"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.
In Scene IV: The Queens Closet, with Polonibus hiding behind the curtain, Hamlet, thinking he is the King, drives his sword through the curtain and into the body behind and states "How now! / A rat? / Dead, for a ducat, dead!" (1507 line 24). He was also slow to confront his mother as to what he believed had transpired. It wasn't until he accidentally killed Polonibus that he confronts and accuses his mother "A bloody deed! / Almost as bad, good mother, as kill a king and marry his brother." (1508 lines 29-30). In my mind his emotion was a little late coming.
And what of Hamlet's long soliloquies, where in act II scene 2 he debates a plan to kill Claudius (1490 497-557), or act III scene 1 where he debates about his sins and the afterlife (1492 1-89)? I contend they are further exhibits of his extreme emotionality. I believe that Hamlet suffered profound emotional depression (possibly understandable, given the situation as we are shown it) and because of this he struggled greatly when it came down to deciding on a course of action.
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.
