Elijah Kamali

Mrs. Bradley

AP English Literature - Period 2

27 February 2017

The Climax of Hamlet

As simple and straightforward as Hamlet must have been to appeal to the minds of

the generation from which it was conceived, its plot is complex and multifaceted. The

multiple threads that run throughout it are all, at some point, connected with the main

overarching plot, moved along by Hamlets desire for revenge on his fathers murder

balanced delicately with his inability to act on it. The conflict, then, would have to lie in this

plot that drives the entire story. The apogee of this conflict, or the climax, must then be the

point at which Hamlet decides not to murder Claudius (for the moment) in Act III.

In Act I, Hamlet is introduced as being very upset at the family situation he finds

himself in. He sees how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seems to [him] all the uses of

this world! (I.ii.137-138). Hamlet is stuck in a deep depression caused by the death of his

father and compounded by the wedding of his mother and his beloved uncle. When he is

visited by the ghost of his father and told to revenge his foul and most unnatural murder

(I.v.31), he is faced with a task that is unparalleled in his life: killing his uncle to avenge his

fathers death. He seems so desperate and hopeless in his predicament that at a point, he

considers suicide -- or whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of

outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and, by opposing, end them

(III.i.65-68).
 Later on, in Act III of Hamlet, Prince Hamlet has attempted to confirm Claudius guilt

in murdering his brother by inviting the court to watch a play that is essentially a thinly

veiled reenactment of what the ghost of King Hamlet said happened to him. Claudius is

outraged at the charade and has none of it, leaving in disgust as soon as it is finished.

Hamlet is then left ultimately to kill Claudius, with his guilt confirmed by Horatio, who did

very well note him (III.ii.316) as he watched him for any incriminating reactions to the

play. The conflict of the play finally occurs in Scene III of Act III, wherein Claudius prays in

an attempt to absolve him of sin. He is not truly repentant of his actions, but he still wants

to go to heaven. Hamlet finds him there alone, and he sees it as the perfect opportunity to

do it, pat, now he is a-praying (III.iii.77-78). However, he comes to realize that by killing

him right then and there, since he is in the process of praying, he would go to heaven. This

is the opposite of what he intended for Claudius, so he then decides that when he is drunk

asleep, or in his rage, or in th incestuous pleasure of his bed, or about some act that has

no relish of salvation in t that he will trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven, and that

his soul may be damned and black as hell, whereto it goes (III.iii.94-100). When Claudius is

in the process of committing a sin, as Hamlet sees him as wont to do, Hamlet will strike. For

now, however, as much of a golden opportunity as it seems, he abstains from killing

Claudius.

Hamlets torment resides in his inaction. He really wants to avenge his father, and

his sole objective in life has become setting everything right. However, the difficulty of so

monumental a task as killing another human being in cold blood -- someone who raised

Hamlet essentially like he was his own son -- is almost unbearable to Hamlet, as well as that
he had never killed somebody before. This dramatic zenith of the play can most definitely

be construed as the climax.