As the play goes on, hamlet still has yet to act on his murderous task. Hamlet decides before he can avenge his father’s death he must make sure that the ghost was telling the truth. This simply gives hamlet more excuse to procrastinate (he gets to put off killing clauduis) until after the play which he has set up.
Once he knows the truth, we feel his anger in his soliliquy, “Now could I drink hot blood” which makes the audience feel this time he is determined to take revenge, but yet again he gets put off, when claudius starts confessing, and saying how bad he feels “help, angels, make assay.” Hamlet doesn’t want to kill him when he is confessing he wants to kill him when he done something wrong, so he has a reason to, “when he is drunk asleep, or in his rage, or th’incectuous pleasure of his bed.”
Another tragic flaw is the fact that he is so obsessive about his mother and uncle sleeping together, more so then his fathers death, as he always puts that first when talking “thou incestous, murderous.” This could just be that he is so upset by the fact she loves another man now, but not any man “married with my uncle, my fathers brother” that really puts into perspective the way he says that. He is very hooked up on the fact that its “incestuous” really putting the point in it’s a family member.
He mentions some disgusting images, “rank sweat…nasty sty” which upsets gertrude, which he wants, he wants to make her regret it, “no more.”
A tragic hero also needs a fall from grace, which hamlet also has. We know this because he has a high status to start with, being the kings son, and he has a fall when he starts going mad. We aren’t sure whether or not he actually is mad because he did say he was going to pretend to be mad so he has an excuse for everything he does, “to put an antic disposition on.” There are ways of suggesting he isn’t mad such as the way he works out that guildenstren and rosencrantz were sent for, “were you sent for?”
Hamlet speaks in prose, because of his madness, and uses his madness to insult polonius, “excellent well, you are a fishmonger.” He keeps repeating things to add to the madness, “words words words” and makes polonius believe that he is mad.
The most obvious fall from grace is when he dies at the end, hamlets inability to act upon his fathers death causes his fall, and that his failure costs him not ony his life, but also his mother’s. hamlet realises this was the kings attempt to kill him, and kills him, but this does not mean that hamlet has finally acted, he has only reacted to what has happened . if hamlet has initially carried out his dead father’s wishes, the king could not have conspired against him.
One final reason that makes hamlet a tragic hero is that he believes in fate, and everything has been planned by god. Once he sees the ghost for the first time, the ghost asks to go with him, and he says “my fate cries out” meaning this has been planned, I must go with him.
So establishing that the play is an Aristotelian tragedy, because hamlet is a tragic hero.
