Hamlet: #4

“Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,/ That I, the son of a dear father murdered,/ Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,/ Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words/ And fall a-cursing like a very drab,/ A scullion! Fie upon ’t, foh!” (II.ii.611-16).

            Once Hamlet hears the actor deliver a speech, he is embarrassed to realize that he has shown less urgency to avenge his father’s murder than the actor has done in his performance. He realizes that he has been moping around long enough and it is time to take action. Although he has considered all options and weighed the consequences, Hamlet feels that his father’s murderer must be killed. However, before killing Claudius, Hamlet must make sure that Claudius is in fact the King’s killer. He devises a plan to watch Claudius during the scene that mimics his father’s murder to see if Claudius looks guilty and confesses his crime. The fact that Hamlet has hatched this elaborate plan proves that he is not crazy. He is also unlike most of Shakespeare’s villains, as in Hamlet has considered the consequences of killing the new king and is not simply acting on impulse. It is almost as if Hamlet has to be convinced and swayed by the ghost to commit the act of murder; his emotions are not strong enough by themselves to make him avenge his father’s death.