Lines 37-38 from Act 3, Scene 4
‘Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
I took thee for thy better.’
I believe that Hamlet’s confused behaviour may be that of depression. Bradley’s ‘Melancholy Theory’ suggests that the direct cause of Hamlet’s delay was ‘a state of mind that is quite abnormal and induced by special circumstances’. These circumstances can easily be related by the audience as they have witnessed the events. Hamlet has been labelled as ‘a victim of circumstances’ from the very beginning of the play. Because of his unfortunate loses and his lack of involvement in these events, it has made him too upset to do anything. All this procrastinations, such as the ‘antic disposition’ and the play-within-the-play, is Hamlet trying to gain enough time to overcome his depression. This inner conflict has transformed his behaviour towards the other characters as well as how he pictured himself.
Lines 161- 163 from Act 3, Scene 1
‘O, what a noble mind is here o’er thrown!
The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword;
Th’ expectancy and rose of the fair state.’
Hamlet’s emotional conflict will lead him to finally make an important decision. This is clearly seen through his soliloquies throughout the play. The soliloquy in act four, scene four begins with the line ‘How all occasions do inform against me, and spur my dull revenge.’ This shows how doubtful he is of the ghost’s request. Hamlet feels victimised and feels that his situation is too unfair to make a rational decision. He isn’t treating this revenge mission as the act of anger and self-determination that it should project but as a chore. This shows how immature and unorganised his thoughts are at that moment. Dr. Ernest Johnson believes that Hamlet is ‘a man distracted with contrariety of desires and overwhelmed with the magnitude of his purposes’.
Because of his doubts of his father’s confession, it leads him to try and prove to himself as well as the other characters that the ghost may be a demon. Within Shakespeare’s day, people believed that demons from the underworld would appear in the image of a dead relative to help convince others to perform evil. This may sound far-fetched through our modern standards but this is the beliefs of the Elizabethan Era.
Delay was one of the conventions of revenge tragedy that Shakespeare inherited. Thomas Hanmer makes a practical point that if the Prince carried out his father’s instructions straight away ‘there wouldn’t be a play’. Yet other critics have found that the delay was Shakespeare’s attempt to investigate the psychological point of the human mind. However, this psychological perspective has raised the question as to how successful Hamlet was in his task. Was his procrastination able to help him accomplish his goals or did it help him fail to perform the perfect assassination?
The last scene see Hamlet finally taking advantage of his situation without any hesitation, stabs the King with the poisoned tipped sword. This attack splits the views of the audience. The audience could either celebrate the fact that Hamlet has been able to kill Claudius or question if all this tragic waste could have been avoided. It is quite ironical that he finally gets all the evidence as well as the confidence to kill his nemesis when he is on the verge of dying.
Critics are very mixed in the views of whether or not Hamlet has gained any success in his mission for vengeance. Even though the task was completed, Hamlet’s unorthodox approach has created more and more problems for him as the play progressed. O’Toole is one of many critics who believed that by doing this, Hamlet has failed more than he had achieved, making his attempt in seek revenge a failure. The Romantics considered that although he failed to carry out the ghost’s wishes, he should have never have been expected to kill Claudius, as he was completely unsuited to the task. Hamlet is a person who uses his wits and intelligence to overcome his troubles. This task required much more than just outwitting a person. It involved a physical act which Hamlet was not prepared for.
Bradley believes that Hamlet failed because he was made ‘melancholy by his mother’s sexual depravity’. Could the reason why Hamlet failed was because he was distracted by his mother’s actions and was seeking for his mother’s approval to kill her husband? This question sets up the idea of the Freudian Theory that Hamlet may have displayed the characteristics of a person with Oedipus complex. Hamlet feels that he should be the only male figure in her life and seems to be in love with her. He has become jealous of Claudius for stealing her away from him, and despises him for this, not for the murder of his father. This would explain why Hamlet was reluctant to Kill Claudius at an earlier date. When his mother died from Claudius’ poisoned wine, he emotions for his mother were finally expressed through his murderous attacks to his uncle. Yet it seems that this theory is contradicting because Hamlet seems to reflect his anger and frustration for the King to his mother, which expresses how Hamlet’s mental state has confused his emotions. Taking his frustration out on ‘the wretched queen’ has not altered or achieved anything that the ghost’s demanded. In fact, this verbal abuse is against his father’s wishes as the ghost did not want to get Queen Gertrude involved with his scheme. This means that he has failed to perform the perfect murder as Hamlet did not follow all of the rules.
Lines 91-94 from Act 1, Scene 5
‘… nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught; leaver her to heaven,
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge
To prick and sting her.’
Granville Barker believes in a theory opposite to O’Toole. He believes that he was finally to take an active role and kill Claudius at the right moment. Even though there were plenty of other opportunities to murder his uncle, I believe that he waited for just the right moment to kill him willing and with satisfaction than to be emotionally confused with depression. Those in favour of this interpretation show concern to Hamlet’s fulfilment. This view can be backed by the critical views of Ernest Jones. He suggests that Hamlet is a man who has to ‘disentangle himself from the temptation to wreak justice for the wrong reasons.’ Hamlet’s procrastination was his long emotional trip to find all the right reasons to kill his uncle. From this dilemma ‘of wrong feelings and right actions, he ultimately emerges’ and solves the problems by ‘attaining a proper state of mind.’ Even though many people lost their lives, Hamlet was able to satisfy himself in killing his rival to the throne.
I believe that Hamlet has been as successful in his mission as he believes he has. Hamlet has been able to not only avenge his father’s ‘foul and unnatural murder’ but has been able to conquer his inner conflict and search for the confidence and determination he needed to kill his step-father. He has gain self-satisfaction and has lived up to his so called heroic reputation. Yet his achievements in this mission are all selfish. Even though he has overcome depression, it seems that his victory has not helped any of the other characters. This win has created fatal consequences that has made dramatic changes through out the play. This is where critics would believe that Hamlet has failed in his attempts to outsmart and kill Claudius. Because of his ‘fatal flaw’ he has been the direct or indirect cause of the deaths of Polonius, Ophelia, Queen Gertrude, Laertes, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Many of Shakespeare’s tragedies has a character with a fatal flaw. Macbeth’s flaw was ambition and Othello’s was jealously. Hamlet’s fatal flaw was his intelligence and mental stability. This has given him the advantage of sympathy and the disadvantage of frustration.
Hamlet’s victory is both a success and an unsuccessful. He is unsuccessful as his procrastination and ways of trying to outwit King Claudius has resulted in mass deaths yet he has been able to achieve his goal of overcoming his fears. His reputation hasn’t been tarnished because of this which was one of Hamlet’s main concerns. At that point, he decided to finally let fate control his destiny and has now died a proud man.
Lines 369 – 372
‘If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world thy breath in pain,
To tell my story.’
References and Sources –
Longman Literature Shakespeare’s Hamlet
Essays and Worksheets from Teacher Mr. Bonavia
www.universalteacher.org.uk/shakespeare/hamlet.htm
Total Number of Words:
With quotes - 1854
Without quotes - 1663
