Research Analysis Over Hamlet

Nick Polk

English 1102

Professor Rogers

23 April 2011

Do the Affects of Revenge Ever End?

            Revenge always leads to tragedy, no matter if the revenge is morally right or wrong. Revenge is an evil that can slowly build up and possess someone to do things him /her normally wouldn’t. Hamlet serves as a great testament to these things. In Hamlet’s culture he was morally right in seeking revenge on Claudius for killing his father, but did this revenge end up going the way Hamlet originally planned and how did the buildup of this evil affect Hamlet throughout the play?

            Hamlet’s culture is responsible for the way Hamlet seeks revenge in the play: “Hamlet is the product of a culture that knew a truth beyond all the confusions and diversities of life. It is certainly logical to look at him in terms of that truth. If it be insisted that we today are too far away from it, then we must be too far away from Hamlet as well, who would survive as a relic of the past and of nothing else” (Davis 3). In other words, Davis believes that Hamlet showed truth in his madness and our generation today would not go to the extent of which Hamlet did to avenge his family, as so this makes our generation today “untruthful” in a sense. If revenge is looked at today it can be seen that it is a waste of time and always ends up wrong, but in Hamlet’s time it was a duty to avenge family. The ghost or Hamlet’s father in the play wants to be avenged and how can a son deny his father something so honorable: “So art thou to revenge, when thou shall hear” (line 8). Once the Ghost tells Hamlet that his father was murdered by Claudius, the fire is lit and Hamlet is set on revenge.

            Hamlet’s determination possesses him and makes him perform duties of which he doesn’t want to perform: “My purpose in bringing all this in is to demonstrate the attitude of Hamlet toward a duty which he does not want to perform, but which honor, circumstances, and chance all require that he perform whether he like it or not” (Davis 43). Hamlet’s emotions come out and you start to see the revenge taking control: “By asking why Hamlet is aroused to react in turn with fear, desire, contempt, and disgust—not only towards Gertrude, but also towards Ophelia and the Ghost—I hope to show that Hamlet’s “problems” lie in his epistemological dilemma spurred by the material manifestations of “the inexpressibly horrible” (Kumamato 48). In the play Hamlet’s mentality has been changed in order for him to carry out these acts. He has turned ruthless and full of anger and expresses it as such by telling Ophelia: “get thee to a nunnery” (3.1 118). In other word’s Hamlet is calling Ophelia a whore and directly shows his determination in seeking revenge.