Is Hamlet's hesitation in approaching his task of revenge a sign of cowardice or admirable and understanding thoughtfulness?

Answer 1

Shakespeare specialists, directors and actors have been arguing hotly for years about just exactly why Hamlet does not, at the end of Act 1 Scene 5, make a dash for the room where "the king keeps his revels" and stab him then and there. AC Bradley, in 1906, listed 4 or 5 ideas of his contemporaries which he himself disagreed with, including the idea that Hamlet is a coward and abhors violence because it sickens him and the idea that Hamlet has his head in the clouds and does nothing as a result of "thinking too precisely on the event."

Therefore, the question, in suggesting that there are only two ways of looking at Hamlet's behaviour, makes a false assumption. It makes a false dichotomy between "cowardice" and "thoughtfulness", and suggests that there are no shades of grey between contemptible and "admirable and understandable".

Consider this possibility. Hamlet has a conflicted nature. Sometimes he thinks revenge is a good idea and sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes he thinks you have to take violent action and sometimes he thinks you have to stand back. Unfortunately the times when he thinks he should take violent action are the ones where he would be better served by standing back and vice versa.

Or how about this? Hamlet is a perfectionist. He wants to stage manage his revenge which is why he spends so much time getting ready for it. And then in the end he gives up and says, "If it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all." Only by becoming a fatalist can he actually start taking purposeful action, an ironic state of affairs.

Answer 2

I wouldn't go as far as to say that it was a sign of cowardice; however, I definitely wouldn't say that Hamlet's hesitation was due to thoughtfulness, either. The main reason Hamlet hesitated in seeking revenge throughout the play was that he needed to make sure it was warranted; you can't just go kill the king on a whim. After all, it was the ghost of his father who told him the king was responsible for his death; was he sure he wasn't crazy? Even throughout the play, the audience constantly questions the reality of the ghost. The soldiers saw it, but they never heard it speak. When the ghost came to Hamlet while he was with his mother, she never saw it. In pretending to be insane, did Hamlet really go insane?

I don't think it was cowardice for two reasons. The first is because of the circumstances in which Hamlet let his stepfather go when he had the chance to seek revenge. His stepfather was repenting; if Hamlet killed him then, he would go to heaven. Hamlet wanted to reap more from his revenge by sending the murderer of his father to hell. The second reason is that Hamlet was quick to kill. When Hamlet was talking with his mother and heard noises behind the curtain, he was quick to draw his sword and kill whoever was behind the curtain. He thought it was his stepfather; even though it wasn't, it showed the audience that Hamlet was serious in his aims for killing the king.

Answer 3

During Shakespeare's time, there were two beliefs about ghosts or apparitions: 1) they were the spirits of dead relatives asking favors to help them escape purgatory and go to heaven and 2) they were malicious demons out to trick humans into doing evil. Halmet was trying to guess which of these definitions applied to the ghost of his father. After all, the need for revenge could be keeping his father out of heaven. However, murduring the king was one of the worst crimes imaginable during Elizabethan times because it was believed that the king was second only to God. Killing him would result in the upset of natural order and cause cataclismic events. Hamlet had every reason to hesitate.

Answer 4

Shakespeare specialists, directors and actors have been arguing hotly for years about just exactly why Hamlet does not, at the end of Act 1 Scene 5, make a dash for the room where "the king keeps his revels" and stab him then and there. AC Bradley, in 1906, listed 4 or 5 ideas of his contemporaries which he himself disagreed with, including the idea that Hamlet is a coward and abhors violence because it sickens him and the idea that Hamlet has his head in the clouds and does nothing as a result of "thinking too precisely on the event."

Therefore, the question, in suggesting that there are only two ways of looking at Hamlet's behaviour, makes a false assumption. It makes a false dichotomy between "cowardice" and "thoughtfulness", and suggests that there are no shades of grey between contemptible and "admirable and understandable".

Consider this possibility. Hamlet has a conflicted nature. Sometimes he thinks revenge is a good idea and sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes he thinks you have to take violent action and sometimes he thinks you have to stand back. Unfortunately the times when he thinks he should take violent action are the ones where he would be better served by standing back and vice versa.

Or how about this? Hamlet is a perfectionist. He wants to stage manage his revenge which is why he spends so much time getting ready for it. And then in the end he gives up and says, "If it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all." Only by becoming a fatalist can he actually start taking purposeful action, an ironic state of affairs.

Answer 5

because he won`t stand up to his step-father