Why Does Hamlet Wait to Kill Claudius? Essay Example

In William Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet, Hamlet’s father’s ghost, who was killed by Hamlet’s uncle Claudius, plagues the main character, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. The play examines the inner turmoil that Hamlet goes through in deciding whether or not to kill his uncle, and with what reason. Hamlet seeks revenge for his father’s murder. The only way that Hamlet can achieve this revenge is by killing his uncle. There are many moral implications to this not including familial loyalty, but in the end, the play is an examination of reasoning through apostrophe and monologue. Many critiques have supported the idea that Hamlet goes insane through the course of the play due to his father’s death, his uncle’s betrayal and the weight of being both a son and a prince. Thus, Hamlet is a different character in Act I than the Hamlet Shakespeare creates in Act V. This paper will argue that Hamlet is a rational character whose impetus to kill Claudius stems from his loyalty to his father. The play will examine Hamlet’s reasoning to kill Claudius in the following ways: Hamlet’s rationality in killing Claudius, Hamlet’s over thinking as exemplified in his monologues and apostrophe’s, and Hamlet’s Oedipus complex. Each of these elements will be examined and used to determine whether or not Hamlet should seek revenge for his father’s death, and under what terms this revenge ought to take place.

Rationality

Throughout Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet argues and counter argues whether or not to avenge his father’s murder by killing Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle. The back and forth of this argument, showcased through many monologues and apostrophes to Hamlet’s father allows the viewer or reader a chance to follow Hamlet’s rationality in his decision making. Some critiques make an argument on how Hamlet progressively becomes more insane as the course of the play, and internal and external conflicts play out, progresses. Hamlet’s rationality, in counter to this criticism of his insanity, runs true as can be seen in his thought processes. When Hamlet first encounters his father’s ghost outside of the castle, Hamlet is at once skeptical as to whether or not the ghost is his father, and if perchance it is his father, then whether or not what his father is telling him (i.e. Claudius killing Hamlet’s father) is true, “The spirit that I have seen/?May be the devil: and the devil hath power/?To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps?/Out of my weakness and my melancholy/?As he is very potent with such spirits,?/Abuses me to damn me: I’ll have grounds?/More relative than this: the play ‘s the thing?/Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king” (II.ii.52-58). Hamlet expresses his doubt in his father’s ghost lying about who killed him. Hamlet states that his anxiety is that the ghost is leading him astray on purpose to what end, he doesn’t know. So, in order for Hamlet to ease his conscience he must sure that Claudius is the one who killed his father and in this dialogue he states that he will draw Claudius out and make sure that Claudius is indeed guilty so that murdering him will not weigh upon Hamlet’s own conscience. Hamlet comes up with a plan to find out if Claudius is guilty of killing the king or not and thereby validating the ghost’s story. Since Hamlet is devising a plan to draw Claudius out of his veil of innocence in the king’s murder, Hamlet sounds logical. That is to say that his rationality is certainly in place in regards to finding out whether or not Claudius killed his father. Although Hamlet is taking advice from a ghost, that may or may not be a manifestation of his anxiety or depression due to the fact that his father is dead and his uncle married his mother, it may be safe to say that despite this vision or hallucination, Hamlet is still trying to make sense of his father’s death in a rational manner. Plotting, planning, scheming are all functions of the brain that require soundless of mind in order to execute them properly. Shakespearean characters in plays are almost like chess pieces, in which they move around the board (stage) and interact with each other in a cunning manner. In order to keep up with all of this plotting, planning, back stabbing, and keeping good and bad guys straight, a Shakespearean character must be in tiptop mental state. Hamlet goes forth from Act I trying to prove his father’s ghost right or wrong, objectively, and this confirms Hamlet’s rationality. Also, the reasons behind wanting to kill Claudius, to avenge his father’s murder, are also sound in mind as per the pre-requisite required for plotting and planning in a Shakespearean play.

Over Thinking

Hamlet’s many monologues, apostrophes and general lack of action until well into the play support the case for Hamlet over-thinking his actions, or potential actions, “The spirit that I have seen?/May be the devil: and the devil hath power?/To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps/?Out of my weakness and my melancholy,?/As he is very potent with such spirits,/?Abuses me to damn me: I’ll have grounds?/More relative than this: the play ‘s the thing/?Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king”?(II.ii.506-14). Hamlet delivers this monologue after he watches the actors giving their own soliloquy onstage. After hearing the actor speak emotionally about a subject Hamlet then questions himself and his actions, or rather his lack of actions, and even berates himself for not following through with his plan to kill Claudius, and hesitating in that plan. Hamlet surmises that if an actor on stage can muster forth an unequivocal emotional performance, while Hamlet remains stoic in his cocoon: meaning, Hamlet hasn’t avenged his father yet so how can he call himself a son when his father has been killed and Hamlet has done nothing about it. After the actor delivers his soliloquy about Priam’s death and Hecuba’s loss and grief, something that is make-believe, since it’s onstage, Hamlet questions himself. Hamlet compares his real life scenario with the stage performance. Hamlet then asks why is it that the actor can have such deep feelings for something that hasn’t even happened when Hamlet damns himself for his lack of feeling, emotion, and action. This over thinking continues on into Act IV:

