The Central Question of Hamlet Essay -- Essays on Shakespeare Hamlet

The Central Question of crossroads Hamlets calamity is a tragedy of failure-the failure of a man placed in critical peck to deal successfully with those circumstances. In some ways, Hamlet reminds us of Brutus in Shakespeares Julius Caesar. Hamlet and Brutus are both good work force who live in trying times both are intellectual, even philosophical both men want to do the right thing both men intellectualize over what the right thing is neither man yields to passion. But here the comparison ends, for though both Brutus and Hamlet reflect at duration over the need to act, Brutus is able immediately to act while Hamlet is non. Hamlet is stuck thinking too precisely on th event-. Hamlets father, the king of Denmark, has died suddenly. The knackered kings brother,Claudius, marries Hamlets aim and swiftly assumes the throne, a throne that Hamlet fully evaluate would be his upon the death of his father. Hamlets fathers ghost confronts Hamlet and tells him that his death was not n atural, as reported, but instead was murder. Hamlet swears revenge. But rather than swoop right away to that revenge, Hamlet pretends to be insane in order to mask an investigation of the accusation brought by his fathers ghost. Why Hamlet puts on this antic list and delays in killing Claudius is the central apparent motion of the play. But Hamlet did not swear to his dead father that he, detective-like, would investigate. Hamlet swore revenge. And he has more than fair to middling motivation to exact revenge. Does it not, think thee, stand me now upon-He that hath killed my king, and whored my motherPopped in between th election and my hopes,Thrown out his angle for my ripe life,And with such cozenage-ist not perfect cons... ...play that is flawed, not our understanding of it. The central hesitancy of the play is, then, a question without an retort if one is seeking the answer within the play. Shakespeare was supposed to supply us with an answer, or at least with a reaso n why there is no answer. He offers us neither. Instead, this most celebrated of Shakespeares plays offers us a literary mystery which has captured the upkeep of all who have come into contact with it. Its time to file the question under Unsolved Mysteries. But for those who persist in analyzing the plot of the drama, or Hamlets psychology, or both in order to explain this particular enigma, I suggest that youre looking in the wrong place. Try history. Works Cited *A. C. Bradley, Shakespeares tragical Period-Hamlet, Shakespearean Tragedy, MacMillan and Company Limited, 1904, pp. 70-101