Hamlet's Transformation from Good to Evil in Shakespeare's Hamlet

Throughout the play of Hamlet, one of Shakespeare's most famous tragedy's the main character, Hamlet is faced with the responsibility of getting vengeance for his father's murder. He decides to pretend madness as part of his plan to get the opportunity to kill Claudius who was the suspected murderer. As the play goes on, his portrayal of a madman becomes believable, and the characters around him respond quite vividly. Through his inner thoughts and the obvious reasons for his actions, it is clear that he is not really mad and is simply an actor faking insanity in order to complete the duty his father assigned him.

The young man only thinking of himself, of fame and fortune and of being able to marry the king's daughter decides to go against his Godfathers wishes. He sees the possibility that one day he might become the future king himself so he blindly throws

He also learns that the reason his father is in this place is because he was murdered before he could repent of his sins. Hamlet feels that he has some duty as the ghost’s son to revenge him in hopes that it will fulfill his father’s journey to heaven or hell, because the current state that he is in seems worse than either of those.

The Ghost of Hamlet's father is a foil for Hamlet. The ghost is introduced so to reveal information that is not blatantly revealed to us yet. The king gives us some explanation of why Hamlet wants revenge. The king tells us of his death and introduces the fact that it was a murder and tells that the murder was committed by his brother. Through the conversation with the ghost he gains more fuel for the anger he has about his mother’s marriage. In the discussion with Hamlet and the

In general, however, Hamlet is a man who needs to be in control of his actions and assured of the outcomes. Hamlet does not act rashly, but continuously delays his actions while he tries to obtain more accurate knowledge about what he should do. From Act 1 through Act 4, Hamlet carefully thinks

Hamlet can not let go of the fact that his father is dead, as he still yearns for him. However, Hamlet is able to meet with the ghost of his father, where the ghost tells he died via a “murder most

Although Hamlet initially swears he will never forget the ghost while seeking retribution (Hamlet. I. v. 112-113), his focus slowly shifts from his father to his own self-interest. In fact, in his final soliloquy, Hamlet laments over his tragic situation: "How stand I, then,/ That I have a father killed, a mother stained,/ Excitements of my reason and my blood,/ And let all sleep while, to my

He truly believes that he is just playing a game and will one day become a great king. At this point though it is hard to believe him. His actions show no evidence of this greater plan to be a good king. His reasoning behind this grand deception is also hard to fathom. Part of it seems that his issues with his father play a role, His scheme could be a way he might gain his father’s approval, which is an odd idea given that when he does become king his father will be dead and therefore not capable of being proud of his son’s miraculous

A ghost was seen multiple wandering around on the castle walls and it was in fact Hamlet’s father and he eventually explained how he was killed and who killed him. The ghost says to Hamlet, “So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.” (1.5. 7) meaning that he wants Hamlet to get revenge on his uncle for killing his father. For the longest time he was mourning the death of his father for a childish amount of time and disrespecting almost everyone he came in contact with by not showing them the proper respect due to them. He was also pushed with the thought of committing suicide after the loss of his father but never did it because he could never convince himself to do it.

intends to shine when he becomes King. He says that when the time comes he will

It seems as though Hamlet was struggling with the decision to act on the ghost ask or let divine order take over. Hamlet is truly indecisive on killing his uncle because if the ghost was evil than he was possibly facing total damnation of his soul, and if the ghost was being truthful than disobeying his father’s request might lead to Hamlets fathers soul to be in years of torment. Still trying to convince a torn Hamlet, father Hamlet says “ I am thy father's spirit/Doom'd for a/certain term to walk the night/And for the day confined to fast in fires/Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature/Are burnt and purged away”(pg 674, lines 10-13). The spirit even tells Hamlet that he never repented for his sins before his brother took his life. Hamlet is so torn he starts to consider suicide, but never went through with

Not only Hamlet had to deal with his father’s death, Hamlet was challenged by his inability of taking action by uncertainty of ghost identity and lack of solid evidence of Claudius’ sin. From what appears to be his father’s ghost, he learns that the King was murdered by Claudius, his brother and Hamlet’s uncle. Even the ghost exhorts him to revenge Claudius’ evil manner, Hamlet hesitate to take an instant action by his uncertainty over the Ghost’s identity: “Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned/Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell/Be thy intents wicked or charitable,” This uncertainty over the Ghost’s moral identity means that Hamlet is left uncertain over the consequences of his actions because he is unsure if the ghost

Hamlet finds himself troubled with the mission of avenging his father's death from the beginning, and is not himself after planning to kill his, uncle the new King. Hamlet treats the crime of killing the king from a different point of view. In the first act of the play, after Hamlet is aware of the tortured ghost of his father walking the ramparts. Hamlet then goes to see it for himself, where he is convinced and upset that he must get revenge for his father’s death by his own father's ghost. Evelyn O’Conner states that “he is grieving his dead father & attempts to come to terms with his mother’s betrayal which evokes our sympathy”.

Like many things, Hamlet is intelligent and honorable, but his indecisiveness is the cause of his tragic downfall. In the play Hamlet, William Shakespeare portrays that Hamlet is very incapable of finishing the task at hand. Throughout the drama Hamlet faces many trials and tribulations due to his late father Hamlet, who was murderously killed by Claudius. His questionable love for Ophelia, and his inability to kill Claudius and himself is one grand flaw of an epic hero. A.C. Bradley analyses that “Hamlet is further waxing depressed with the reasoning that he's a coward for not killing either Claudius or himself.”

Hamlet is an intensely cerebral character marked by a desire to think things through and pick situations apart. As such, for the first three and a half scenes of Hamlet, Hamlet broods over his father’s death instead of taking action against Claudius, his father’s murderer. Hamlet finally acts because he experiences three intense emotional jolts that allow him to view his situation from a new perspective and spur him to action. Together, these emotional experiences alter his personal philosophy about the nature of death and God’s relationship with creation, and compel him to finally take decisive action.