Sunday, 26 January 2014


Shakespeare makes us believe that Hamlet’s only choice to get his old life back and to be happy again is to kill Claudius. The murdering of Claudius was not even Hamlets idea, Hamlet feels obligated to the ghost of his father’s request, and the delay would be no different for any sane person as we would all hesitate in killing another human. With that being said Hamlet does comes off as insane to many of the other characters in the play although, the delay in murdering Claudius shows that the antic-disposition is really just to throw people off. At first when the Ghost of his father tells Hamlet that he has to get revenge on the murderer Hamlet is all for it, saying, ‘’Haste me to know't, that I, with wings as swift As meditation or the thoughts of love, May sweep to my revenge.’’ (1.7.5), but this is before he is told the murderer is Claudius. There is a chance Hamlet changes his mind after he finds out who the true murderer was, as Hamlet is not ready to take fill the role of Claudius.  When Hamlet passes up the opportunity to kill the King he makes excuses of how he does not want Claudius to go to heaven as he was in time of prayer and also that he (Hamlet) needs rightful proof of the murder so he will not be guilty of regicide, as Hamlet  sees himself becoming the king. After all these delay tactics from Hamlet not once does he make any further plans to kill the King. Overall, I believe that Hamlet was being torn between what was right and wrong not just for himself but for the people that were close with him although, there was reasonable purpose for Hamlets delay in killing Claudius.  
 

2 comments:

  1. I agree with what you're saying about how killing Claudius isn't even Hamlet's idea, and I also agree that that would make it even harder to follow through and not hesitate.

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  2. hi mark!!
    I agree with all your points stating that it was not Hamlets idea to kill Claudius. I believe he felt it was an obligation that he owed to his father. I never really thought of the fact of how the other characters looked at Hamlet, so that's cool how you talked about that. I think when reading Hamlet you have to have an appreciation that he has lost so much in a short period of time, and many people don't realize that and just think that he is an insane person.

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