Hamlet Challenges

His mother and his uncle have married after only 2 months of Hamlet’s father’s death. This has caused Hamlet to be in a heavy state of anger, mixed with his already deep state of mourning. According to Theodore Lidz, these two states can lead to one thinking back on all the negative wishes one may have had in the past. Considering Hamlet’s relatively young age, death wishes upon a parent are not serious but they are common among children. “…and as most, if not all, children have sometimes had death wishes toward a parent, guilt over such wishes can become intense when the parent dies.” (Lidz 48) All of these emotions mixed together so early in the play could lead to a sense of depression.

Although Hamlet shows himself as indecisive and insecure, towards the end of the story he does show some act of courage; enough to finally go and kill King Claudius. At first, he finds himself procrastinating at the matter, because he comes up behind King Claudius while he’s praying. He originally planned on killing him right then and there, but wait! Hamlet stops and lets his inner coward win over yet again. After a series of deep thoughts, he does decide to kill his uncle, and realizes that he must go through with his plan quickly, before Hamlet himself is killed.

Hamlet doesn’t think it would be just to kill Claudius now because it would be basically sending him “to heaven” which Hamlet does not want. He wants to take what he perceives as the nobler path of catching Claudius in sin and send him to eternal damnation, where Hamlet’s father supposedly roams. To what seems like noble justice to Hamlet leads him to continuously postpone his revenge. Hamlet is not interested in making himself king, rather he is more interested in killing Claudius the, truthfully, unchristian way. Hamlet does not want Claudius to repent and absolve of his sins. Although Hamlet calls Claudius a “villain”, it makes the reader ponder if the executioner of the villain is always the “hero”. So far in the play, Hamlet does not show any characteristics of a traditional hero as he broods and shows temper tantrums. Using his false sense of righteousness, Hamlet waits for the right chance to exact his noble “revenge”.

After learning that Claudius had killed his father, Hamlet was furious and set on seeking revenge. He generated a plan to act mad, in order to distract Claudius while ensuing his actual plot of revenge which would eventually end with the death of Claudius, by Hamlet. Hamlet may have been hopeful that his plan would work, but he had no such luck. Claudius did not believe Hamlet’s amateur attempts at pretending to be insane. Claudius says, “Was not like madness. There’s something in his soul (III; I; 161). This shows that Claudius sees through Hamlet’s act, and knows that his new son knows something of the truth and is brewing a plan. Claudius then, also has a plan to kill Hamlet, but ironically it is Hamlet that murder Claudius at the

Imagine how frustrating it is for someone to know something so incredibly bizarre, but even their closest relatives do not care to listen. Instead, they are outcastes and looked upon as mad. The amounts of frustration that piled on in Hamlet's life is what lead to the deaths of majority of the characters in the play. Over time, he just grew numb to his surroundings, he made up his mind that he will kill Claudius one way or another. He was even able to hide his sinister thoughts and repress his murderous urges.

Unlike most behavior of individuals seeking revenge out of anger, Hamlet considers the consequences of his actions. What would the people think if he killed the King, his uncle? What would people think about the prince, himself? What kind of effect would it have on his mother? Hamlet considers questions of this type which in effect hasten his decision. After all, once his mother is dead and her feelings are completely out of the picture, Hamlet doesn’t even have to second guess himself into killing Claudius. Once Hamlet is certain that Claudius is the killer, that’s when he is ready and plans everything in order to have Claudius death. This is the first time that he is actually following through with his plans and his

His troubles started with the death of his father. After the sudden and tragic death of Old Hamlet, Hamlet became depressed. He wore nothing but black clothes and mopped around. As stated in act 1, scene 2 “ “Seem,” mother? No, it is. I don’t know what you mean by “seem.” Neither my black clothes, my dear mother, nor my heavy sighs, nor my weeping, nor my downcast eyes, nor any other display of grief can show what I really feel. It’s true that all these things “seem” like grief, since a person could use them to fake grief if he wanted to. But I’ve got more real grief inside me that you could ever see on the surface. These clothes are just a hint of it.” The death of his father basically turned him into a different person. So much so, his mother confronted him about it. At one point in the play Hamlet even considers suicide with the famous soliloquy “To be or not to be”. Not only did his father die, but his mother remarried directly after his death to Hamlets uncle! This confused and devastated Hamlet even more. He looked up to his father and saw him as an irreplaceable man. In the book he compares him to a god, saying how he has no idea how his mother could remarry, let alone remarry someone like his uncle.

