Hamlet's Restraint

3 Pages 630 Words

Hamlet’s irresolute nature is what causes him to over analyze each situation of uncertainty instead of taking action. His excessive deliberation prevents him in his goal to seek revenge and gain the throne. In due course, his procrastination and inability to act leads to his defeat. Hamlet seems incapable of premeditated action. When he is most bound to act, he remains perplexed, undecided, and skeptical, delays with his purposes, till the occasion is lost, and finds out some motive to relapse into idleness and contemplation again. For this reason he refuses to kill the King when he is at his prayers, and by a refinement in cruelty, which is in truth only an excuse for his own want of resolution, defers his revenge to a more fatal opportunity, when he shall be engaged in some act that has no enjoyment of escape in it.
"Now might I do it pat now he is praying;
And now I'll do 't; - and so he goes to heaven;
And so am I reveng'd? - that would be scanned:
A villain kills my father; and for that
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven.
O, this is hire and salary, not revenge...
Up sword; and know thou a more horrid hent,
When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage." (Shakespeare, III, iii, ll. 74-90)
Because Hamlet cannot have his revenge perfect, according to the most polished idea his wish can form, he declines it altogether. His ruling passion is to think, not to act: and any indistinct pretext that compliments this tendency instantly diverts him from his previous purposes. Hamlet’s hesitancy in his thoughts develops further into a more serious debate with himself in Act One, Scene One during his soliloquy. For such a significant decision, Hamlet’s uncertainty overrides any common reason he may possess. As he is grappling with the difficulty of taking action against Claudius and the fact that he has not been able thus far to revenge his father's murder, as well; causes him to have trouble deciding whether or not ...