It is evident in this soliloquy that Hamlet is shattered by his mother’s decision to marry Claudius so soon after her husband, Hamlet’s father, has died. This is the first glimpse of Hamlets’ shattered opinion of women, showing a particular obsession with what he perceives to be a connection between female sexuality and moral corruption, as suggested when Hamlet states, “Frailty, thy name is woman.” This motif of misogyny occurs only sporadically throughout the play, but it is an important inhibiting factor in Hamlet’s relationship with Ophelia and with his mother, Gertrude. Hamlet describes the haste of her marriage to his uncle, noting that the shoes she wore to his father’s funeral were not worn out before her marriage to Claudius. Although Hamlet is truly disgusted with his mother’s actions, it seems he has not acted on his anger.
Hamlet's duty as a son, in his social context and circumstances, is one which encourages him to seek revenge for his murdered father. For Hamlet to be perceived as a noble and worthy son, he would have to kill his father's murderer, and his actions would be supported by society as long as the murderer was believed to be guilty. In Hamlet's first soliloquy after the encounter with the ghost early in the play, when the ghost tells him that he must seek revenge, Hamlet quickly acknowledges his duty as a son:
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past...
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmixed with baser matter.
Act 1, scene v (99-104)
Hamlet decides with determination that he will "wipe away" all of his memories of "youth", and all " pressures past" so that the ghost's "commandment" to seek revenge would be his only focus, without the distraction of "baser matter". Hamlet's duty as a son is shown clearly at this point where he accepts the ghost's words, be it from fear or loyalty, and he appears to decide that he must fulfil his duty and kill Claudius. However, Hamlet's duty to the monarchy and his role in society are in direct conflict with his duty as a son. Hamlet's duty to the monarchy is to protect the King and his role in society as a Prince is to ensure stability in the kingdom. If Hamlet were to kill Claudius he would fulfil his duties as a son but society would view his actions as betraying society and the monarchy. He would be acting against his own socially enforced values and in the opinion of society, and perhaps in his own mind, he would be committing the highest act of treachery. This is very important with respect to Hamlet's indecision and resulting isolation.
Hamlet contradicts his words with his actions. In his next soliloquy in Act 2, scene 2, Hamlet identifies his lack of action and harshly criticises himself. He is amazed by the player king’s ability to engage emotionally with the story he is telling even though it is only an imaginative recreation. As a result, Hamlet criticises himself; “O what a rogue and peasant slave am I!” He bitterly comments on how the player, who gave the speech, was able to summon a depth of feeling and expression for long-dead figures who meant nothing to him, whilst he himself, is unable to take action, even with his more genuine motives. Hamlet displays short bursts of his self-condemnation when he says:
What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and cue for passion
That I have?
Act 2, scene ii (563-567)
It is also ironic that Hamlet says he, “can say nothing” when all does is ‘say’ rather than engage his intent. However Hamlet who is determined to act by the end of his soliloquy yet again, fails to do so. In this soliloquy, Shakespeare contrasts the actor’s action with Hamlet’s inaction.
Hamlet calls himself a coward for making use of words, not deeds. He is unsure whether to be a coward and not take his revenge, but rather follow a religious code of honour. Hamlet has a low opinion of himself at this point, calling himself, “a dull and muddy-mettled rascal.” By the end of the soliloquy, however, Hamlet has built up an emotional response, and this change of attitude makes him desire revenge for his father’s murder. Hamlet’s words become harsh and powerful when describing Claudius. This is emphasised by the alliteration in the line, “Bloody, bawdy villain / Remorseless, trecherous, lecherous, kindless, villain!”
The lexis Shakespeare uses, helps the audience to assess the level of Hamlet’s contempt for his uncle. It is obvious Hamlet believes Claudius to be guilty of murdering his father, resents him for marrying his mother, dislikes his conduct and rejects him as his stepfather. This shows the strength of Hamlet’s feelings which encourages him to now seek revenge. However, Hamlet continues to plot, rather than act and the audience is forced to consider whether Hamlet is indeed a coward.
