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Hamlet - Comment on Humanity

        The Elizabethan play The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark 

is one of William Shakespeare's most popular works.  One of the 

possible reasons for this play's popularity is the way Shakespeare 

uses the character Hamlet to exemplify the complex workings of the 

human mind. The approach taken by Shakespeare in Hamlet has generated 

countless different interpretations of meaning, but it is through  

Hamlet's struggle to confront his internal dilemma, deciding when to 

revenge his fathers death, that the reader becomes aware of one of the 

more common interpretations in Hamlet; the idea that Shakespeare is 

attempting to comment on the influence that one's state of mind can 

have on the decisions they make in life. 

        As the play unfolds,  Shakespeare uses the encounters that 

Hamlet must face to demonstrate the effect that one's  perspective can 

have on the way the mind works. In his book Some Shakespeare Themes & 

An Approach to Hamlet, L.C. Knight takes notice of  Shakespeare's use 

of these encounters to journey into the workings of the human mind 

when he writes:



       What we have in Hamlet.is the exploration and implicit 

       criticism of a particular state of mind or consciousness.In 

       Hamlet, Shakespeare uses a series of encounters  to reveal the 

       complex state of the human mind, made up of reason, emotion, 

       and attitude towards the self, to allow the reader to make a 

       judgment or form an opinion about fundamental aspects of human 

       life. (192)                   



        Shakespeare sets the stage for Hamlet's internal dilemma in 

Act 1, Scene 5 of Hamlet when the ghost of Hamlet's father appears and 

calls upon Hamlet to "revenge his foul and most unnatural murder" 

(1.5.24).  It is from this point forward that Hamlet must struggle 

with the dilemma of whether or not to kill Claudius, his uncle, and if 

so when to actually do it.  As the play progresses, Hamlet does not 

seek his revenge when the opportunity presents itself, and it is the 

reasoning that Hamlet uses to justify his delay that becomes paramount 

to the reader's understanding of the effect that Hamlet's mental 

perspective has on his situation.

        In order to fully understand how Hamlet's perspective plays an 

important role in this play, the reader must attempt to answer the 

fundamental question: Why does Hamlet procrastinate in taking revenge 

on Claudius?  Although the answer to this question is at best somewhat 

complicated, Mark W. Scott attempts to offer some possible 

explanations for Hamlet's delay in his book, Shakespeare for Students:

                

Critics who find the cause of  Hamlet's delay in his internal 

meditations typically view the prince as a man of great moral 

integrity who is forced to commit an act which goes against his 

deepest principles.  On numerous occasions, the prince tries to make 

sense of his moral dilemma through personal meditations, which 

Shakespeare presents as soliloquies. Another perspective of Hamlet's 

internal struggle suggests that the prince has become so disenchanted 

with life since his father's death that he has neither the desire nor 

the will to exact revenge. (74)



Mr. Scott points out morality and disenchantment, both of which belong 

solely to an individuals own conscious,  as two potential causes of 

Hamlet's procrastination, and   therefore he offers support to the 

idea that Shakespeare is placing important emphasis on  the role of  

individual perspective in this play.  The importance that Mr. Scott's 

comment places on Hamlet's use of personal meditations to "make sense 

of his moral dilemma" (74), also helps to support  L.C. Knight's 

contention that Shakespeare is attempting to use these dilemmas to 

illustrate the inner workings of the human mind.    

        In Hamlet, Shakespeare gives the reader an opportunity to 

evaluate the way the title character handles a very complicated 

dilemma and the problems that are generated because of it.  These 

problems that face Hamlet are perhaps best viewed as overstatements of 

the very types of problems that all people must face as they live 

their lives each day.  The magnitude of these "everyday" problems are 

almost always a matter of individual perspective.  Each person will 

perceive a given situation based on his own state of mind.  The one,  

perhaps universal, dilemma that faces all of mankind is the

 problem of  identity.  As Victor L. Cahn writes, "Hamlet's primary 

dilemma is that of every human being: given this time and place and 

these circumstances, How is he to respond?  What is his 

responsibility?" (69).  This dilemma defined by Mr. Cahn fits in well 

with the comments of  both L.C. Knight and Mark Scott, because it too 

requires some serious introspection on the part of Hamlet to resolve, 

and also supports the idea that Shakespeare is using Hamlet's dilemma 

to illustrate the effect that perspective, or state of mind,  can have 

on  a given situation.

         Hamlet's delay in seeking revenge for his father's death 

plays an important role in allowing Shakespeare's look into the human 

mind to manifest itself. If  Hamlet had killed Claudius at first 

opportunity, there would have been little chance for Shakespeare to 

develop the internal dilemma which all three critics, L.C. Knight, 

Mark Scott, and Victor Cahn, mention in support of  the widely held 

view that, in Hamlet, Shakespeare is attempting to make a comment 

about the complexity of the human mind, and the power that a person's 

mental perspective can have on the events of his life. 



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Works Cited



Cahn, Victor L.  Shakespeare the Playwright: A Companion to the 

Complete Tragedies, Histories, and Romances.  New York: Greenwood 

Press, 1991.  



Knight, L. C.  Some Shakespeare Themes & An Approach to Hamlet.  San 

Francisco: Stanford University Press, 1966.  



Scott, Mark W., ed.  Shakespeare For Students.  Detroit: Gale Research 

Inc.,  1992.  



Shakespeare, William.  "Hamlet." Literature: An Introduction to 

Reading and Writing Ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs.  

Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1995.  1129-1230.    

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