• Hamlet, William Sakespeare

• Introduction
• Short Summary
• Detailed Summary
• Summary Act I-Scene-I
• Summary Act I, Scene II
• Summary Act I, Scene III
• Summary Act I, Scene IV
• Summary Act I, Scene V
• Summary Act II, Scene I
• Summary Act II, Scene II
• Summary Act III, Scene I
• Summary Act III, Scene II
• Summary Act III, Scene III
• Summary Act III, Scene IV
• Summary Act IV, Scene I-II
• Summary Act IV, Scene III-IV
• Summary Act IV, Scene V
• Summary Act IV, Scene VI-VII
• Summary Act V, Scene I
• Summary Act V, Scene II
• Character of Hamlet
• Character of Ophelia
• Themes & Topics
• University Questions & Answers
• Top 10 Quotes from Hamlet
• Best Quotes from Hamlet

Discuss the character of Hamlet: "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare

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Hamlet, the prince of Denmark is a soldier as well as a scholar. We all know that people of great birth are set up on such high pedestals that most part of their lives remain trial-some turbulent but the charge set upon Hamlet is so great is that he has to utter in pain:

"The time is out of joint. O cursed spite
That ever I was born to set it right!"

Hamlet, studying abroad, gets the news of his father's death and then comes home to find his mother married to his uncle. The troubles don't end for him. Soon, his father's ghost asks him to take revenge of his murder:

"The serpent that did sting thy father's life
Now wears his crown"

Hamlet decides to take revenge from his uncle. But soon, the soldierly Hamlet is overcome with the scholastic Hamlet. He begins to think if it is the devil assuming the shape of his father to mislead him or the true spirit of his father which is restless.

"The spirit that I have seen
May be a devil; and the devil hath power T' assume a pleasing shape"

"To be or not to be" becomes the tragic flaw of Hamlet. He cannot decide anything for certain and when he decides, he consumes rather too much of time in reaching the decision. This leads to his tragic fall.

Hamlet decides to pose as if he were mad. He behaves strangely with people. Nearly all are convinced of the madness which Hamlet shows. Under his feigned madness, Hamlet stages a play depicting the original scene of his father's mother as told by the ghost. The king and queen get annoyed and show their conscience on their faces. This assures Hamlet that his father was really killed by his uncle.

Now Hamlet wants to kill the king. He goes to kill the king but finding him praying to God; Hamlet does not kill the king thinking he would go to heaven if he killed him there.

"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 reveng'd. That would be scann'd.
A villain kills my father; and for that,
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven".

The scholastic tilt of Hamlet gets him in trouble. He spares the king then and this leads to the situation where the king tries to poison him and Hamlet loses not even his love but also his mother, the queen. Now Hamlet acts without the scholastic deep thinking and kills the king. However, it is rather too later now. Hamlet has lost his all.