Towards the end of the soliloquy, the tone returns to self condemnation. Hamlet says he is all brains and no heart. He recognises that he is brave in his words, but still fails to seek any real revenge against Claudius. The hard sounds, in his speech are fewer and the pace has slowed down. The emotional response we saw from Hamlet, is once again calmed by his own words and rationalising as he resolves to devise a trap for Claudius, forcing the king to watch a play whose plot closely resembles the murder of Hamlet’s father; if the king is guilty, he thinks, he will show some visible sign of guilt when he sees his crimes re-enacted on stage. Then, Hamlet reasons, he will obtain definite proof of Claudius’ guilt, “I’ll have the grounds / More relative than this, The play’s the thing,” he declares, “wherin I’ll catch the conscience of the king.” In order for Hamlet’s revenge to be justified to society and to himself, he must prove Claudius’ guilt. Hamlet decides to attempt to gather evidence against Claudius so that his actions are regarded as being honourable, and so that he can come to terms with his revenge. The rhyming couplet at the end of the soliloquy highlights Hamlet’s decisive role to put his plan into action, as emphasises that Hamlet feels confident and assured with his plan.
The soliloquy spoken by Hamlet in Act 3, scene i (58-90) is his most logical and powerful examination of the theme of moral legitimacy of suicide in an unbearably painful world. Hamlet poses the problem of whether to commit suicide as a logical question: “To be, or not to be.” He then weighs the moral ramifications of living and dying. Is it nobler to suffer, “[t]he slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” passively or to seek to end one’s suffering? Hamlet’s attitude differs compared to previous soliloquies. He asks about death beyond religious considerations; the nature of his dilemma has changed, and Hamlet contemplates this with lucid simplicity. He compares death to sleep and thinks of the end to suffering, pain, and uncertainty it might bring, “[t]he heartache, and the thousand natural shocks / That flesh is heir to.” Based on this metaphor, he decides that suicide is a desirable course of action, “a consummation / Devoutly to be wished.” But, as the religious word, “devoutly,” signifies, there is more to the question, namely, what will happen in the afterlife. Hamlet immediately realises as much, and he reconfigures his metaphor of sleep to include the possibility of dreaming; he says that the dreams that may come in the sleep of death are daunting, that they “must give us pause.” He then concludes that the uncertainty of the afterlife, which is intimately related to the theme of the difficulty of attaining truth in a spiritually ambiguous world, is essentially what prevents all of humanity from committing suicide to end the pain of life.
Hamlet realises that too close consideration, which exhausts all the relations and possible consequences of a deed, must cripple the power of action; as Hamlet expresses it:
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sickled o’er with pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard. Their current awry,
And lose the name of action.
Act 3, scene I (84-88)
Young Fortinbras, Laertes and Hamlet were all looking to avenge the deaths of their fathers. All sought vengeance, and then acted towards obtaining it. Whereas, Hamlet states that, “conscience does make cowards of us all.” In contrast, Young Fortinbras was deeply enraged at his father’s death and wanted revenge against Denmark. In the same way, when Laertes found out about his father’s death he immediately returned home to seek revenge, confronting the king and accusing him of the murder of his father. When Claudius tells Laertes that Hamlet had killed Polonius, Laertes seeks to murder Hamlet to avenge the death of his father. Both Fortinbras and Laertes show emotion that outweighs their conscience or ability to rationalise. Hamlet is also deeply affected, yet his intelligence outweighs his emotion as he continually hesitates before acting on them. He believes inaction, the product of conscience and thought, makes us cowards, but action, the product of rage and instinct, makes us less human. Hamlet is trapped in this paradox.
The soliloquy, in Act 3, scene ii, shows the audience that Hamlet, now as sure as he can be of Claudius’ guilt, tries to convince himself that he can take revenge.
When Hamlet discovers Claudius praying, his immediate thought is, “Now might I do it pat; now he is praying,” but Hamlet’s intelligence outweighs his rage. As Hamlet’s father was murdered without confession or absolution, he chooses to wait until the Lord can see no good in Claudius, “When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,” and then strike him down into a world of eternal damnation.
