Hamlets Procrastination and Delay: Moral Scruples and Conscience - Research Proposal Example

Hamlet’s Delay in Taking Action Roll No: Teacher: 25th December 2008 Draft Hamlet, a play by Shakespeare hasa number of problems that are considered unresolved by many writers. Each and every writing on Hamlet comes up with some other results. After watching the movie of Hamlet (1996 version), I think that the play is somehow different from the movie. The director Kenneth Branagh changed some dialogues written by Shakespeare in the lieu of screenplay. As far as I am concerned, I do not feel that the movie is as persuasive as the play. The play appears mysterious in terms of many points. From each and every soliloquy written by Shakespeare for Hamlet and for other characters, there can be various interpretations. I am interested in the aspect of delay in action by Hamlet. Hamlet’s delay is interpreted with many reasons. After reading the play more than twice, I also found many interpretations for delay in action by Hamlet. I have also read certain articles that I found to be helpful for my research work. I do not want to include psychological reading of the play related to Oedipus complex as it is a full-fledged topic in its own. I have read the articles that I will also attach with the research and after reading them, I read the whole play again which was really helpful in obtainment of ideas related to the research proposal. Hamlet’s procrastination and delay can be seen as a result of his moral scruples and conscience; his delay can also be a result of his moral repulsiveness; his delay is also an outcome of his deepened melancholy and lastly, his delay can be a result of his over examination and speculation of the whole situation. When Hamlet gets the news of his father’s murder by his father’s ghost, he ponders over the situation and tries to judge the accuracy of the ghost’s revelation and even after having knowing that the ghost’s revelation is true, he is indecisive and irresolute. He delays his action and there are no chances of his revenging if the luck has not pressurized him to move forward and to kill his father’s murderer. Hamlet kills his father’s murderer but he kills him as he has no other option. Claudius tries to murder Hamlet twice and his second attempt is fruitful. Hamlet gets killed but he is successful to take his revenge. Hamlet is depressed and worried after his father’s sudden death and his mother’s marriage is an additional source of depression for Hamlet. In this depressed and melancholic state, he gets the news of his father’s being murdered by Claudius, his mother’s second husband. His melancholy is deepened. He is unable to control his emotions and feelings and with his thinking more and more, he moves towards more and more despondency. Hamlet arranges a play to scrutinize the guilt of Claudius and gets the knowledge that the ghost’s revelation was accurate. When he sees his ex-father alone and praying, he recoils to kill him and leaves. At this juncture, he is morally repulsive and considers that he will not fight a man who is unable to defend himself and after this, he presents a soliloquy that reveals that Hamlet wants to send Claudius to Hell and if he gets killed while praying, he will go to heaven, which is not acceptable for Hamlet. He is also morally scrupled. Hamlet delays to take action and he tries to judge whether the ghost is right or evil due to which, the action gets delayed. According to Hamlet, his conscience acted as a regarding force of his action and he reproaches himself for his no taking the action. “Does it not, think thee, stand me now upon— He that hath kill’d my King, and Whor’d my mother, Pop’t in between th’ election and my hopes, Thrown out his angle for my proper life, And with such coz’nage — is’t not perfect conscience To quit him with this arm? And is’t not to be damn’d To let this canker of my nature come In further evil? (Act V, Scene II) The shock to his moral being comes with sudden disclosure of his mother’s true nature. She has remarried within a month of her husband’s death and she has married Hamlet’s uncle, a man utterly contemptible and hateful in Hamlet’s eyes. About the moral validity of his contemplated revenge, perhaps he is not much in doubt. His stern rebuke to his mother shows how strongly he feels on the subject. His shrinking from revenge must then be attributed to his procrastinating nature or to a constitutional incapacity for action of the kind that is required of him. And his death is ultimately due to his prolonged deferment of his revenge. Hamlet delays in taking revenge also because of his intellectual mind. He ponders over the situation more than required due to which, he is unable to take any action in due time. He also thinks that his mother guilty because she has married a person who has killed his father. Hamlet was also worried that his mother married with such urgency that is suitable for a woman whose husband died a short time before. Hamlet thinks that his mother is being seduced by Claudius. Hamlet is more and more melancholic with the passage of time and because of his over thinking and his irresolution. Hamlet is indecisive till the end and kills Claudius at the end which is not a result of his overly pondering and planning over Claudius’ murder but just an enforcement of the circumstances. Hamlet is irresolute till the end because of his moral repulsiveness, his melancholy and his excessive speculation and examination of the problem. The tragedy is also termed as a tragedy of thought. The irresolution because of speculation is linked to the melancholic state of Hamlet. Hamlet’s melancholy is deepened because of his over speculation. He also shows moral repulsiveness to take action. He is a morally restrained protagonist that is unable to decide what to do and what not to do. In the end, it is quite clear that Hamlet is encircled by a number of problems and his tragedy is interpreted with various viewpoints concerning his delay in taking revenge. Outline Hamlet delayed in taking action against his father’s murderer and this