I do not know?/Why yet I live to say ‘This thing’s to do;’?/Sith I have cause and will and strength and means?/To do’t. Examples gross as earth exhort me:?/Witness this army of such mass and charge/?Led by a delicate and tender prince,?/Whose spirit with divine ambition puff’d/?Makes mouths at the invisible event,/?Exposing what is mortal and unsure?/To all that fortune, death and danger dare,/?Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great?Is not to stir without great argument,/?But greatly to find quarrel in a straw?/When honour’s at the stake. How stand I then,/?That have a father kill’d, a mother stain’d,?/Excitements of my reason and my blood,/?And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see?/The imminent death of twenty thousand men,?/That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,/?Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot?/Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,?/Which is not tomb enough and continent?/To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,?/My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!?(IV.iv.44-65)

This monologue is when Hamlet finally decides that doing nothing cures nothing and that he will finally take action and avenges his father by killing Claudius. Hamlet delivers this monologue as he stands and witnesses Fortinbras’s army coming toward Denmark. While looking upon the soldiers marching, Hamlet thinks about how so many men can fathom following one man, and how these soldiers will give up their lives in order for one man’s vision, and conquest, to come to be: that is, acquiring a kingdom, a land, a territory. These men are willing to sacrifice their lives, to risk their families mourning for them and have nothing in return except honor for fighting and quite possibly dying for their leader. It is strange that Hamlet waits and contemplates all through the acts on whether or not he should kill Claudius. It takes him a very long time to avenge his father after finding out that Claudius did in fact kill the king. This is due in large part (as exemplified with the above two monologues) because Hamlet over thinks his actions, reactions, and motives. Hamlet expresses shame for his family and his lack of action, and finally the readers and audience see Hamlet take action as his monologue turns to proactive thinking toward the end. Hamlet over thinks since it takes him almost the entire play to find this course of action.

Oedipus Complex

The Oedipus complex has to do with killing your father and wanting to sleep with your mother. In Hamlet’s case, the first part of this complex is true. Albeit, Hamlet wants to kills his uncle who marries his mother and becomes his stepfather, the theory holds true. Hamlet attempts to kill Claudius in Act III but Claudius is praying. Hamlet decides that if Claudius is praying when he dies, he may not go to purgatory (where Hamlet’s father is) or hell, but instead go to heaven since praying allows for a level of grace, “Now might I do it pat, now he is praying; / And now I’ll do’t” (III.iii.73-4). Hamlet convinces himself that this is not the right moment to kill Claudius because he doesn’t Claudius to go to heaven. Hamlet’s revenge seeks mastery in both the physical and spiritual realm. Thus, Hamlet wants Claudius to suffer in this world (by being brutally murdered and betrayed by his own kin) as well as the next (by sending Claudius to purgatory or hell to pay for the sins he’s committed in this life): “…took my father grossly, full of bread, / With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May; / And how his audit stands who knows save heaven?” (III.iii.80-82). Hamlet decides to kill the king when he’s asleep or when he’s drunk to ensure that Claudius’s soul will be punished in the afterlife. Since Claudius is Hamlet’s new father however, there is an added element of anxiety for Hamlet. Hamlet has already lost one father to murder and must now contend with the fact that he will kill his second father in order to avenge the first. Although rational, Hamlet’s decision-making processes are definitely being influenced by how he defines this new family dynamic. Does Claudius represent a father figure to Hamlet? If Claudius does then it would be as if Hamlet is killing his own father, and losing that mentorship and love all over again. This hesitation of killing Claudius may be seen in the fact that it takes Hamlet a majority of the play’s length in order to kill him. Despite Hamlet’s reasoning back and forth on the merits and disadvantages of killing Claudius he takes many days to come to the conclusion that Claudius must be killed. Although the play does not directly address the Oedipus complex, Hamlet is definitely having anxiety issues over whether or not to kill Claudius and the audience and reader may surmise that these issues stem from familial loyalty, and seeing Claudius as a father.

Conclusion

There are many reasons why Hamlet hesitates in killing Claudius. When Hamlet first has a chance to kill the king, Hamlet is hiding in the closet as the king says his prayers. Hamlet refuses to kill Claudius in this manor because Hamlet doesn’t want Claudius’s soul to go to heaven (something that may happen if the man is killed in a state of grace such as prayers). Hamlet decides then to wait until Claudius is full of sin, so that Claudius’s soul is sure to go to hell. Hamlet keeps putting off killing Claudius however, and continues to think, and over think, the potential murder. Hamlet thinks about whether or not he would be playing God by deciding when Claudius would die, and the moral implications of playing such a role and judgment especially if Claudius did not know he was about to die. Hamlet then worries about killing Claudius not just without Claudius’s knowledge, but killing him in such a manner that Claudius doesn’t know who served the blow. Hamlet then is trying to be moral about an act that at its core is immoral. Hamlet worries about being pious and holy when in fact he hesitates for perhaps altogether different reasons. It may be to avenge his father, but Hamlet may also hesitate because in killing Claudius another member of his family is dead. Hamlet perhaps is worried about losing another father, another king, and cannot cope with the turmoil that ensues after. His family may know peace without murder if Hamlet refuses to act according to his father’s ghost’s wishes. Eventually, Hamlet decides to kill Claudius because he is loyal to his father, to the idea of paying for your sins (Claudius killing the king), and because he gave his word to his father. All things make Hamlet a man, or less of one, a son, or less of one, and a loyal subject, or less of one. Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a complicated character full of thoughts, and aspersions. Hamlet kills for revenge and out of a sense of loyalty and maintains his rationality throughout the play in committing murder.

Works Cited

Shakespeare, William. “Hamlet.” Prentice Hall Literature. Ed. Unknown. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc, 2012. 893-1000.