Hamlet and Claudius

Analytical Essay # 56170

English > Analysis
Shakespeare > Hamlet

An analysis of Hamlet's delay in seeking revenge against Claudius in William Shakespeare's "Hamlet."

2,845 words () | 6 sources | MLA | 2004 | United States

Published on: Mar 02, 2005

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how William Shakespeare's "Hamlet" is a play about revenge and indecision and how, because Hamlet's father is wronged, Hamlet himself spends most of the play deliberating on the subject of his revenge against his uncle, Claudius, who has killed his father, married his mother, and assumed the throne. It looks at how his father's ghost pushes him to seek revenge, although he does not want to, and how there are many possible reasons for his delay in vengeance, among them Hamlet's own mercurial nature and his desire to protect his mother. It examines Hamlet's quest for vengeance by looking at the text directly and taking cues from secondary sources and concludes that Hamlet's delay in taking vengeance is primarily based on his indecision, his self-interest, and his desire to protect Gertrude.

From the Paper:

"Throughout the play, Hamlet makes his own choices regarding his plan for avenging his father, and these choices are affected by his own personal ideas about fate and what he sees himself as being chosen for (vengeance). Hamlet represents reluctance to carry out what he sees as his destined goal of getting rid of his father's murderer and his mother's seducer: "O cursed spite/ That ever I was born to set it right!" (Shakespeare, I,v, 188-9), he cries upon making Horatio and Marcellus swear to help him in his plans to oust Claudius. Hamlet is not just following the orders of his father's ghost; he is struggling with his own goals and ideas about what is right and wrong; his conscience is at war with his need for vengeance. He passes up many opportunities to either escape his fate of having to avenge his father and quiet his ghost or assure it. He chooses to make his vendetta intensely personal. This personal vendetta makes Hamlet a dangerous character because he is working on the whims of his own emotions."