delay can be seen with many reasons behind it such as moral scruples or conscience of Hamlet, his moral repulsion, his melancholy and his irresolution in terms of over speculation and reflection on the whole situation. Hamlet reflects over the situation with over speculation and his melancholy is deepened with the passage of time. Hamlet’s melancholy is linked to his excessive speculation over the decision of taking revenge of his father’s murder. His delay is also a result of his moral repulsiveness. Hamlet is restricted to take any action because of his moral repulsion and in the end when he kills Claudius; he does so because of having no other option. Hamlet’s Delay in Taking Action Shakespeare’s Hamlet is seen with various viewpoints because of a number of meanings found in it. Hamlet, the prince of Denmark and the protagonist of the play, Hamlet, gets knowledge of his father’s murder through his father’s ghost but he delays in revenging which is seen with different viewpoints. This research paper focuses on the issue of delayed revenge by Hamlet and tries to find out the reasons behind that Hamlet’s delay in taking action. For this purpose, the written sources are used along with self thought reasons after reading the play. The movie version of 1996 is somehow transformed a little in terms of dialogues written by Shakespeare originally and the reason was screen play. In the movie version of the play, the main character Hamlet is unable to take action for a long time, the same situation that is faced by Hamlet in the original written play. There can be many causes of delayed revenge of Hamlet. Hamlet was depressed and despondent before he met the ghost of his father. He was not happy with his mother’s marriage with his uncle. He wanted his mother to marry after some time and got in a melancholic state because of his mother’s sudden and quick decision. He considered his marriage with his uncle as a shameless act. After getting knowledge that his father was killed by Claudius, his uncle and he did not die himself, Hamlet’s melancholic state worsened. His mother married to his father’s murderer and in such a hurry that was considered shameless by Hamlet, all these circumstances led Hamlet to deepened melancholic state that made him to think over and over about the whole situation. He was unable to take revenge for his father’s murder for a long time on the basis of several reasons which can be his moral scruples or conscience, moral repulsion, melancholic state and his irresolution in terms of over speculation and reflection on the whole situation. Hamlet was in a difficult situation because of his conscience. Hamlet’s main difficulty can be regarded as being internal, something that is part of his mental make-up (Grebanier 1960). It may, for instance, be supposed that Hamlet is restrained from action by his conscience or moral scruple. Hamlet assumes without questioning that he ought to avenge his father’s murder. Even when he doubts the honesty of the ghost, he expresses no doubt as to what his duty would be if the ghost has spoken truly as he says, “If he but blench I know my course.” He reproaches himself bitterly for neglecting his duty in the two soliloquies where he examines his position “O what a rogue and peasant slave am I…………..” (Act II, Scene II) and “How all occasions do inform against me…………” (Act IV, Scene IV) When he reflects on the possible causes of his neglect, he does not mention among them any moral scruple. When the ghost appears in the queen’s chamber, he does not plead that his conscience comes in his way. At one place in the play, Hamlet speaks as if his conscience was retarding action on his part as he says “Does it not, think thee, stand me now upon— He that hath kill’d my King, and Whor’d my mother, Pop’t in between th’ election and my hopes, Thrown out his angle for my proper life, And with such coz’nage — is’t not perfect conscience To quit him with this arm? And is’t not to be damn’d To let this canker of my nature come In further evil? (Act V, Scene II) If this passage be regarded as correct analysis of his mind, then conscience would appear to be only one hindrance in Hamlet’s way but not the sole or chief hindrance. It may also be asserted that in the depths of Hamlet’s nature that is unknown to him, there is a moral repulsion to the deed. But, this view is, to a large extent, contradicted by Hamlet’s sparing the King when he finds the King at prayer. The reason Hamlet gives himself for sparing the King is that, if he kills him now, he will send him to heaven, whereas he desires to send him to hell (Grebanier 1960). Now, this reason can be considered as an unconscious excuse, but it is difficult to believe that, if the real reason has been the stirrings or moral scruples of his deeper conscience, it could have masked itself in the form of a desire to send his enemy’s soul to hell. However, there can be no doubt that Hamlet has a strong moral nature and a great anxiety to do the right thing. Hamlet’s shrinking from the deed of murder is probably due to repugnance of the idea of suddenly attacking a man who cannot defend himself (Grebanier 1960). Hamlet’s reflective attitude doubtless plays a certain part in producing Hamlet’s melancholy and is thus an indirect contributory cause of his irresolution (Weitz 1964). The delay can be a reason of the profound melancholy of Hamlet. He showed his depressed state in his soliloquies. He was depressed because of his mother’s marriage, Claudius’ status as a king, appearance of his father’s ghost and afterwards the revelation of the truth related to his father’s murder. He continued to reflect and speculate the whole situation and got more and more depressed with the passage of time and with his continued speculation. Hamlet’s delay for taking action is also thought in terms of his irresolution that is there because of overly speculation and reflection on the problem. Hamlet is also considered a tragedy of reflection. Schlegel says, “The whole play is intended to show how a calculating consideration which aims at exhausting, so far as human foresight