Hamlets impractical thinking a
Hamlets impractical thinking aShakespeare’s Hamlet revolves around the title character’s undeniable obligation to immediately avenge his father’s death by killing Claudius. Yet much time elapses before Hamlet finally does slay his evil uncle, leading to a fundamental question: what causes the hero to delay before eventually managing to salvage some retribution? The answer is that Hamlet’s reoccuring state of impractical contemplation renders him incapable of any decisive action that could have brought quick revenge.
A key moment in the play comes in the first act, when the ghost of Hamlet’s father informs the prince of his duty: “If thou didst ever thy father love/...Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.” [1.5: 29, 31] With these words, the Ghost puts the play in motion, for the rest of the story will be governed by Hamlet’s quest for this revenge. Furthermore, the spirit emphasizes the need for Hamlet to act quickly:
I am thy father’s spirit,
Doomed for a certain term to walk the night
And for the day confined to fast in fires
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away. [1.5: 14-18]
The message is clear: if the prince is to truly ease the suffering of his father’s spirit, he must avenge the murder immediately.
Hamlet initially meets his challenge with zeal, promising the Ghost that he will produce quick results:
Yea, from the table of my memory
I’ll wipe away all trivial, fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there,
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmixed with baser matter. Yes, by heaven! [1.5: 105-111]
Yet despite this stirring vow to sweep to revenge, one major obstacle lies ahead: Hamlet’s impractical thinking.
Our first experience with Hamlet’s tendency to wander into the realm of the abstract comes even before he meets the Ghost. In Act I, Scene iv, as Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus await the spirit, they observe Claudius, who is drunk. His scholarly mind always searching for new intellectual morsels, Hamlet uses the king’s seemingly commonplace actions as the springboard for a discussion of the causes of evil in men. What stands out is how quickly he forgets about practical matters �in this case, meeting the spirit of his dead father� in order to ponder over a vague, philosophical question. As the play develops, it is this very trait that prevents him from achieving the prompt revenge he has promised.
A telling moment comes in Act II, Scene ii, when Hamlet is approach by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Hamlet’s ability to determine his friends’ true motives is impressive; within a few moments, the prince realizes that Claudius has sent these two men as spies:
You were sent for, and there is a kind of confession in your looks which your modesties have not craft enough to color. I know the good king and queen have sent for you. [2.2:...
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