Hamlet, His Psychological Estrangement Fueled This Tragedy

7 Pages 1642 Words

Hamlet, His Psychological Estrangement fueled this Tragedy

Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet” is wrought with examples of tragic consequences, founded in large part due to Hamlet’s inability to make timely decisions, and follow them through to conclusion. Hamlet is an educated man and a thinker who lets his mind wonder, thus he often gets sidetracked pondering the future results from such actions. It is common human nature to ponder the consequence of ones decision. It is also regular for man to formulate possible courses of actions, analyze any ramifications that course my entail, and then make a choice. When faced with a situation tied in with a life of learned experiences, these decisions are finalized relatively quickly. Especially when coupled in periods of tragic circumstance. Of course this is when observed from afar. When viewed by the principle party involved, this may not seem to be the case. As adrenaline kicks in and our senses heighten, time seems to slow. Because our senses are running wide open and we are processing a lot of data, the resulting conclusion to our brain is that much time has passed. However it seems to us, our decisions usually occur in a relatively quick period of time. With Hamlet; however, this is not the case. He operates on different time. At times, it seems, without a sense of self-awareness as to the fact that his lack of timely action may result in his missing his window of opportunity to act. And as a result, his lack of action only adds fuel to his tragedy. His inaction causes tragic actions to occur.
Throughout the play Hamlet seems incapable of deliberate action. When it comes to killing his uncle Claudius, the new king of Denmark, the same man who murdered his father, his psyche obsessively debates a course of action. In act III scene 3, Hamlet intends to kill Claudius only to realize he has been praying for forgiveness of his sins and retracts his sword. “A villain ki...