To fully understand Hamlet’s inaction, it is important to look at revenge. Revenge is not exacted until the evil deeds of the offender are revealed and the public knows the truth. Only then does the thought of death come into revenge. Under this light, Hamlet cannot kill Claudius until he can prove that he poisoned the late king. Thus the first two acts are not only for the reader to understand Hamlet, but to allow Hamlet to gather needed evidence against his uncle.
Some critics explain Hamlet’s delay as a common convention of Elizabethan revenge tragedy. Perhaps Hamlet is too sensitive to kill Claudius, a lovely pure noble and most moral nature, without the strength of nerve, which forms a hero. But it is not until act three, when Hamlet has not been able to prove his uncle is a murderer that he decides to force Claudius’ hand. Hamlet comes up with the idea of the play to prove whether or not Claudius is guilty. But the play also causes another problem. Hamlet discovers Claudius’ guilt but has no evidence to present to the people. Thus, when Hamlet sees Claudius praying he stays his hand until he can absolutely prove his guilt. Another reason why Hamlet stays his hand is because Claudius is praying. It is Hamlet’s fervent belief that if he kills Claudius while he is praying he might go to heaven. Which makes the final lines of that scene so ironic. After Hamlet has left, Claudius says, “My words fly up, my thoughts,/ remain below:/ Words without thoughts never to heaven go.” Claudius does not think that his words are reaching God. Thus, ironically, if Hamlet had killed Claudius, he still would have gone to hell.
According to James L. Calderwood, ultimately, Hamlet’s predicament is cause by his need to reconcile the Ghost’s command, “Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder, and its perplexing codicil, “But, howsomever thou pursues this act/ Taint not thy mind.” Calderwood further proposes that how are we to act within a tainted world without becoming tainted oneself? How, on the other hand, not to act without suffering the stigma of betrayal? As a result, Hamlet’s solution for the moment is to take refuge in the cleft between the action and inaction. He does not act, but instead, “acts,” that is, plays mad, which cuts his behaviour off form the world of affairs in which action and inaction have no meaning. Hamlet’s antic disposition becomes a form of inactive action, to which the analogy is the unvoiced speech of the wordplay.
With his thinking mind Hamlet does not become a typical vengeful character. Unlike most erratic behaviour of individuals of seeking revenge out of rage, Hamlet considers the consequences of his actions – “Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.” What would the people think of their prince if he were to murder the king? What kind of effect would it have on his beloved mother? Hamlet considers questions of this type, which in effect hasten his decision. After all, once his mother is dead and her feelings out of the picture, Hamlet is quick and aggressive in forcing poison into Claudius’s mouth. Some critics believe that Hamlet simply thinks too much. He wants the murder of the King to be perfect. Claudius has to go to hell. The people have to know about the murderer Claudius. Hamlet spends too much time planning and not enough time doing; thus, making the King's murder more complicated than other murders he has orchestrated. Also, he has to be careful around Claudius after the play because it revealed his sanity to the King as it revealed the guilt of Claudius to Hamlet. After the play within a play, Hamlet has proof and still cannot act. Not until everybody is dying, including himself, does he realize that he should not have waited so long. He understands the consequences of his delay all of his pent-up rage explodes, and he murders the King; getting the revenge he was after from the beginning.
The argument can be made, however, that it is not a fear of killing that causes this inaction. He does not display an inability to end someone's life when killing Polonius. He neither hesitates nor capitulates in sending Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their executions. Why then would the prince of Denmark hesitate to kill the one man he most justly could? Many literary critics believe that his inaction is the result of a vicarious Oedipus complex. Those who concur with this theory say that Hamlet, in his subconscious mind, has a desire to do exactly what his uncle has done; that is, get rid of the king so that he can have Gertrude for himself. Hamlet seeing Claudius succeed in everything that he subconsciously wishes for may lead him to put Claudius on a pedestal. Although Hamlet may not realize it or want it, he subconsciously admires Claudius and is therefore unable to kill him. Hamlet cannot act because he is fighting against his subconscious self. According to this interpretation, Claudius becomes an embodiment of himself, and thus he is unable to kill, in a sense, his other self.
From the outset, Hamlet must realise the unsettling fact that his mother has fallen in love with a vile man, who is not only immoral, but has also successfully weakened Hamlet by killing his father. In killing Claudius he risks estrangement from his mother, since she might forever view Hamlet as the man who killed her husband and her lover, and a “just” king. In effect had Hamlet executed a well-organised plan, he could have killed Claudius without being found out; “Now might I do it pat” – and without upsetting his mother. However, Hamlet’s state of mind at the time was fragile, and so he would have been vulnerable in such a situation.
Every time he has an opportunity to act, he counteracts with a doubt or reason for inaction. “I do not know/ Why yet I live to say this thing’s to do/ Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means/ To do’t.” For example, he wants his revenge on Claudius to take place only when he can be sure he will go to hell and not heaven. The audience sense that Hamlet is constantly putting his revenge off and after the first appearance of the ghost, Hamlet seems to ignore what he says. However, the ghost continually appears to them. Hamlet has let time and passion slip away. “Do you not come your tardy son to chide/ That, laps’d in time and passion/ let’s go by/ Th’important acting of your dread command.” This, significantly accords with the recurrent motif of the play – the failure of human purposes, through a weakening of passion or resolve. Furthermore, he spends too much time planning and not enough time doing. He plans the play within a play, but seeks no immediate resolution upon its completion. Instead he becomes more careful around Claudius after the play because it revealed his knowledge of guilt to the incestuous king.
After the play within the play, Hamlet does not act until everybody is dying, including himself. “The point envenom’d too! Then, venom, to thy work.” The hero finally achieves revenge with the same instrument, and the same venom, though not the same treachery, as he suffers it. Only in this final tragic moment does he realize that he should not have waited so long. But by the time he comes to this realization, it is too late. His father is murdered, his mother lies dying, he is mortally wounded and all he can do is finish the tragic macabre parade of casualties. With all of his pent-up rage he takes his revenge on Claudius. It seems at this point, however, that it is no revenge at all, only the last tragic fruit of lifeless indecision.
In conclusion, with so many plausible and sometimes mutually contradictory explanations to choose from, I think that there is no single answer to the question of Hamlet’s delay. In my opinion, there are many answers or rather many combinations of answers, with each member in combination susceptible to innumerable degrees of emphasis.
There are many reasons to suggest that Hamlet should have killed Claudius while he was praying, “should” being the operative word of this question. Hamlet establishes a need for revenge when he encounters a ghost in the appearance of his father. His “supposed” father is in purgatory. His father requests that Hamlet should take the life of the person who murdered him, or else he will forever remain in purgatory. During the players play, however, Hamlet establishes that Claudius was guilty of his father’s murder. Hamlet needs to look at how he is to take revenge upon Claudius, ensuring he does not “o’erflow the measure” and upset his mother.
Hamlet’s sentiments are no more than expected of a revenger, in literature, if not life, and they are consistent in other plays, but although Hamlet’s sentiments are those proper to a revenger and must be accepted at face value. The dilemma ultimately arises as, the revenger with his passion at its climax following proof of his enemies’ guilt, is presented with his victim, defenceless and alone; and yet it is revenge itself that provides an incontestable reason why this seemingly perfect opportunity is one impossible to take; Hamlet does not want to go to hell. The revenger’s horrifying sentiments contribute to the overall presentation of the play as a whole and by the end of the play, Hamlet’s dilemma, if anything has been made worse and nothing more than a frenzied killing ends his downfall.
