Hamlet is a play written by Willian Shakespear which deals with loss and revenge, religion and love. Prince Hamlet is a tragic hero who dies, but fulfills his mission which is to avenge his father who was killed by his brother, Claudius. Instead of looking forward to a bright future with Ophelia, Hamlet engages himself in a mission full of acting, deception and hypocrisy. The final result is the tragedy which ends with the death of all of the main characters. Hamlet is a tragic hero who is successful in realizing his goals and who dies due to being too honest and righteous.
Revenge is the dominant theme in Hamlet and the play revolves around it because everything that Hamlet does is motivated by revenge and thirst for justice. The fact that his uncle murders his father due to the power issues makes him an avenger who gives up on his life in order to seek justice. The love of his life, Ophelia, is pushed away because of the fact that Hamlet does not want to be distracted on his way to accomplish his goals. Hamlet is driven by passion and love does not prevail in his case because he sacrifices himself for the higher cause. Death, revenge and power are stronger than love and this play proves that people are not motivated by love or noble feelings, but by those which foster justice. Hamlet chooses to give up his own life and to pursue his mission of revenge. The aim is Claudius and it is Hamlet’s life mission to make his uncle suffer the way his father did.
Women are depicted as dependent on men in this play, both Gertrude and Ophelia because both of them rely too much on the men in their lives. Ophelia listens to her father Polonius and to Hamlet as well, while Gertrude obeys king Hamlet and later Claudius. Hamlet is in his thirties and instead of preparing himself for the role of king, he has to develop a scheme which would make his uncle suffer for murdering the king. Hamlet is also appalled by the fact that Gertrude marries Claudius because he sees it as an incestuous relationship. “She married. O, most wicked speed, to post / With such dexterity to incestuous sheets! / It is not nor it cannot come to good. / But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.” (1.2.161-164). Hamlet cannot believe that his mother’s nature is so fragile that she chose to marry her late husband’s brother one month after the murder. On the other hand he drives Ophelia away by telling her to go to and become a nun since women are not appreciated in the society and because if the fact that they give birth to sinners. He says: “What should such fellows as I do crawling / between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves, / all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery” (3.1.138-140). Hamlet also wishes that he was never born because his mother seems to have committed a sin from his point of view. Ophelia is unsatisfied with the fact that she is driven away by Hamlet while her father is pushing her to spy for him. This drives her mad and she finds exit in death which makes Hamlet realize how much he actually loved her. Women are a weaker sex in Hamlet and it means that they cannot survive without men. They marry because they need to have stability in life which can be seen on Gertrude’s example. She does not mind marrying the new king only one month after the death of her husband, because this will give her security in life. She believes that everything will go as planned and that Hamlet will have nothing against this marriage. Gertrude also does not see Hamlet’s revenge as a possibility which is why it comes as a shock to her.
The famous soliloquy of Hamlet is “To be or not to be” and it has been given many meanings. Implicitly or explicitly, Hamlet’s “general psychological attitude” is probably the most common basis for non-dramatic understandings of the speech, particularly of interpretations that find the prince considering suicide” (Newell 38). Hamlet talks about what is better to do in life, and which solution is the best considering the outcome. Death would put an end to all the tragedies and that is what happens in the end. Everybody dies and so does Hamlet, but after his revenge has been fulfilled and upon the death of Claudius. The revenge is the matter of life and death and Hamlet makes great sacrifices in order to achieve his goals. He is a just person who is very religions and does not want to kill Claudius when he is praying. Another reason for not killing him during the act of praying is due to the fact that it would send him to heaven.
Hamlet’s attitude towards life shows his great determination and he lack of care about his destiny. When trying to see which exact situation “has most recently involved Hamlet when he enters in the deeply reflective mood of the “To Be” soliloquy, we arrive at his spontaneous decision, the day before, to use The Murder of Gonzago to try to catch the conscience of the king” (Newell 39). Hamlet has one goal in life, which is to make Claudius suffer for his mistake and he tries to stay alive until the goal is accomplished. His willpower is great and everything he does makes him seem righteous and determined because he risks his own life for the greater cause which is the truth. He is a virtuous man, but he cannot forgive villains and the ultimate villain is Claudius. His uncle is an unscrupulous man who was greedy enough to kill his brother and marry the widow.
Revenge is the driving force in this play and it is more powerful than life, death and love. This play is interesting and complex for numerous reasons: “It has a ghost who demands revenge for a murder and a hero who promises to achieve it, pretends to be mad, indulges in philosophic soliloquies, and does not succeed in his purpose till the end of five acts” (Bell 311). The ending of the play means the death of the main characters and the arrival of the new era in Denmark due to the fact that Fortinbras, the Norwegian prince becomes the new king of Denmark. Only Horatio is left alive to tell the story of the old times and of prince Hamlet. It is Hamlet’s legacy and the reason for which he does not let Horatio kill himself by drinking the poison as well. The purpose of storytelling is to keep history alive and to make certain events meaningful for future generations. The story of Hamlet is one of such stories worth telling because it deals with many human emotions which can have unforeseen results. The play is also a good study of what motivates people in their actions and what makes them passionate in life.
Hamlet takes his time to kill Claudius and he even pretends to be mad in the meantime. “What is clear is that his slowness to execute revenge against Claudius is not due to the explanation available in his sources-that it is difficult to get at a monarch surrounded by his guards” (Bell 314). There are numerous occasions which would make it possible for Hamlet to execute his plan, but he is reluctant to do so. He is slightly immature and he also wants to make sure that he is killing the right person. Hamlet wants to see what lead to the death of his father and how people who were once close to him behave after his death. He sees that human nature is feeble and that people adjust to the new situation very quickly. It seems as if king Hamlet never existed because he is not mourned even by his own wife. All of this makes Hamlet curious about the development of the situation and he wants to make sure that nobody suspects that he is making a plot.
