Horatio suggests that the ghost is devil and he is attempting to trick him. Now Hamlet ponders his thoughts for a long period of time, expecting to do the deed immediately, but alternatively he drags it on until the end of the play. Hamlet did not have any attestation that the ghost was essentially telling the truth, and he has to verify it some how that the ghost was authentic. At one point Hamlet wants to believe that the ghost was actual. After seeing the ghost Hamlet immediately becomes completely psychotic, he becomes very highly disturbed in his mind. Hamlet is sensitive, introverted young man, who is naturally prone to melancholia. Horatio says that, “He waxes desperate with imagination” (i, iv, 87). This entire ghost is in his imagination; he is getting crazy in his fantasies. The ghost’s revelation starts Hamlet thinking about King Claudius whether he is the murderer of his father. The fact that his mother has remarried to King Claudius further intensifies his already melancholic disposition. His mother’s remarriage is an abomination in Hamlet’s eyes. This is because the marriage was soon after his father’s death.
At this point Hamlet starts having serious doubts about killing the king. After all, to kill an anointed King, even in an act of revenge, was considered as a serious offence. The King was appointed by God, for Hamlet to kill the King was like killing God. They believed that the King had devine existence. During the Elizabethan era, the general believe that the King had sovereign power and divine right was extensive. Hamlet believed in God, and he thought the ghost could not be real, the ghost could be a devil, and Hamlet cannot kill the King, who is appointed by God. It was hard to believe that the King was doing something deficient.
“I hold my duty as I hold my soul,/ Both to my God and to my gracious King;” (i, ii, 44-45). This exhibits that people take the King as a God. Hamlet wanted more substantiation before taking a reaction. If Hamlet had killed King Claudius at the starting of the play, the King would have been considered a martyr. This would have been a murder and he would be punished. Throughout the play Hamlet is almost in a delirious state of mind. All the characters think he has gone mad. Polonius says, “ I will be brief. Your noble son is mad” (ii,ii, 92).
The Queen thinks that he is getting mad because of his father’s death and her getting married to Claudius. The Queen says, “ I doubt it is no other but the main,/ His father’s death and our o’er-hasty marriage” (ii,ii,56-57).
In addition, Hamlet was a philosopher rather than a man of action; he himself sees that part of his problem is to think too precisely on an event like a procrastinator. He is intellectual and reflective, preferring to ponder rather than take action. Hamlet says, “ To be, or not to be, that is the question:/ Whether’tis nobler in the mind to suffer/………….That flesh is heir to:’ tis a consummation/ Devoutly to be wished”(iii,i, 56-64). Hamlet criticises himself for being too reflective and being womanly and thinking excessively. It is not in his nature to be a typical revenger.
After all this thinking, Hamlet had to authenticate that the ghost was essentially telling the truth, by staging it out on the court. When the play took place, this play was about what happened to Hamlet’s father; the play’s the thing to catch the conscience of the King. When Claudius came to watch the play, he stormed out in rage. The ‘play within the play’ is a clever dramatic device by Shakespeare. It attracts the audience, also; the audience would feel sympathy for the position Hamlet is in. Hamlet knew at that point that the King was guilty. But the evidence was not an adequate amount; Hamlet wanted more, so he delayed the revenge of his father again. Hamlet was still not the conventional ‘revenger’. He now has heaps of substantiation, but he delays acting in a heroic way. After the play it gives testimony that Claudius is guilty. The audience would be against Claudius and see him as a murderer, and a sinful King. They would become increasingly sympathetic towards Hamlet and against Claudius and Gertrude.
Hamlet is a Catholic by nature. He believed in the doctrine of Catholism, Catholics believed murder and revenge is to be erroneous, because of religious belief Hamlet delays the murder. Hamlet is religious; he uses religious terminology, he says to his mother “Confess yourself to heaven,/ Repent what’s past.” (iii, iiii, 152-153).
Hamlet is requesting to his mother to confess her past, ask God for forgiveness. This illustrate that his a religious person, he is constantly allusion to religion and Christian values of Christianity and purity. When King Claudius was in the church, confessing his guilt killing Hamlet’s father, Hamlet over hears and says; “Now I might do it pat, now he is a-praying. And now I’ll do’t. And so he goes to heaven.” (iii, iii, 77-78). This clarifies that if Hamlet could have killed Claudius while he was confessing to God. If Hamlet had terminated in the church, then Claudius would have gone to heaven because he confessed while Hamlet’s father is in purgatory because he did not acquire the opportunity to confess, so Hamlet decided not to murder Claudius at this point in the play. Hamlet says, “ A villain kills my father, and for that/ I, his sole son, do this same villain send/ To heaven” (iii,iii,77-78). This clarifies that if Hamlet had killed Claudius in the church, than the miscreant that killed his father would just go to heaven. This again delays Hamlet in taking the avenge of his father’s death.
Hamlet also delays killing the King because he is unsure of the morality of carrying out such a task. This fact is important, as Hamlet is a very idealistic and moralistic person. Ecclesiastical law, but the duty of personal honour prevalent in Elizabethan times prohibited revenge. Hamlet wants to break the cycle of medieval society, of killing others to revenge a relative’s death. In the medieval society killing a person was accepted, that’s if they went in defiance of wrong. Hamlet is having serious doubts about killing the King. After all, to kill an anointed King, even in an act of revenge, was considered as a serious offence. In addition, in regards to his mother’s sin, the ghost had told Hamlet to “Leave her to heaven,/ And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge/ to pick and sting her.” This creates a moral dilemma for Hamlet because it is God’s duty to deal with his mother’s sin; surely the same applies to Claudius.
In conclusion, Hamlet delays in killing the King because of his own character; he is a philosopher, procrastinator and is of a melancholic disposition. External events in the play do not contribute to Hamlet’s delay, but are rather used to Hamlet’s advantage as excuses to further delay of avenging his father’s murder. Hamlet constantly delays his revenge and always finds a way to put off until he finally commits the murder in Act V, scene 2, which also causes other characters death, in addition to his own.