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Antonio Santos

28 February 2018

Hamlet Vengeance Delayed

In Shakespeare’s play Hamlet the procrastination of the hero lead to his own downfall

and death and contributed to the death of many others. Hamlet spends too much time thinking of

clever plans to catch his uncle off guard so that he can be sure his uncle is guilty. If Hamlet had

listened to his father’s ghost and acted immediately, he would have been able to catch Claudius

off guard and complete his revenge. Instead Hamlet hesitates and talks himself out of killing his

uncle which leads to many other needless deaths. The visit from his fathers’ ghost should have

been enough for Hamlet to seek out the murderer and without hesitation carry out his revenge.

In act 1 scene 5 the ghost of King Hamlet commands him to “Revenge his foul and most

unnatural murder.” (Shakespeare 1.5.25). The King then goes on to describe how his brother

murders him, corrupts and seduces Hamlet’s mother the queen and by this incestuous murderous

union brings shame to all of Denmark. Until this moment Hamlet only knew that he did not like

Claudius, and was angry with his mother for marrying him, but he had no reason to think that

Claudius had anything to do with his father’s death. The ghost of Hamlet’s father gives him one

last instruction to “Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive/Against thy mother aught. Leave

her to heaven” (Shakespeare 1.5.85-86). Even in his revenge from beyond the grave the King

would not have Hamlet do harm to his Mother Queen Gertrude. Hamlet promises his father to do

as he is asked.
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Had Hamlet acted immediately and gone to the new King his Uncle Claudius and killed

him without hesitation it would have been justified. Hamlet had two witnesses with him who saw

the dead king give instructions to take defensible vengeance for his murder. There would have

been some consequences but he would have been able to get away with it as seeking revenge was

a perfectly legal way to justify killing someone at this time in history. But Hamlet delays he is

too smart for his own good and talks himself out taking direct action. For example, in Act III,

scene III, Hamlet had the opportunity to kill Claudius, but he believed that Claudius was praying.

If Hamlet had killed Claudius when he was praying for forgiveness, Hamlet believed Claudius

would have gone to heaven. Rather than sending Claudius to a well deserved fate he would be

sending him to paradise in heaven. Thinking this, Hamlet decided he must catch Claudius doing

something bad so that he would go to hell.

All this hesitation on Hamlet’s part gives Claudius time to plot and plan a way to get rid

of him. Claudius sends Hamlet to England on a fake errand to collect some unpaid tax from the

king of England. In reality Claudius has sent a letter telling the English king to kill Hamlet. In

the meantime, Laertes is able to gather a group of supporters to help him revenge his father’s

death. Laertes is focused on his task of vengeance and takes action to complete it. While in

comparison Hamlet takes no action, but continues to make plans that he never follows through

with. This is another example of how Hamlet could have easily gotten the support he needed to

enact or to justify after the fact his revenge. If Laertes could get enough support to act then

Hamlet, someone much more popular with the people, could have done the same.

In the end Hamlet is unable to take action until he knows that he is going to die. King

Claudius and Laertes both have plans to kill Hamlet. Laertes with a poisoned sword and Laertes

with a poisoned drink. During the duel the king attempts to get Hamlet to drink the poisoned
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wine in celebration of scoring the first point but Hamlet refuses. Unfortunately, Hamlets promise

to his father is broken when the queen feels faint and drinks from the poisoned cup and dies.

Laertes is also killed with the poisoned blade and admits to Hamlet that Claudius has set this plot

in motion prompting Hamlet to finally take direct action against him. By this time, it is to late his

mother is dead, his girlfriend is dead, and Hamlets inaction has caused the death of several other

innocent people. Hamlet could have avoided all this grief had he done as he promised his father

from the start. Instead Hamlet spent too much time contemplating the problem from every point

of view, plotting elaborate scheme to catch the guilty person doing wrong so he wouldn’t feel

bad for killing them.

Reference

Shakespeare, William. “Hamlet.” The Literature Network: Online classic literature, poems, and

quotes. Essays & Summaries, www.online-literature.com/shakespeare/hamlet/.