The Tragedy of Hamlet: Revenge and Indecision - Research Paper

Introduction

The Tragedy of Hamlet is probably one of the most discussed works that were ever written by Shakespeare. The play reflects the life of Hamlet; a king who guided by revenge also dies in the process. The play is dramatic in every definitive way, which makes it a strong point of interest. It shows a young man who decides to revenge for his late father, who was killed by his uncle. But Hamlet does not merely decide to wake up one day and revenge for his slain father. He is indecisive and hesitant, but he sometimes overthinks and gets things out of hand. When the ghost of his father appears to him, he decides to kill his uncle Claudius who is the King of Denmark. The Tragedy of Hamlet is a play that concentrates largely on the detrimental effects of taking revenge to showcase that it is wrong and immoral.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Shakespeare starts the play by modeling Hamlet, a character who is at the crossroads of decision-making. At the start of the play, Shakespeare places Hamlet as a victim of circumstances. Circumstances have made him look into how his father died. In the very first instances, he can merely make a decision. Hamlet is a moral man at the start, and he does not believe in revenge. When he first questions the death of his father, hastily king Claudius replies and asks him to stop thinking about the circumstances in which he lost his father because it is common to lose parents, but it should not be the basis of stubbornness (Haque 56). At the same time, his mother asks him to stay still about it, and he obliges to obey her. Therefore, Hamlet is in a dilemma. He does not know what to do after having lost his father in very unclear ways. However, everyone compels him to maintain his morality, which he agrees to.

Though he agrees to keep silent about the matter and stop overthinking about it, Hamlet cannot find rest. He questions the death of his father, even to God. At one instance, he cries, saying, "How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, Seem to me all the uses of this world!" (Shakespeare 15) Hamlet laments over the death of his father, who he believes did not die fairly. As the son of the slain king, Hamlet is justified to question how his father died. He is justified because he knows that it was not necessary for his father to die that way. Shakespeare presents it as moral to question the death of a loved one. Indeed, Hamlet was right because he needed to know what happened and under which circumstances his father died (Wilson 108). He had not displayed any action or inaction after he understood. Fate had only made him the son of the king, and thus as the one who should have inherited the throne after his father, it was moral for Hamlet to question the death of his father.

All through Hamlet had doubted that his uncle and the current King, Claudius had killed his father. The extension of injustice in society is hereby replicated. Shakespeare presents such an unexpected kind of dishonesty and betrayal. It was just not dishonesty for Claudius to have acted as if he was concerned about the death of the previous king, but it was also betrayal for him to act as if he was investigating the matter. Such an occurrence and knowledge of what had happened must have agitated Hamlet. Hamlet, therefore, becomes a victim of circumstances (Wilson 112). In as much as he learns that his uncle killed his father, it hurts him most to see that the same man that killed his father is the one that took his throne. Fate sets Hamlet in a very weak position where he has to be decisive. He is set at the bars between revenging for his father for his death and continuous abuse by his father. All this time, Shakespeare shows Hamlet as if in deep thought but not haunted as he had not done anything wrong.

The replication of a son whose father is killed is not easy to detach the essence of revenge. Especially in the consideration that Hamlet knows his father was a king, everyone would expect that he would revenge. Basing it on reality, no individual would be comfortable with living with a member of the family who has killed their father. Based on such an outlook, Hamlet appears to be quite a sensible person. He is left in between taking action and keeping his calm. Indeed, to many readers, Hamlet seems indecisive. He feels the urge to pursue the man who killed his father, but at the same time, he does not want to be possessed of the same evils (Zysk 425). Therefore stricken between the two thoughts, Hamlet is a disturbed man. Shakespeare puts Hamlet in such an environment to train his readers that taking a decision in such times is paramount. It determines the next action one takes and definitely their life in the future as it did for the case of Hamlet.

Shakespeare in the play showcases revenge as a cycle that is not easy to break. Hamlet, for instance, would not have conducted revenge had it not been that the ghost of his father had appeared to him and asked him to revenge for his death. When the ghost of Hamlet's father appears to him, it tells him, "Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder." (Shakespeare 28) Therefore, a vivid transfer of revenge is seen to transfer from a fallen father to a son. The evident transfer represents a cycle that could be hard to break. Therefore, when a person seeks revenge, they tend to bring in others into action, which makes it hard for people who were not interested in the process. Definitely, after revenging for his father, Hamlet was assured that there would be consequences that would follow him, and others would also strive to kill him. Therefore, in a very fundamental way, Shakespeare argues against revenge, seeing that it develops into a cycle.

