Hamlet is introspective and contemplative

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  • Through Hamlet’s contemplation, Shakespeare invites the audience to ruminate on human behaviour and the concept of revenge.
  • AO1: In Shakespeare’s experimentation with the revenge tragedy genre, he presents Hamlet as an introspective and contemplative tragic hero, going against the typical depictions of the archetype.
  • e Hamlet is aware that more than one single set of answers exist’. Seemingly Hamlet is a dramatic construct for the exploration of human reaction as well as contemplation and complexities of man which can be found in his second soliloquy ‘Remember thee! Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat In this distracted globe. Remember thee!’
  • Hamlet's delay of the task can be viewed as his hamartia or his fatal flaw, he so desperately wants to take action but he cannot come up with enough reasons to do so, causing more conflict within his mind.
  • It becomes evident that Hamlet is stuck in a world that he is unsure of how to navigate due to the fact that he resembles more with the Renaissance period whereas he is stuck in the mediaeval world and cannot find his place within.
  • Where society is stuck in ideas of the past, Hamlet proceeds to present ideas of the future that are not agreed with at this time. Building on this, Hamlet may not understand the reasons to which Denmark is bound together by the ties of kingship  and hierarchies of societal order as that is what put him in the position that he found himself in.
  • Sweep
    Fast and able to make these initial decisions and immediately take action effortlessly
  • might disappoint an Elizabethan audience ‘Hamlet’ is not the conventional revenge tragedy as it can showcase different viewpoints to revenge. The audience would immediately be disappointed in Hamlet for not murdering Claudius however Shakespeware’s intention could have been to allow them to take an insight to Hamlet's mind in the position to take a life and therefore challenges our perspective.
  • However it is notable that Hamlet then undergoes a transformation in Act 4 where the soliloquies stop, and Hamlet admits to himself that what will happen will happen and he submitted himself to fate after he kills Polonius and only delivers on more soliloquy
  • he also confronts his mother, so perhaps Hamlet addresses the issue that the world around him troubled him the most but now he essentially accepted it for what it is, and he is able to now make these decisions when he needs to presented by ‘O, from this time forth, my thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth’.
  • Evidently Hamlet has accepted his fate and is finally willing to kill King Claudius for revenge and almost forgets the fact that at once he believed this wouldn’t get him anywhere, he has now transformed to a more mediaeval character similar to Fortinbras who throughout the play was a foil to the mediaeval period
  •  Hamlet and abandoned his Renaissance nature after having killed Polonius.
  • Ultimately, Shakespeare presents Hamlet as an unconventional tragic hero whose contemplation tarnishes his mindset and thoughts, preventing his action, until he transforms and it no longer affects him or anyone around him.
  • Some scholars pointed out that revenge tragedies were traditionally catholic due to their sources: Italy and Spain which were catholic nation
  • Hamlets father being killed and calling for revenge offers a contradiction: does he avenge his father and kill Claudius or does he leave the vengeance (relates to 'Vengeance is mine' Romans) to God, as his religion requires.