the responsibilities of his father’s revenge. I feel that the ghost of Hamlet father should of revenged his own death by haunting his murder which would of cause depression and later ending in death.
If the dramas of Shakespeare were to he characterised, each by the particular excellence which distinguishes it from the rest, we must allow to the tragedy of Hamlet the praise of variety. The incidents are so numerous, that the argument of the play would make a long tale. The scenes are interchangeably diversified with merriment and solemnity; with merriment that includes judicious and instructive observations, and solemnity, not strained by poetical violence above the natural sentiments of man. New characters appear from time to time in continual succession, exhibiting various forms of life and particular modes of conversation. The pretended madness of Hamlet causes much mirth, the mournful distraction of Ophelia fills the heart with tenderness, and every personage produces the effect intended, from the apparition that in the first act chills the blood with horror, to the fop in the last, that exposes affectation to just contempt.
The conduct is perhaps not wholly secure against objections. The action is indeed for the most part in continual progression, but there are some scenes which neither forward nor retard it. Of the feigned madness of Hamlet there appears no adequate cause, for he does nothing which he might not have done with the reputation of sanity. He plays the madman most, when he treats Ophelia with so much rudeness, which seems to be useless and wanton cruelty.
Hamlet is, through the whole play, rather an instrument than an agent. After he has, by the stratagem of the play, convicted the King, he makes no attempt to punish him, and his death is at last effected by an incident which Hamlet has no part in producing.
The catastrophe is not very happily produced; the exchange of weapons is rather an expedient of necessity, than a stroke of art. A scheme might easily have been formed, to kill Hamlet with the dagger, and Laertes with the bowl. The poet is accused of having shewn little regard to poetical justice, and may be charged with equal neglect of poetical probability. The apparition left the regions of the dead to little purpose; the revenge which he demands is not obtained but by the death of him that was required to take it; and the gratification which would arise from the destruction of an usurper and a murderer, is abated by the untimely death of Ophelia, the young, the beautiful and the harmless.
Hamlet's father, King Hamlet, was killed by his uncle Claudius and Fortinbras' father was killed by King Hamlet. Both Hamlet and Fortinbras have vowed to take revenge on the death of their fathers. However, how they go about doing this is the complete opposite of each other. Hamlet, after learning that his father's death was a murder and promising to take revenge, waits and makes sure that what he knows is the absolute truth before he even attempts to take revenge on Claudius. Even after Hamlet is sure beyond any doubts that Claudius is the murderer, he hesitates to kill him. Fortinbras, on the other hand, has been taking action even before the play begins. As the play opens, we learn that Denmark is in a state of alert. The audience learns that the country has been preparing for a war, and from Horatio, the audience also learns that the young Fortinbras is getting ready his "lawless resolutes" for action against Denmark for the killing of his father and for the return of lands previously owned by Norway.
Before the soliloquy begins, Hamlet has been informed by one of Fortinbras's Captains that Norway is preparing to fight Poland over a "little patch of land", and that twenty thousand men are willing to fight for this worthless piece of land just for honour's sake. This begins Hamlet's last soliloquy. In it Hamlet is reflecting upon Fortinbras' determination to go against the Polish army for the honor over a trifling matter while he himself is taking such a long time in avenging the murder of his father and the disgracing of his mother's name.
The soliloquy begins with Hamlet's thoughts on how time is running by and he still hasn't done anything. He says:
"How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more."
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In these lines Hamlet is thinking about all the time he has wasted in not taking action. He sees how everything around him is taking shape, all except his own actions. He goes on to say "Sure, he that made us with such large discourse, Looking before and after, gave us not that capability and god-like reason to fust in us unus'd "(36-39) Here Hamlet is saying that every man has reason, and that reason should be put to good use. He also expresses the thought that he has "......cause and will and strength and means to do't" (45-46) but still waits and thinks of taking action instead of taking action.
Hamlet is, through the whole play, rather an instrument than an agent. After he has, by the stratagem of the play, convicted the King, he makes no attempt to punish him, and his death is at last effected by an incident which Hamlet has no part in producing.
