Hamlet, Laertes, and Fortinbras approaches to revenge

There are three main families in The Tragedy of Hamlet. The first main family is of Fortinbras of Norway. The second family is of the main character, Hamlet. The third and last of the main families was the family of Polonius. The heads of all three of these families was killed. Some scholars believe that Shakespeare wrote Hamlet this way to show the different ways in which Prince

The most rational player in revenge would have to be Fortinbras. Old Hamlet killed his father in a battle. Enraged by this, Fortinbras sought to avenge his father by force. He wanted to battle to get back his fathers’ lost kingdom. Quickly Claudius sends messengers to Fortinbras’ uncle, the new king of Norway, telling him not to attack. He convinced him to instead attack the Poles to get rid of his anger. This temporarily keeps Fortinbras at bay till the end of the play. He sends word that he will obey Claudius’s wishes. At the end of the play he is attacking the doors of the castle. He comes into the main room to find that Laertes, Hamlet, and Gertrude dead on the stage. He also finds a dying Hamlet who gives Fortinbras kingship over Denmark. I personally would have liked to see more of Fortinbras in the play. Since he didn’t have a more prominent part in the play it was difficult in judging his rationality. Regardless, I feel that he was rational enough until his emotion got the better of him in the end causing him to break into the castle. I feel he lost some rationality points because he took his anger out on the Poles instead of placing it where it belonged, avenging his father. Once again based on his limited time in the play, I feel that emotion played a big part in his vengefulness. His emotion, specifically anger, caused him to come to the castle. I don’t really know if you would call his revenge tactics effective. Claudius killed Old Hamlet very early on in the play. Fortinbras really didn’t have to kill his fathers’ murder. I feel though, that he did avenge his fathers’ death at the end of the play by taking back his lands and also securing Denmark for his family.

So who was the most rational? Everyone had some degree of irrationality, but Fortinbras exuded the most rationality. Who was the most emotional? Hands down the most emotional character is Hamlet. Hamlets emotion affects his rationality and thus his effectiveness. Who is the most effective? I have to give this to Hamlet also. Hamlet is the only character that directly avenges his father by killing the murderer. So the question of who went about avenging his fathers’ murder in the most rational, emotional, and effective way cannot be identified out of the choices. The character that showed most of these characteristics is Hamlet because he was both effective and emotional. But based on my opinion of Hamlets temporary insanity Fortinbras is the most rational. Revenge was the driving force behind three of the main characters of the play, for two it led to their downfall, and for the other it led to greatness.

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