These reasons may be genuine, a result of Hamlet’s intelligence, to seek an eternal and absolute revenge on Claudius, giving him the fate he deserves. However, it is more likely that Hamlet is undecided, still sceptical and dallies with the purpose till the occasion is lost, and he finds some pretence to relapse into indolence and thoughtfulness again. The dramatic irony is clear when, as Hamlet leaves, Claudius rises unable to pray and ask for forgiveness as he says, “My words fly up, my thoughts remain below. / Words without thoughts never to heaven go.” Claudius, has not repented and Hamlet has missed the perfect opportunity to fulfil his intention to avenge his father’s murder.
In Act III, scene iii, Hamlet finally seems ready to put his desire for revenge into action. He is satisfied that the play has proven his uncle's guilt. When Claudius prays, the audience is given real certainty that Claudius murdered his brother: a full, spontaneous confession, even though no other character hears it. This only heightens our sense that the climax of the play is due to arrive, but Hamlet still waits.
On the surface, it seems that he waits because he wants a more radical revenge, but he completely oversteps the bounds of Christian morality in trying to damn his opponent's soul as well as kill him. Yet apart from this ultra violent posturing, Hamlet has once again avoided the imperative to act by involving himself in a problem of knowledge. Now that he's satisfied that he knows Claudius is guilty, he wants to know that his punishment will be sufficient. It may have been difficult to prove the former, but how can Hamlet ever hope to know the fate of Claudius' immortal soul?
Hamlet poses his desire to damn Claudius as a matter of fairness: his own father was killed without having cleansed his soul by praying or confessing, so why should his murderer be given that chance? Nevertheless Hamlet is forced to admit that he doesn't really know what happened to his father, remarking "how his audit stands, who knows, save heaven?" (III.iv.82). The most he can say is that "in our circumstance and course of thought / 'Tis heavy with him" (III.iv.83–84). Having proven his uncle's guilt to himself, against all odds, Hamlet suddenly finds something else about which to be uncertain.
Hamlet discloses his true feelings, in Act 4, scene 4. In this soliloquy, Hamlet illustrates his mental instability by contrasting himself and Fortinbras, implying his desire to be more like Fortinbras in action. Hamlet admires Fortinbras for the mere fact that he is the head of state and he is in control of a powerful army and because Fortinbras holds a position that Hamlet was destined for; Hamlet’s rightful position. This fact may suggest that Hamlet sees his father’s actions personified in Fortinbras. Hamlet illustrates himself as being a coward who does not has the will to initiate plans to revenge his father’s death and he finds himself grasping for an answer as to why he has not killed his uncle who has done his family a great injustice by murdering his father and sleeping with the mother. This outrages Hamlet and creates an inner struggle and it is at this point where Hamlet idealises Fortinbras in his words and actions, describing him as a”delicate and tender prince.” Although Hamlet seems to admire the dominance and will power that Fortinbras displays, he also criticizes him and his unattainable dream. “ The imminent death of twenty thousand men that for fantasy and trick of fame. Go to their graves like beds” In this statement Hamlet is suggesting Fortinbras’ quest is meaningless. Even so, the audience is aware once more that Hamlet wishes that he too could act with such determination and less thought.
Act IV, scene iv restores the focus of the play to the theme of human action. Hamlet's encounter with the Norwegian captain serves to remind the reader of Fortinbras' presence in the world of the play and gives Hamlet another example of the will to action that he lacks. Earlier, he was amazed by the player's evocation of powerful feeling for Hecuba, a legendary character who meant nothing to him (II.ii). Now, he is awestruck by the willingness of Fortinbras to devote the energy of an entire army, probably wasting hundreds of lives and risking his own, to reclaim a worthless scrap of land in Poland. Hamlet considers the moral ambiguity of Fortinbras's action, but more than anything else he is impressed by the forcefulness of it, and that forcefulness becomes a kind of ideal toward which Hamlet decides at last to strive. "My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!" he declares (IV.iv.9.56). Of course, he fails to put this exclamation into action, as he has failed at every previous turn to achieve his revenge on Claudius. "My thoughts be bloody," Hamlet says. Tellingly, he does not say "My deeds be bloody."
