Hamlet Essay

Shakespeare’s Hamlet has been universally canonized for centuries, and many critics consider the text as the most unique and captivating works of literature due to its capacity to explore the human dilemmas of revenge, tragedy and deception. Hamlet was composed during a great paradigm shift in history involving the friction between value systems and beliefs. The play explores an ancient struggle between Feudalism and emerging humanist values. Despite changes in theatrical and cultural contexts, Hamlets delay in carrying out the act of revenge and his inability to adopt a single truth in a world of subjective appearance remains timeless.   William Shakespeare’s Hamlet explores the idea of existentialism through the conflict between man and self.   This conflict stems from the struggle for revenge in which Hamlet’s desire to establish order in a world of chaos leaves him broken and torn, leading to his inevitable downfall and the death of those surrounding him.
Hamlet can be considered a revenge drama with Hamlet as the procrastinator representing the supplementary role that impedes the fulfilment of revenge. His various justifications for prolonging his undertaking -“Now might I do it pat, now he is praying...That would be scann’d, A villain kills my father and for that...do this same villain send to heaven.” , can be alluded to his sense of guilt, justifying it as a form of generalised, disillusioned idealism.   Hamlet is shown to be aware of the consequences of his actions and ironically, the more inert he is the more implicated he is in the slaughter around him. Alone amongst common revengers though, is his intellect and human self-torment that allows himself to be accessible to all audiences. Despite the order and justice that completing his revenge may entail, it is his philosophical and emotional struggle with the role of the revenger that distinguishes Hamlet. Hamlet endeavours to try to follow the prescribed ‘plot’ and ‘role’ the revenger but is too self...