Hamlet had numerous legitimate reasons to go mad, several people had betrayed him to a great extent which had a massive effect on him and Hamlet was not going to let that go unnoticed. The death of a parent is stressful enough on a person let alone when that parent is horrifically murdered by a family member, in this case Claudius poured the “leperous distilment whose effect holds such an enmity with blood of man that, swift as quicksilver, it courses through the natural gates and alleys of the body, and with a sudden vigour, it doth posset, and curd, like eager droppings into milk, the thin and wholesome blood. So did it mine…” (page 36) into Hamlet Sr.’s ear. After Hamlet discovered the true story he plunged into his plan of madness and in doing so he was able to freely investigate what really happened and catch Claudius in his lie, prove what happened and kill him to avenge his father. In today’s society some can relate to avenging a loved one but not like Hamlet did by murdering those who wronged him. He was able to get so far because no one believed he would be a threat because of his mental state and that was a underestimation that had major consequences. And everything extreme he said was also ignored because he was known for rambling and talking excitedly. The plan continued for longer than it should

Throughout the first three acts of “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare, Hamlet faces many challenges. “Hamlet” is one of Shakespeare’s greatest plays. “Of the many remarkable things about Hamlet, Perhaps the most extraordinary is its length.”(Shapiro) William Shakespeare is well known for s the soliloquies that take place in his plays. A soliloquy is when one of the actors is alone on the stage speaking their thoughts aloud to the people watching the performance. Soliloquies were Shakespeare’s way of getting the audience involved in the performance emotionally. In Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” Hamlet faces challenges throughout Acts I, II, and III and discusses those challenges

Challenges “A Discussion of Hamlet's Challenges” The play Hamlet by William Shakespeare is a very interesting play about a man with problems that run through his family and he has to figure out a way to fix what is going wrong. The way that he has to figure out what is wrong is by acting mad and getting revenge on the person who killed his father. The first thing that happens in this story is we find out that old King Hamlet is killed by his brother Claudius. After this we are told Hamlet's mother Gertrude marries not long after King Hamlet's death to his brother Claudius.

Even though Hamlet may be done growing physically, he is still growing emotionally and psychologically. The major event of his father’s murder and his mother’s remarriage in a short time is equivalent to a major life event. The daily stress for Hamlet is school, dealing with others, and his

We see throughout the play how Hamlet suffers from several internal conflicts which leads him to carry a great burden over him. Hamlet carries the emotional distress over his father's death as well as his mother's

Claudius tried to get rid of Hamlet as soon as he realized that Hamlet is looking for an answer. ” England; for like the hectic in my blood he rages, and thou must cure me. Till I know ‘tis done…” (Hamlet 4.3.69-71). Furthermore Claudius acted like he was innocent and that he was disappointed about his brother’s death while having a chat with Hamlet, While in reality he faked his sympathy and innocence just because he was afraid that Hamlet might find out the truth that he killed his

While it is important to think carefully about certain matters, over-thinking them can prove detrimental to one’s life. A major attribute to Shakespearean tragedies is the demise of the main hero through his/her own actions. In Hamlet, the protagonist Hamlet is on a mission to seek retribution for his father, King Hamlet. He is ordered to kill his uncle Claudius, who murdered king hamlet to inherit the throne. Hamlet displays his desire for vengeance numerous times throughout the play. It is his uncertainty in the decisions and their outcomes that his reprisal is delayed, which contributes to his own death. Revenge also plays a crucial role in Hamlet’s death as he struggles to simultaneously seek vengeance while living up to his morals. Hamlet’s indecisiveness and internal self-conflict are the source of his downfall, because they forestall his pursuit for revenge.

Hamlet even replies that his inner sorrow is so great that his dour appearance is merely a poor mirror of it (I.ii.68). This information included by Shakespeare is how much internal strife Hamlet had gotten caused by the action (aka death) of his Father. The psychological conflict Hamlet is experiencing is the loss of a Father figure due to the action of his Father dying. To Hamlet, his father was his definition of what a man should be. In fact, it was noted many times by Hamlet in this scene that he wanted to be similar to his Father and make him proud. However, because Hamlet's Father died before he got the chance to "make him proud" as he would've liked, coupled with the identity loss of becoming fatherless, Hamlet was destined to be depressed and psychologically conflicted. By understanding how the psychological conflict occurring in this scene stemmed from the loss of a Father figure and identity, the audience of this story can better understand the context of Hamlet's future actions and enjoy the play further.