Throughout the play, Hamlets wishes that he could take actions and avenge his father’s death, but in this soliloquy he also states that he believes Fortinbras reasoning to be skewed. He believes that the actions of Fortinbras are incredibly simplistic and thus feels superior in this manner. Hamlet admires those who can use their intelligence to its capacity and then act upon it, yet he sees those actions of Fortinbras as primal urges to survive. While he ridicules Fortinbras for the lack of judgement he also realises that by his power to reason stems his suffering. Hamlet is tormented by the fact that he completely takes into account all aspects of the situation before acting upon his urge to avenge his father’s death. This is why he believes he has not yet carried out the murder of his uncle, Claudius. However, Hamlet himself later questions why he has not taken revenge:
I do not know
Why yet I live to say, “This things to do”,
Sith I have cause, and, will, and strength, and means
To do’t.
Act 4, scene iv (43-46)
As in many other soliloquies, this soliloquy portrays Hamlet as a perfectionist, who cannot act for the revenge of his father and his family’s honour as he is too focussed on obtaining a faultless reprisal. Though his convictions against Claudius and his misdeeds towards his family are vented through irate outbursts and seem to be firmly rooted, there still is a battle within Hamlet. This self-devaluation of opinion continues throughout the play and eventually leads to his mother’s death. It is only at this moment where Hamlet has no inner struggle that he sees the actions he must take to bring inner peace. Even when Hamlet has an opportunity to kill Claudius while he is praying he suppresses his rage with an excuse that he wishes for Claudius to acknowledge his wrongdoing.
Hamlet’s indecision results from his conflicting duties as a son and as a prince and citizen. His duty as a son is to avenge his father’s murder and kill Claudius, but his duty as a Prince and as a citizen is to protect the king and ensure stability to the monarchy. Hamlet faces a conflict between these two primary duties as he continually hesitates to act because he is unwilling to allow himself to be swept away by his emotions. Hamlet does not know which duty takes precedence, and he desires to gain evidence as proof of Claudius’ guilt so that his revenge is justified to society and to himself. The “sinfulness” of killing a king who is a close relative is highlighted by Claudius’ actions and this allows the audience to better understand the conflict facing Hamlet.
Hamlet has a highly cultivated mind, is a prince of royal manners, endowed with the finest degree of propriety, susceptible to noble ambition, and open in the highest degree to an enthusiastic admiration of that excellence in others in which he himself is deficient. Hamlets far fetched scruples are often mere pretexts to cover his want of determination - thoughts, as he says, which have, “but one part wisdom / And three parts coward.” On the other hand, Hamlet proves himself right to some degree, as Laertes’ swift action, leaves him in no better circumstances.
In the aftermath of his father's murder, Hamlet is obsessed with the idea of death, and over the course of the play he considers death from a great many perspectives. He ponders both the spiritual aftermath of death, embodied in the ghost, and the physical remain of the dead, such as by Yorick's skull and the decaying corpses in the cemetery. Throughout, the idea of death is closely tied to the themes of spirituality, truth, and uncertainty in that death may bring the answers to Hamlet's deepest questions, ending once and for all the problem of trying to determine truth in an ambiguous world. And, since death is both the cause and the consequence of revenge, it is intimately tied to the theme of revenge and justice.
The question of his own death plagues Hamlet as well, as he repeatedly contemplates whether or not suicide is a morally legitimate action in an unbearably painful world. Hamlet's grief and misery is such that he frequently longs for death to end his suffering, but he fears that if he commits suicide, he will be consigned to eternal suffering in hell because of the Christian religion's prohibition of suicide. In his famous "To be or not to be" soliloquy, Hamlet philosophically concludes that no one would choose to endure the pain of life if he or she were not afraid of what would come after death, and that it is this fear which causes complex moral considerations which interferes with the capacity for action.