question,” he attempts to pose the question of life versus death in a rational and logical way; however, he is unable to decide whether the “Slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” can be borne out since afterlife is so uncertain (3.1.59). Indeed, he is deeply concerned, fearing “ In that sleep of death what dreams may come”(3.1.61). While he contemplates ending his life, ultimately, Hamlet’s philosophical nature prevents him from doing

so. Still, Hamlet’s thoughts revolve around death, he sees suicide as the only way to control his life. Yet, Hamlet keeps procrastinating, debates whether he should continue living miserably or die and face the unknown dreams, such prolonged debate exemplifies his indecisive nature. As Coleridge denotes, Hamlet is “brave and careless of death; but he vacillates from sensibility, and procrastinates from thought, and loses the power of action in the energy of resolve” (Coleridge). His enormous intellectual activity prevents instant action and the result in delay and irresolution.

In addition to his self conflict about committing suicide, Hamlet's irresolution is also demonstrated by the fact that he delays his revenge on Claudius.

Hamlet has numerous opportunities to kill Claudius, yet he always waits for a better time, a perfect one. After first hearing of the crime from his father's ghost, Hamlet immediately sets out to take action. Then he becomes doubtful, fearing his father’s ghost “May be the devil, and the devil hath power/ T' assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps/ Out of my weakness and my melancholy/ As he is very potent with such spirits/ Abuses me to damn me”(2.2.627-632). Hamlet then schemes to determine Claudius's guilt by enacting the Mousetrap, a play that delineates Claudius’s murder of the former king. His play succeeds and confirms Claudius’s guilt as his uncle disrupts and flees the play. Hamlet then catches Claudius alone in his chamber, and he goes to kill his uncle. However, when he draws his sword, Hamlet again hesitates, thinking “ Now he is praying/ And now I’ll do’t/ And so he goes to heaven”( 3.3.77-83). Hamlet is eager to damn Claudius’s soul, but he convinces himself that killing Claudius during his prayer will guarantee his uncle’s admission to heaven, thus, denying Hamlet his revenge. Consequently, he forgoes another opportunity to kill this villain, craving a more perfect time. Hamlet always resolves to wait and kill Claudius at another time, forever debating between his impulse and his ideas, “paralyzed by

thought” (Lahr).
The fact that Hamlet’s best trait is also his downfall makes him a tragic hero and, in fact, makes him one of the most tragic figures in the works of Shakespeare in general. More specifically, what makes Hamlet’s demise even more tragic is the fact that his tragic flaw is not his fault. However, his indecision, specifically the delayed action to kill Claudius causes ripple consequences such as Ophelia's madness, Gertrude’s death, and even his own tragic ending. He keeps envisioning and procrastinating to the next time, a better time, the perfect time; yet, his ideal moment never occurs. Even at the end, when he finally forces poison down into Claudius and stabs him with the venomous sword, his action is not dictated by his conscious and determination, rather, it is instigated by Laertes's confession. In contrast, Fortinbras, prince of Norway, is a constant rebuke of Hamlet in that he actively pursues his revenge and balances his emotions and actions. Indeed, Fortinbras takes immediate action by raising an army to reclaim Norway's lost territories. Though Fortinbras’ uncle at first persuades Fortinbras not to attack Denmark, in the end, Prince Fortinbras helps himself to the Danish throne. Just as how Irving Ribner perceive Fortinbras as "the perfect ruler of the new Denmark,” if Hamlet were a man of action like Fortinbras, he would have conquered the Kingdom of Denmark ( Sadowski).