Hamlet though does delay his revenge right till the end of the play. This is a normal convention for a revenge tragedy. In all revenge tragedies first a crime has to be committed and then for some reason the law cannot do anything about the crime so an individual usually the main character has to get their own revenge. However the main character then usually has a period of doubt when they decide whether they should go through with it or not. Hamlet expresses doubt to the audience through a soliloquy. He has doubt if he is doing the right thing, he also has doubt because he is strongly religious and is unsure whether the ghost is real.
Eventually Hamlet is convinced he is doing the right thing in the end because he his sure Claudius killed his father. This was after staging the play ‘The Mousetrap’ at the court and Claudius stormed out in rage. This convinced Hamlet that Claudius was guilty.
However Hamlet did have strong doubts if he was doing the right and if the ghost was real due to his religion. At times Hamlet is sure it is the Devil not his father. ‘ the spirit I have seen may be the devil the devil hath power’. Hamlet also thinks that it is hell as well as heaven that makes him want revenge ‘Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell’.
Hamlet follows almost follows every aspect of Thomas Kyd’s formula for a revenge tragedy however there is one part of it that does not follow the conventions, the accomplices on both sides were not killed because at the end of the play Horatio was the only one to survive. Although if it weren’t for Hamlet, Horatio would have committed suicide when he said “ I am more an antique Roman than a Dane. Here’s some liquor left”. If Horatio had killed himself, then Hamlet would have followed the Kydian formula as well as the regular conventions for Elizabethan revenge tragedy.
Both Hamlet and the audience of an Elizabethan time would be confused about who the ghost actually is. This is because people of the Elizabethan time believed in hell, heaven and purgatory. They believed that you went to heaven if you had no sins this was only saints and people like Mary. You went to hell if you had lots of sins but most people went to Purgatory. Purgatory was place you went if you had some sins and you go there to get purified. In purgatory you have to work your way out to get to heaven, they work for purification. So if Hamlet’s father was there he shouldn’t be telling Hamlet to get revenge he should be doing all good things to try and get out. Revenge was a sin so he shouldn’t be getting his son to do it if he was in Purgatory. This could be why Hamlet thinks the ghost is the devil. This would also mean the response of a Elizabethan audience would be different from a modern audience. They would believe that Hamlet’s father should not be telling him to get revenge whilst he was in Purgatory. They would be more shocked by this than an Elizabethan audience.
An Elizabethan audience response would also be very different because of Church, State and the regular morals of the people in that age did not accept revenge. People would not accept revenge under any circumstances no matter what the original crime was. They believed that someone who takes revenge into their own hands like Hamlet did was going against the total political authority of the state.
The Elizabethan people did simply not accept revenge they though of it as a sin and it was utterly condemned. However the people liked to see it in plays. Hamlet could agree with the Elizabethan audience because of all the other things that go wrong in the play due to Hamlet trying to get revenge. Hamlet doing wrong eventually leads to his own downfall. A lot of bdzt