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;

It could be said that he was going through a period of intellectual development, not unlike that of a poet. Which may have contributed to his indecisiveness. But given the life and death situations that were thrust upon him he suffered psychological estrangement. Or said plainly, his mind was operating out of the norm. His actions were not that of the average man placed in the same circumstances.

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 kills my father, and for that, I, his sole son, do the same villain send to heaven.” (1506 76-78). He seems to act only when hurried into extremities on the spur of the occasion, when he has no time to reflect as in when he kills Polonibus. I do not believe Polonibus to be worthy of his fate. He was meddlesome, but he could best be summed up as that of an old fool. In act II scene 1 he asks Reynaldo, “what was I about to say? / By the mass, I was about to say something. / Where did I leave it?” (1474 49-50). Throughout the play there is no evidence to suggest that Polonibus knew of Claudius’s crime.

Hamlet’s generally normal morals also contributed to his psychological estrangement. To kill the Claudius, the king, would mean violating his belief against committing crimes that might bring down the government. This is evidenced by his refusal to gather together a mob to oust Claudius, as Laertes attempts to do later in the play, even though he knew that he had the ability to do so. Because Hamlet was so strongly supported in the kingdom, he could have succeeded in having Claudius killed by his friends. But at what cost? Failure would most likely result in a successful like death sentence issued by Claudius and at the very least, loss of public support, resulting in self-imposed banishment from his native land. Also, Hamlet\'s friends and colleagues do not know why Claudius deserves execution; they have no knowledge of his crime, and Hamlet either lacks the proof or the nerve to inform them of the crime. Thus, in trying to kill Claudius, Hamlet faces an estranging sense of unease from engaging in an endeavor of which his friends

Some topics in this essay:
Tragedy Shakespeare’s, Closet Polonibus, Claudius Hamlet, Alexander Great’s, Polonibus Laertes, Claudius Laertes, Hamlet Hamlet, Tragedy Hamlet, Bear Hamlet, kill claudius, Psychological Estrangement, psychological estrangement, course action, claudius killed, act ii scene, throughout play, claudius hamlet, tragic deaths, laertes loved, act iii, action act, course action act, act iii scene, kill claudius hamlet,