Unbeknown to Hamlet, his next task would soon bring him to be caught between being a man of thought and a man of action, a complete change in the presentation of his character. And as the play progresses Hamlet’s thought and reason takes on great form.
Hamlets' character shows him to be able to think, but not to act. He has made a soliloquy on life, gave advice to the players and moralised on Yorrick's skull, but was a slow avenger of his fathers’ death – this is the true Hamlet.
Certain facts are clear about Hamlet. He is extremely intellectual; his speech and interests express this, and even though as much as he loved his parents, university had been his chosen place until the Ghost bid him to seek revenge.
He seems to be philosophical, he studies the meanings of his life and thoughts, and because he cannot have his revenge according to his own refined ideas, he declines it altogether. So because of his own conscience and morals he doubts to trust both the suggestions of the Ghost:
“Thy uncle stole…leperous distilment,” and the successes of his own experiment with the effect of the players, instead of acting upon them. Yet it seems as if Hamlet is aware of this ‘weakness,’ of feeling he can’t act upon impulse because to him not all the elements ‘add up.’ Hamlet’s character shows him to need to resolve everything by contemplation first, possibly because of his personal fears of misjudging the situation and making a mistake.
The most accurate sources of information explaining Hamlet’s character are his soliloquies, and the play is filled with many heart felt soliloquies in which Hamlet is questioning his actions and feelings. These are probably the most accurate sources to evaluate Hamlet as they contain no lies or deception and express only his own thoughts. They also intervene on the point that the inability to act is part of Hamlet’s complex character:
“Am I a coward?” Hamlet contemplates, wondering why he has not yet avenged his father’s death. I feel this is partly due to him being a scholar. He has to contemplate every action, prepare for the reaction, and also prepare for any consequences. Hamlet wants to be a perfectionist, and his questions and soliloquies help him to make sure that everything runs smoothly.
What do Hamlet’s soliloquies tell us about him? The first (Act 1, Scene 2) reveals the a great deal about Hamlet’s character since it gives the audience their first real impression of what hamlet is like and how he has been affected by events.
It is this soliloquy where Hamlet first expresses his desire that he might escape from life:
“O that this too too solid flesh would melt,” the Prince is so melancholy that he does not wish to live. He also regrets that God’s law forbids suicide because this would be a means of escape for him, from a world he feels “grows to seed.”
At this point Hamlet reveals why life seems so “weary, stale, flat and unprofitable.” It had resulted from the death of his father and the equally important remarriage of his mother. He remembers how his mother had seemed to love his father and how she had wept when he died and yet, in her frailty, she has married again:
“Oh most wicked speed, to post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets.” This soliloquy clearly shows how disturbed Hamlet is by his mother’s marriage. He describes her as:
“Your husband’s brother’s wife,” and wishes she were not his mother. This is because the family relationship of Hamlet’s parents is idealised by him, and his disgust in womankind comes from the fact that he feels his mother has committed incest.
The soliloquy as a whole reveals his sensitivity, his admiration for his father, his intense dislike for his uncle, his distress at his mother’s incestuous marriage and his inability to share his thoughts with others:
“But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.”
Later soliloquies intensify his hatred for Claudius:
“When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage…That has no relish of salvation in’t,” is where he decides not to kill Claudius while he is at prayer, but to surprise him. It is in Hamlet’s final soliloquy, which appears in Act IV, Scene 4, which reveals his firm intention to take his vengeance at the earliest possible opportunity:
“I do not know…will, and strength, and means to do’t,” while at the same time he condemns himself for his earlier inactivity. So in a sense it shows Hamlet’s growth in confidence, he now seems to have the courage to avenge his father’s “most foul and unnatural murder.”
In the text there is no clear evidence of the “murder” until Claudius confesses his sins to God and also his reaction to the players interpretation of Old Hamlets death. It is up until this point Hamlet is weighing up the Ghost’s story against the King’s.
The Ghost accuses in Act 1, but Hamlet is perceptive enough not to accept the Ghost’s words as the truth. One thing that he realises is that the Ghost is playing directly to his own emotions:
“May be a devil…my melancholy…abuses me to damn me.” He also feels it may be a physical being from hell sent to tempt him, but it could also be a projection of his own negative feelings onto his uncle. After all, Hamlet had never liked him, and had also had a strong love for his father, which was his weakness because the Ghost could have known how distraught Hamlet was.
Hamlet wasn’t too afraid too show his sensitivity and anger towards his uncle, usually by using word games with him:
“A little more than kin, and less than kind,” to show his disapproval mainly of Gertrude’s marriage with his “father’s brother.”
With Gertrude Hamlet wanted to achieve two goals. One is to express his anger against her and the other is to somehow induce her to stop loving Claudius. To destroy his mother would be to attack his own identity. Thus, since Hamlet cannot stop Gertrude loving Claudius, by killing her or driving her insane, as he did with Ophelia, he attempts to do it by confronting his mother with Claudius’s crime:
“Here is your husband…You cannot call it love.” Possibly he hopes that she will somehow think about it, realise her own and Claudius’ guilt and stop loving him. Hamlet confronts her in the state of feigned insanity, so that she has no reason to believe that the rational Hamlet believes this, this is because the confrontation leads her to choose between he and Claudius, a decision that that would be disastrous for Hamlet if she chose against him. Gertrude puts an enormity of stress on Hamlet that makes him develop a substantial resentment towards her. Since to Hamlet, Gertrude embodies the weakness of women in general.
This explains why Hamlet betrays Ophelia to the point of driving her insane and towards her untimely death. I feel his conduct to Ophelia is quite natural in the circumstances. It is the effect of his own disappointed hope caused by the distractions of the scene around him. When “his father’s spirit was in arms,” it was not a time for the son to be in love. But because of Hamlet’s search for the truth he could not explain the cause of his “antic disposition,” especially not to Ophelia.
Hamlet’s attitude to Ophelia in Act III, Scene 1, suggest that he is not fully in control of his actions and his remarks to her are that of cruelty. Their effect on Ophelia is immediate, she believes that Hamlet is certainly mad:
“O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown.” Finally, hamlet’s behavior in the graveyard scene calls his sanity into question. When he realises that Ophelia is dead, he leaps into her grave, insisting that his love is greater than any brother's:
“I loved Ophelia…Be buried quick with her.” It may well be true that Hamlet loved Ophelia but his actions in the graveyard are frenzied and hysterical and to me show more of his lack of instability rather than his love.
Ophelia’s real madness is in contrast to Hamlet’s pretended insanity and yet their madness serves a similar purpose. Only when they are no longer rational can they reveal their innermost thoughts and needs.
I feel Hamlet feigns insanity because it allows him to do several things that he otherwise would be unable to do. With respect to Ophelia, Hamlet wants to express his anger towards her without arising suspicion in her or in others that he is actually in a rational mental state. This would help prevent others from speculating that Hamlet was rationally planning hostile actions such as killing Claudius. With Gertrude, Hamlet also wants to express his anger against marrying a man that he feels killed his father, without her thinking that he actually believes in them.
So his character is constantly figuring out situations rationally and morally while under his feigned insanity. A clever plan from a great intellect.
Hamlet’s is an intriguing character. He prefers to be a thinker but is cast in the role of an avenger. He is intelligent and sensitive, deeply disturbed by the evil and the faithlessness with which he is surrounded. His character changes suddenly from inactivity to impulsiveness but he is shown to be true throughout, resisting his impulses until he can not only perform vengeance, but justice as well.
However I feel there can be no set diagnosis for Hamlet. Hamlet’s character is very much complex, and to single his character down to one thesis or report would be impossible.
