Hamlet's Obsession: Revenge as the Theme of the Play

HAMLET’S OBSESSION: REVENGE AS THE THEME OF THE PLAY

Shakespeare’s Hamlet has many themes such as Impossibility of Certainty, The mystery of Death. But the basic theme would be Revenge. Revenge, in Hamlet, serves as the driving force of the play. The main character of the play, Hamlet, is always obsessed with the revenge for his father’s death. This obsession leads to the actions he performs and eventually to his death. Hamlet just wants the revenge to be perfect. He even spares the life of King Claudius even when he had the opportunity to kill him just because he thinks that if he killed him then, his revenge wouldn’t be perfect. “Now might I do it pat, now he is praying; And now I'll do't. And so he goes to heaven; And so am I revenged" (3.3.73-75). Whatever Hamlet does in the play, he does it in order to avenge his father’s death.

Hamlet tells the Ghost, "Speak; I am bound to hear." Here he means that listening to his father’s spirit was his duty which he has to fulfill. The ghost then tells Hamlet that he had another duty, which was to avenge his father’s death. "So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear"(1.5.7). The ghost again repeats the message and tells Hamlet that if he loved his father he would avenge his murder. “Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder" (1.5.25). Hamlet then asks the ghost to recite the story of his death and then he would prove his love for his father by avenging his murder. "Haste me to know't, that I, with wings as swift / As meditation or the thoughts of love, / May sweep to my revenge" (1.5.29-31).

Later in the play, after some time has passed since Hamlet promised the ghost that he would take revenge; some players come to Elsinore for performing a play. In the play, the First Player weeps as he tells the story of Queen Hecuba's grief for her murdered husband. Here while seeing the play, Hamlet questions himself as to why he hasn't carried out his revenge. To Hamlet it seems that First Player feels more strongly about Hecuba than Hamlet does about his father. Hamlet then calls himself a coward, and tries to work himself up into the white heat of hatred. But as he is calling King Claudius a "bloody, bawdy villian," Hamlet realizes that he's still talking, rather than taking some action.

O, vengeance!

Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,

That I, the son of a dear father murder'd,

Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,

Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,

And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,

A stallion! Fie upon't! foh! (2.2.581-587)

Despite all of this, Hamlet, instead of taking revenge right away, he decides to find out if the Ghost is really telling the truth. Now this is the first time that he has had any doubts about the ghost telling the truth. So we can see that Hamlet doesn’t want to take revenge but he is just doing so because he feels that it is his duty to avenge his father’s death.

“I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious" (3.1.123-124). Hamlet says this when he is persuading Ophelia to not to marry any men, highlighting the faults in men taking himself as an example. Here one of the faults he says is Revengeful.

In Act 3, when Hamlet is standing behind the kneeling King Claudius, sword in hand, Hamlet says to himself: “Now might I do it pat, now he is praying; / And now I'll do't. And so he goes to heaven; / And so am I revenged" (3.3.73-75). But here again we see that even when he had the opportunity to kill King Claudius, he thinks rather than acts. What he thinks is that he'll wait and catch the King red-handed in the middle of a sinful act, and then take revenge, and then Claudius will go to hell, not heaven, so the revenge will be perfect.

“How all occasions do inform against me, / And spur my dull revenge!" (4.4.33). This is the opening of Hamlet's last soliloquy. On his way to board the ship for England, Hamlet talks to a Norwegian Captain in the service of Fortinbras, who tells Hamlet that he is going over to fight for a little patch of land held by the Poles which has a negligible value. Here Hamlet compares himself with Fortinbras, who is fighting for a land that has practically no value just because his honor is at the stake. Fortinbras is endangering his life because his honor is precious to him, but Hamlet's desire to take revenge is "dull." And "dull” is to be unfeeling, less than