can, all the relations and possible consequences of a deed, cripples the power of acting…..He loses himself in the labyrinth of thought.” (Weitz 1964) The energy of resolution is dissipated in Hamlet by an endless brooding on the deed that requires to be done (De Grazia 2001). When he does act, his action does not proceed from this deliberation and analysis but is sudden and impulsive. Most of the reasons given by him for his procrastination are evidently not true reasons, but unconscious excuses. Hamlet, a man with a melancholic temperament, an exquisite moral sensibility and an intellectual genius, receives a violent shock. As a result of that, he begins to sink into melancholy. In this state of deep and fixed melancholy, a sudden demand for difficult and decisive action is made upon him. He indulges an endless and futile mental dissection of the required deed. The futility of this process, and the shame of this delay, further weaken him and enslave him to his melancholy still more (Weitz 1964). The shock to his moral being comes with sudden disclosure of his mother’s true nature. She has remarried within a month of her husband’s death and she has married Hamlet’s uncle, a man utterly contemptible and hateful in Hamlet’s eyes. This experience brings to him a feeling of horror, then loathing and then despair of human nature as he says, “O God! O God! How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, Seem to me all the uses of the world.” (Act I, Scene II) In this first soliloquy, Hamlet expresses his sickness of life and even a longing for death. His whole mind is poisoned. He can never see Ophelia in the same light again: she is a woman and his mother is also a woman. The condition has arisen under which, Hamlet’s highest gifts, his moral sensibility and his intellectual genius, become his enemies (Weitz 1964). A man with a blunt moral nature and with a lesser intellectual capacity would not have felt the revelation so keenly. According to T. S. Eliot, Hamlet’s problem is inexpressive emotion as he is unable to express his emotions fully in the play and delays his revenge against Claudius (1972). Eliot also informs that it is Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother guilt that is considered a problem of the play (1972). Hamlet is unable to sort out the problem of his mother’s guilt. He is in a quagmire of confusion and is indecisive because of thinking over and over, over the same situation from all angles. Martin Lings tells that Gertrude is the fallen humanity and Hamlet is the bearer of the fallen humanity and is the one who keeps on telling about the guilt (Eliot 1972). Hamlet as a bearer of his mother’s guilt is unable to take any decision as his mother is involved in taking a step that is considered gruesome by Hamlet. She marries to her husband’s murderer and is being seduced by him into marriage. Hamlet is unable to take revenge because he thinks that his mother is equally guilty as Claudius. Hamlet is unable to express his emotion and puts everything on his mother’s guilt (Eliot 1972). He is depressed, angry and melancholic state by judging the whole situation and his melancholy is deepened by his extensive speculation and reflection. Hamlet kills Claudius not because of his delayed thinking and resolution but because he has no other option but to kill him. He is forced to be in a situation in which, he is made to kill the King and he is held not responsible for doing any wrong act. Hamlet recoils from revenge despite his repeated assertions of his resolve. He recoils from it partly because of his moral principles and scruples but even these seem to gain strength from his natural aversion for action—premeditated action, that is, because he performs plenty of what may be called impulsive action (Grebanier 1960). Hamlet is a speculative, introspective man who tries to assess a situation from every angle, from every point of view. His is therefore can be called the tragedy of thought (De Grazia 2001). About the moral validity of his contemplated revenge, perhaps he is not much in doubt. His stern rebuke to his mother shows how strongly he feels on the subject. His shrinking from revenge must then be attributed to his procrastinating nature or to a constitutional incapacity for action of the kind that is required of him. And his death is ultimately due to his prolonged deferment of his revenge. The play, Hamlet, is analyzed by various critics differently and the delay that is there in Hamlet’s action is also considered differently. Some critics regard the procrastination as a result of Hamlet’s irresolution because of over speculation and reflection over the situation and problem while others regard delay as a moral scruple of Hamlet or his conscience as a hindrance in his way to avenge. The irresolution because of speculation is linked to the melancholic state of Hamlet. Hamlet’s melancholy is deepened because of his over speculation. He also shows moral repulsiveness to take action. He is a morally restrained protagonist that is unable to decide what to do and what not to do. In the end, it is quite clear that Hamlet is encircled by a number of problems and his tragedy is interpreted with various viewpoints concerning his delay in taking revenge. Works Cited De Grazia, Margreta. Hamlet’s Thoughts and Antics. 2001. Accessed on 26th December 2008 from http://eserver.org/emc/1-2/degrazia.html Eliot, T. S. “Hamlet and His Problems”. Selected Essays. London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1972. Also available at http://www.bartleby.com/200/sw9.html Grebanier, Bernard. The Heart of Hamlet, The Play Shakespeare Wrote. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1960. Shakespeare, William (Writer) and Branagh, Kenneth (Director). Hamlet (Film). Internet Movie Database, 1996. Available at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116477/ Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Sydney: Sydney University Press, 1998. Weitz, Morris. Hamlet and the Philosophy of Literary Criticism. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1964. Read More