Hamlet does not feel guilty when he has to kill people, which is why he kills Polonius so easily. However, it is more difficult to kill Claudius because Hamlet thinks of him as being a more worthy opponents since he dared to kill the king and take his place. Moreover, when he has the best opportunity to kill Claudius it happens while Claudius is praying because that would send him to heaven. “This seeming act of prayer halts the sword, which is stayed because of the boundaries placed by Hamlet on the act of revenge” (Watson 481). Hamlet is a righteous and a moral person in spite of plotting a murder. This is a higher cause and he believes that needs to listen to what the ghost of his late father told him. Another death will not make things right, but Hamlet would be satisfied with punishing the murderer. Hamlet does not care about his own life because he is disappointed in life in general and he is not afraid of the consequences because he believes that he is doing the right thing.
When everybody is trying to convince prince Hamlet to stop mourning, including his mother, he feels that they might be right and that his father has reached eternity. However, “his father claims to be suffering in purgatorial fires because he did not receive the standard rites of a last confession followed by the Eucharist and extreme unction” (Watson 483). Claudius does not expect for the ghost to appear which is why he is so self-confident in his new role. He is not afraid of Hamlet because he does not believe that Hamlet would be capable of committing a murder. However, everything changes with the appearance of the ghost and with Hamlet organizing the play The Murder of Gonzago. At this point, Claudius does not feel so safe anymore and he mentions his bad deeds in his soliloquy.
Hamlet is driven by love prior to the death of his father which can be seen from his attitude toward Ophelia. When she dies, he mourns much more than anybody is capable of mourning due to the fact that he has deep emotions. Ophelia dies by committing suicide which means that she will not go to heaven and Hamlet is devastated: “forty thousand brothers / Could not, with all their quantity of love, / make up my sum” (5.1.254–256). He is fighting Laertes at this point because he thinks that nobody else has the right to mourn her death other than himself. He is the only person who is capable of developing feelings in this play and this leads him to his death. Hamlet’s actions cause the deaths of all the other characters and it is normal because a person has to be punished for committing a murder. Even love results in death in this play and the reason for this lies in the fact that nothing good can happen after a murder. Hamlet’s life is ruined because of the death of his father and so is Ophelia’s. She is not strong enough to survive without Hamlet’s love and as a spy for her father. All of the misfortunes drive her to madness, the loss of reason and to the ultimate death by drowning.
The only person Hamlet trusts is Horatio and he confides in him and makes him stay alive in order to tell his story. “Horatio’s Hamlet is the Hamlet that wins out sympathy at the close, and Hamlet’s last words to Horatio atone for his precedent cynicisms” (Spaeth 38). This is the real Hamlet who believes to have deserved his death because all his dear ones are already dead. He has accomplished his mission and avenged his father which means that he is ready to die. However, he leaves Horatio in charge of the story-telling which is an important part of any legend. Such stories immortalize people and Horatio is the main reason for which Hamlet will be remembered. Hamlet is happy about the fact that the situation has been resolved and that there is one survivor who is worthy of life.
Horatio is the person whom Hamlet trusts the most, but he does not tell him about his intimacy which bothers him. “In their conversations there is no evidence of Hamlet’s disillusionment in love, or his violent revulsion against sex, which appear in his soliloquies and in his conduct and remarks to Ophelia, to Polonius, and to his mother” (Spaeth 39). Hamlet probably believes that it would be unnecessary to burden Horatio with his worries which are not related to the revenge. However, all of Hamlet’s feelings are interconnected and the fact that he is disappointed in love stems from the fact that he is disappointed in life in general. He even makes an excuse to break up with Ophelia due to the fact that he has to concentrate on revenge. The murder changes everything and has influence on his perspective on life. He is disgusted with sex as well because he does not want to imagine his mother sharing the bed with his uncle.
Hamlet is disgusted by sex because he is suicidal and sex involves marriage and giving birth. Polonius is also one of the people he despised the most because of his hypocritical and manipulative nature. Hamlet wants to take justice into his own hands because he believes that he is predestined to do so. Moreover, he does not see any other option and he knows that his mission is suicidal. He does not mind dying as long as he accomplishes his goal first. Horatio is the only person who is just enough to deserve Hamlet’s trust and he survives for a reason.
Hamlet’s actions are driven by passion which stems from his determination to bring his uncle to justice. He cannot live knowing that his father has not found peace in death and that he was cold-bloodedly murdered. This treason makes Hamlet disgusted by everything in life, and his love for Ophelia does not matter any longer. Revenge is the powerful motif which results in Hamlet becoming a worthy opponent to Claudius.
Works cited
Shakespeare, William. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Chatham: Wordsworth Editions Ltd., 1998. Print.
Newell, Alex. "The Dramatic Context and Meaning of Hamlet's "To Be or Not to Be" Soliloquy." PMLA 80.1 (1965): 38-50. Print.
Bell, Millicent. "Hamlet, Revenge!" The Hudson Review 51.2 (1998): 310-28. Print.
Watson, Elizabeth S. "Old King, New King, Eclipsed Sons, and Abandoned Altars in "Hamlet"." The Sixteenth Century Journal 35.2 (2004): 475-91. Print.
Spaeth, J D. "HORATIO'S HAMLET." The Shakespeare Association Bulletin 24.1 (1949): 37-47. Print.
