William Shakespeare

Hamlet
In telling the story of a fatally indecisive character’s inability to choose the proper course to avenge
his father’s death, Hamlet explores questions of fate versus free will, whether it is better to act
decisively or let nature take its course, and ultimately if anything we do in our time on earth makes
any difference. Once he learns his uncle has killed his father, Hamlet feels duty-bound to take
decisive action, but he has so many doubts about his situation and even about his own feelings that
he cannot decide what action to take. The conflict that drives the plot of Hamlet is almost entirely
internal: Hamlet wrestles with his own doubt and uncertainty in search of something he believes
strongly enough to act on. The play’s events are side-effects of this internal struggle. Hamlet’s
attempts to gather more evidence of Claudius’s guilt alert Claudius to Hamlet’s suspicions, and as
Hamlet’s internal struggle deepens, he begins to act impulsively out of frustration, eventually
murdering Polonius by mistake. The conflict of Hamlet is never resolved: Hamlet cannot finally
decide what to believe or what action to take. This lack of resolution makes the ending of Hamlet
especially horrifying: nearly all the characters are dead, but nothing has been solved.

The play’s exposition shows us that Hamlet is in the midst of three crises: his nation is under attack,
his family is falling apart, and he feels deeply unhappy. The Ghost of the old king of Denmark
appears on the castle battlements, and the soldiers who see it believe it must be a bad omen for the
kingdom. They discuss the preparations being made against the threat from the Norwegian prince,
Fortinbras. The next scene deepens our sense that Denmark is in political crisis, as Claudius prepares
a diplomatic strategy to divert the threat from Fortinbras. We also learn that as far as Hamlet is
concerned, his family is in crisis: his father is dead and his mother has married someone Hamlet
disapproves of. Hamlet is also experiencing an internal crisis. Gertrude and Claudius are worried
about his mood, and in his first soliloquy we discover that he feels suicidal: “O that this too, too
sullied flesh would melt” (I.ii.).

The three crises of the play’s opening—in the kingdom, in Hamlet’s family, and in Hamlet’s
mind—lay the groundwork for the play’s inciting incident: the Ghost’s demand that Hamlet
avenge his father’s death. Hamlet accepts at once that it is his duty to take revenge, and the
audience can also see that Hamlet’s revenge would go some way to resolving the play’s
three crises. By killing Claudius, Hamlet could in one stroke remove a weak and immoral
king, extract his mother from what he sees as a bad marriage, and make himself king of
Denmark. Throughout the inciting incident, however, there are hints that Hamlet’s revenge
will be derailed by an internal struggle. The Ghost warns him: “Taint not thy mind nor let thy
soul contrive/Against thy mother aught” (I.v.). When Horatio and Marcellus catch up to
Hamlet after the Ghost’s departure, Hamlet is already talking in such a deranged way that
Horatio describes it as “wild and whirling” (I.v.), and Hamlet tells them that he may fake an
“antic disposition” (I.v.). The audience understands that the coming conflict will not be
between Hamlet and Claudius but between Hamlet and his own mind.

As the rising action builds toward a climax, Hamlet’s internal struggle deepens until he starts to show
signs of really going mad. At the same time Claudius becomes suspicious of Hamlet, which creates an
external pressure on Hamlet to act. Hamlet begins Act Three debating whether or not to kill himself:
“To be or not to be—that is the question” (III.i.), and moments later he hurls misogynistic abuse at
Ophelia. He is particularly upset about women’s role in marriage and childbirth—“Why wouldst thou
be a breeder of sinners?” (III.i.)—which reminds the audience of Hamlet’s earlier disgust with his
own mother and her second marriage. The troubling development of Hamlet’s misogynistic feelings
makes us wonder how much Hamlet’s desire to kill Claudius is fuelled by the need to avenge his
father’s death, and how much his desire fuelled by Hamlet’s resentment of Claudius for taking his
mother away from him. Claudius, who is eavesdropping on Hamlet’s tirade, becomes suspicious that
Hamlet’s madness presents “some danger” (III.i.) and decides to have Hamlet sent away: Hamlet is
running out of time to take his revenge.

The play’s climax arrives when Hamlet stages a play to “catch the conscience of the king” (II.ii.) and
get conclusive evidence of Claudius’s guilt. By now, however, Hamlet seems to have truly gone mad.
His own behavior at the play is so provocative that when Claudius does respond badly to the play it’s
unclear whether he feels guilty about his crime or angry with Hamlet. As Claudius tries to pray,
Hamlet has yet another chance to take his revenge, and we learn that Hamlet’s apparent madness
has not ended his internal struggle over what to do: he decides not to kill Claudius for now, this time
because of the risk that Claudius will go to heaven if he dies while praying. Hamlet accuses Gertrude
of being involved in his father’s death, but he’s acting so erratically that Gertrude thinks her son is
simply “mad […] as the sea and wind/When they each contend which is the mightier” (III.iv). Again,
the audience cannot know whether Gertrude says these lines as a cover for her own guilt, or
because she genuinely has no idea what Hamlet is talking about, and thinks her son is losing his
mind. Acting impulsively or madly, Hamlet mistakes Polonius for Claudius and kills him.

The play’s falling action deals with the consequences of Polonius’s death. Hamlet is sent away,
Ophelia goes mad and Laertes returns from France to avenge his father’s death. When Hamlet
comes back to Elsinore, he no longer seems to be concerned with revenge, which he hardly
mentions after this point in the play. His internal struggle is not over, however. Now Hamlet
contemplates death, but he is unable to come to any conclusion about the meaning or purpose of
death, or to resign himself to his own death. He is, however, less squeamish about killing innocent
people, and reports to Horatio how he signed the death warrants of Rosencranz and Guildenstern to
save his own life. Claudius and Laertes plot to kill Hamlet, but the plot goes awry. Gertrude is
poisoned by mistake, Laertes and Hamlet are both poisoned, and as he dies Hamlet finally murders
Claudius. Taking his revenge does not end Hamlet’s internal struggle. He still has lots to say: “If I had
time […] O I could tell you— / But let it be” (V.ii.) and he asks Horatio to tell his story when he is
dead. In the final moments of the play the new king, Fortinbras, agrees with this request: “Let us
haste to hear it” (V.ii.). Hamlet’s life is over, but the struggle to decide the truth about Hamlet and
his life is not.