Though Hamlet weighs the need for revenge, he does not come into the full realization that it is wrong, and it makes him others who he does not intend. In different instances, Hamlet thinks that it is not just for him to kill a man, regardless of what he had done to him. At the same time, he believes that killing King Claudius would relieve his stresses and make him feel relieved. For this reason, Hamlet starts looking for every chance that he would have to kill Claudius. At one instance, he hears Gertrude crying, and Polonius yells right behind her (Mosley 4). Thinking that it is Claudius who is behind the tapestry, Hamlet thrusts his sword only to realize that he has killed Polonius. He feels sorry for killing Polonius as it was not his wish. Using this example, Shakespeare shows how revenge may make others to be susceptible, proving that it is not a decent idea.

The effect of the change due to revenge on a man can be seen when Hamlet looks for Claudius and kills him ruthlessly. After Hamlet kills Polonius, one would expect that he would feel sorry for his action and would quit his revenge (Kadhim and Mahmoud 3). However, he instead becomes more ruthless and obsessed with human blood. When hamlet thinks it is the most opportune moment. He is very ruthless and tries to induce that he wants to kill Claudius because he wants to send him to a heavenly afterlife. In his soliloquy, Hamlet says,

And now I'll do't. And so 'a goes to heaven; And so I am revenged. That would be scanned: A villain kills my father, and for that I, his sole son

Do this same villain to heaven. (83)

When Hamlet finally decides to kill Claudius, he slits his neck and then forces him to drink from a poisoned cup. It is such a ruthless killing because he does not want to waste a chance and would not be prepared to see him recovering (Zysk 424). The feeling for revenge has, therefore turned calm like Hamlet to a ruthless person which is a lesson on why revenge is unacceptable in society.

But the string of revenge does not end with the death of Claudius. Before killing Claudius, Hamlet had mistaken him for Polonius. Leartes, the son of Polonius, could never rest after Hamlet had killed his father (Mosley 4). As Hamlet kills Claudius, Leartes appears with a poisoned sword and finds it the most opportune moment to kill Hamlet. The poisoned sword finds Hamlet much unprepared . While Hamlet would have thought that he would have lived a settled life having killed Claudius, he implicates himself into a difficult situation as the son of Polonius also seeks to avenge for his father. A quick succession of instances of revenge can be seen to emanate here, and probably, Leartes does not have a settled life after that. By the death of Hamlet, Shakespeare is successful in showing that revenge is not an option because it also kills the perpetrator. The death of Hamlet brings such a shock to the reader as it is quite unexpected.

Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Hamlet presents a rather uncommon idea of revenge that proves it is not good and moral for society. Revenge in the play is fuelled by the death of the father of Hamlet, who is killed by Claudius due to his thirst for leadership. After Hamlet learns about the death of his father, he plans to attach him, but he is undecided. However, when the ghost of his father appears to him, Hamlet feels moved to instill the revenge. Shakespeare presents that revenge turns moral men into inconsiderate people who often kill without remorse. Hamlet kills not just Claudius but also Polonius, who he mistakes as Claudius. His life is also not spared as he is killed by Leartes the son to Polonius. In the end, it emanates that revenge causes such a great level of destabilization in society. It causes the deaths of leaders and family men leaving their loved ones and followers in agony. Based on the examples he relays in the play, it is evident that Shakespeare's primary goal is to argue against revenge.

Works Cited

Haque, Farhana. "Revenge and Vengeance in Shakespeare's Hamlet: A Study of Hamlet's Pursuit and Procrastination Regarding Revenge." IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science 21, 2016, p-55-59. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0e1d/4a53ffb1ac845b822f3d7dcfe8fbd6dc1317.pdf

Kadhim, Hana Abdullah, and Mahmoud Ali Ahmed. "The Impact of the Two Murdered Fathers on Madness and Death of Hamlet and Ophelia." 2017. Retrieved from http://repository.sustech.edu/handle/123456789/19098

Mosley, Joseph Scott. The Dilemma of Shakespearean Sonship: An Analysis of Paternal Models of Authority and Filial Duty in Shakespeare's Hamlet. Diss. 2017. Retrieved from http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:33826315

Shakespeare, William. The tragedy of Hamlet, prince of Denmark. Wellington, 1703.

Wilson, Jeffrey. "Tragic Excess in Hamlet." Literary Imagination 21.2. 2019, p-107-119. Retrieved from https://wilson.fas.harvard.edu/publications/tragic-excess-hamlet

Zysk, Jay. "In the Name of the Father: Revenge and Unsacramental Death in Hamlet." Christianity & Literature 66.3. 2017, p-422-443. DOI: 10.1177/0148333117708260