Hamlets Delay
By: Amber Copp
In the play Hamlet one of the main themes is revenge. Not only does it underlie almost every scene, but it also has a major effect on the story as a whole. The main revenge plot was Hamlet's aim to avenge his father by killing his uncle and king Claudius. This played a major role in presenting to the audience the theme of revenge. Though the main question everyone was asking is why Hamlet didn’t sweep to revenge his father. In Act 1, scene 5 Hamlet meets the ghost of his father and after talking to him Hamlet gave us the impression he was going to revenge his father right way. But he didn’t and many people over the years have studied this play making theories on why he did this. A German writer by the name of Goethe came up with the theory that Hamlet had a pure moral nature but lacked the nerve that makes a hero.
In the theory it states that Hamlet wasn’t a strong enough person to act out the revenge required to him. In Act 2, scene2 of the play Hamlet says “But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, Could force his soul so to his whole conceit.” Here Hamlets comes out and says he himself doesn’t think he is strong enough to avenge his father. Hamlet portrays himself as a child like character. He acted immature at this mother’s second wedding. Even though his father did just die and she was remarrying so quickly, most thirty year olds would not behave in the same matter hamlet did. This might contribute to the fact that he was not strong enough person because many child’s need to grow up in order to find their inner strengths. Also in the theory Goethe proposed that Hamlet had a pure moral nature which would explain why even when he had an opportunity he did not take action because it wasn’t “the right time”. In act 3, scene 3 Hamlet sees the king at praying, he gets a golden opportunity to avenge his father`s death. But he thinks that if he kills the murderer at his prayer, his soul would go to heaven, and abstain from action. He thus misses a golden opportunity because he does not want a wicked soul to enjoy the pleasure of heaven. So he wishes for some other occasion when the king is indulging in some evil deed to take action. This proves that Hamlets morals were more important than revenging his father.
You could argue that Hamlet did not kill the king at that particular time because he cared about the king going to hell and he believed in his religion more than the fact that he was not strong enough to do so. In some of the other theories it talks about Hamlet delaying the revenge because of external obstacles but that does not explain why he didn’t kill the king in the chapel, there was no one and nothing there to stop him. Some also talk about the fact that Hamlet was meditated when he ought to have acted, but this does not explain his child like acts. So the theory made my Goethe was primary the best suitable one for Hamlet.
There are many possible theories for why Hamlet delayed the revenge on his father, but if you take into consideration Hamlets acts and personality it was obvious that he was not a strong enough individual to complete such a tremendous task. You have to set aside what you believe is the right thing to do and find and strength in yourself to do something like this and Hamlet may have not had it in him. Therefore Hamlet lacked to nerve to become a hero because he let his pure moral nature take the best of him.
Bibliography Quintessence of Dust-2004 Kenneth Chan.
http://homepage.mac.com/sapphirestudios/qod/excerpt.html
