I believe Hamlet’s reluctance toward killing his uncle comes from the immense pressure he puts on himself. Hamlet is constantly comparing himself to others and is very hard on himself when he cannot do something as well as someone else can. An example of this is when Hamlet gets angry while watching the first player take brutal revenge on his uncle for killing his dad. After watching the performance Hamlet says “is it not monstrous that this player here, / But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, / Could force his soul so to his whole conceit / That from her working all his visage wann’d?” (2.2.546) When Hamlet says this he is describing his frustration with the fact that the first player is able to show more emotion than he is even though he is living the same situation in real life. Hamlet also goes on to describe how he wishes he could show the same emotion so he would be able to avenge his Father’s death. He describes this by directly comparing the first player to himself and imaging what the first player would do if he were in the same situation. “What would he do, / Had he the motive and the cue for passion / That I have?” (2.2.555). Because of this immense amount of pressure Hamlet puts on himself, when he finally gets the chance to kill his uncle, Hamlet chokes under the pressure and delays. I believe by having Hamlet delay in killing his uncle Shakespeare is trying to teach us that if you have the chance to do something, you should do it and not waste your opportunity. I believe this is true because when Hamlet decides not to kill his uncle it’s because he reasons with himself and decides he wants to wait until his uncle is doing something sinful so he can get true redemption. However ironically when Hamlet’s uncle is praying and Hamlet is debating killing him he is confessing all of his sins and it would be a perfect time for Hamlet to kill him. This reminds me of approaching a traffic light just as it is turning yellow because if you delay and don’t accelerate you won’t make it through the intersection before the light turns red. This relates to Hamlet’s situation because the longer he takes to kill Claudious the more likely it is that something will happen and it could be too late to avenge his Father's death.