This is the Question

Hamlet finds himself in quite a moral quandary as he decides whether to avenge his father’s murder. He is able to dodge the question as long as he can doubt the word of the ghost, but following Claudius’s reaction to the play, Hamlet no longer has the luxury of debating his uncle’s culpability. Hence, we find Hamlet struggling to make himself act, unable to overcome his own hesitation. The entire rest of the play acts only to draw out Hamlet’s internal struggle and add more pressures to the already beleaguered young man.

Hamlet finds reasons to let Claudius off the hook repeatedly. First he cannot convince himself to believe his father’s ghost, then he “cannot bear” to have his uncle’s soul go to heaven. So he waits and hesitates. Once he has made up his mind, however, nothing will stop him. The inadvertent death of Polonius is no problem for Hamlet; in fact (in a scene that would be farcical if it weren’t for the death involved) Hamlet continues conversing with both his mother and his deceased father’s ghost while Polonius’s body lies next to him. After all of his vacillation, Hamlet comes to the conclusion that “my thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth!” He is no longer afraid to act and will stop at nothing – not the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, nor the alienation and insanity of Ophelia – to exact his retribution.

Once Hamlet gives himself permission to act, he acts decisively, dropping his pretenses and taking meaningful, if brash, action. However, even his charade of insanity was really exposing the truth. He used his “madness” to tell the truth boldly without having to manage the consequences of such words. It allowed him to get the deeper truth of the situation before he was forced to confront that truth.

Hamlet not only drops his personal pretenses, he permits no one else to hide behind theirs. Ophelia can no longer hide behind Polonius; she is forced to recognize that she chose her father over Hamlet. Hamlet compels her to live with that choice, something that proved impossible for her. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, whom Hamlet already condemned for their deceit, are sentenced to death. Queen Gertrude is forced to recognize both her son’s murderous deeds and her own role in Claudius’s foul crime. Even Claudius is exposed as the coward and murderer he really is. Finally, Hamlet receives the recognition he deserves from the unlikely source of Fortinbras. His search for the truth led him to act, and his action ultimately led to his demise. Hamlet, while certainly flawed, did not hide from the difficult question posed to him. He met his duty head-on and performed admirably. (453).