Hamlet - Comment on Humanity

                             The Elizabethan play The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark 
                     is one of William Shakespeare's most popular works.  One of the 
                     possible reasons for this play's popularity is the way Shakespeare 
                     uses the character Hamlet to exemplify the complex workings of the 
                     human mind. The approach taken by Shakespeare in Hamlet has generated 
                     countless different interpretations of meaning, but it is through  
                     Hamlet's struggle to confront his internal dilemma, deciding when to 
                     revenge his fathers death, that the reader becomes aware of one of the 
                     more common interpretations in Hamlet; the idea that Shakespeare is 
                     attempting to comment on the influence that one's state of mind can 
                     have on the decisions they make in life. 
                             As the play unfolds,  Shakespeare uses the encounters that 
                     Hamlet must face to demonstrate the effect that one's  perspective can 
                     have on the way the mind works. In his book Some Shakespeare Themes & 
                     An Approach to Hamlet, L.C. Knight takes notice of  Shakespeare's use 
                     of these encounters to journey into the workings of the human mind 
                     when he writes:

                            What we have in Hamlet.is the exploration and implicit 
                            criticism of a particular state of mind or consciousness.In 
                            Hamlet, Shakespeare uses a series of encounters  to reveal the 
                            complex state of the human mind, made up of reason, emotion, 
                            and attitude towards the self, to allow the reader to make a 
                            judgment or form an opinion about fundamental aspects of human 
                            life. (192)                   

                             Shakespeare sets the stage for Hamlet's internal dilemma in 
                     Act 1, Scene 5 of Hamlet when the ghost of Hamlet's father appears and 
                     calls upon Hamlet to "revenge his foul and most unnatural murder" 
                     (1.5.24).  It is from this point forward that Hamlet must struggle 
                     with the dilemma of whether or not to kill Claudius, his uncle, and if 
                     so when to actually do it.  As the play progresses, Hamlet does not 
                     seek his revenge when the opportunity presents itself, and it is the 
                     reasoning that Hamlet uses to justify his delay that becomes paramount 
                     to the reader's understanding of the effect that Hamlet's mental 
                     perspective has on his situation.
                             In order to fully understand how Hamlet's perspective plays an 
                     important role in this play, the reader must attempt to answer the 
                     fundamental question: Why does Hamlet procrastinate in taking revenge 
                     on Claudius?  Although the answer to this question is at best somewhat 
                     complicated, Mark W. Scott attempts to offer some possible 
                     explanations for Hamlet's delay in his book, Shakespeare for Students:
                                     
                     Critics who find the cause of  Hamlet's delay in his internal 
                     meditations typically view the prince as a man of great moral 
                     integrity who is forced to commit an act which goes against his 
                     deepest principles.  On numerous occasions, the prince tries to make 
                     sense of his moral dilemma through personal meditations, which 
                     Shakespeare presents as soliloquies. Another perspective of Hamlet's 
                     internal struggle suggests that the prince has become so disenchanted 
                     with life since his father's death that he has neither the desire nor 
                     the will to exact revenge. (74)

                     Mr. Scott points out morality and disenchantment, both of which belong 
                     solely to an individuals own conscious,  as two potential causes of 
                     Hamlet's procrastination, and   therefore he offers support to the 
                     idea that Shakespeare is placing important emphasis on  the role of  
                     individual perspective in this play.  The importance that Mr. Scott's 
                     comment places on Hamlet's use of personal meditations to "make sense 
                     of his moral dilemma" (74), also helps to support  L.C. Knight's 
                     contention that Shakespeare is attempting to use these dilemmas to 
                     illustrate the inner workings of the human mind.    
                             In Hamlet, Shakespeare gives the reader an opportunity to 
                     evaluate the way the title character handles a very complicated 
                     dilemma and the problems that are generated because of it.  These 
                     problems that face Hamlet are perhaps best viewed as overstatements of 
                     the very types of problems that all people must face as they live 
                     their lives each day.  The magnitude of these "everyday" problems are 
                     almost always a matter of individual perspective.  Each person will 
                     perceive a given situation based on his own state of mind.  The one,  
                     perhaps universal, dilemma that faces all of mankind is the
                      problem of  identity.  As Victor L. Cahn writes, "Hamlet's primary 
                     dilemma is that of every human being: given this time and place and 
                     these circumstances, How is he to respond?  What is his 
                     responsibility?" (69).  This dilemma defined by Mr. Cahn fits in well 
                     with the comments of  both L.C. Knight and Mark Scott, because it too 
                     requires some serious introspection on the part of Hamlet to resolve, 
                     and also supports the idea that Shakespeare is using Hamlet's dilemma 
                     to illustrate the effect that perspective, or state of mind,  can have 
                     on  a given situation.
                              Hamlet's delay in seeking revenge for his father's death 
                     plays an important role in allowing Shakespeare's look into the human 
                     mind to manifest itself. If  Hamlet had killed Claudius at first 
                     opportunity, there would have been little chance for Shakespeare to 
                     develop the internal dilemma which all three critics, L.C. Knight, 
                     Mark Scott, and Victor Cahn, mention in support of  the widely held 
                     view that, in Hamlet, Shakespeare is attempting to make a comment 
                     about the complexity of the human mind, and the power that a person's 
                     mental perspective can have on the events of his life. 

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                     Works Cited

                     Cahn, Victor L.  Shakespeare the Playwright: A Companion to the 
                     Complete Tragedies, Histories, and Romances.  New York: Greenwood 
                     Press, 1991.  

                     Knight, L. C.  Some Shakespeare Themes & An Approach to Hamlet.  San 
                     Francisco: Stanford University Press, 1966.  

                     Scott, Mark W., ed.  Shakespeare For Students.  Detroit: Gale Research 
                     Inc.,  1992.  

                     Shakespeare, William.  "Hamlet." Literature: An Introduction to 
                     Reading and Writing Ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs.  
                     Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1995.  1129-1230. 