Inconsistency in The Character of Hamlet Essay -- GCSE Coursework Shak

Inconsistency in TheChar processer of settlement The perfection of Hamlets character has been called in question - perhaps by those who do not understand it. The character of Hamlet stands by itself. It is not a character marked by strength of will or notwithstanding of passion, except by refinement of meterght and sen timent. Hamlet is as diminished of the hero as a man can be. He is a young and princely novice, full of high enthusiasm and quick feeling - the sport of circumstances, questioning with fortune and refining on his own feelings, and constrained from his natural disposition by the strangeness of his situation. Hamlet seems incapable of think action, and is further hurried into extremities on the spur of the occasion, when he has no time to reflect, as in the scene where he kills Polonius, and again, where he alters the letters which Rosencraus and Guildenstern be taking with them to England, purporting his death. At other times, when he is most bound to act, he remains puzzled, undecided, and skeptical, until the occasion is lost, and he finds some pretence to relapse into acedia and thoughtfulness again. For this reason he refuses to kill the King when he is at his prayers, and by a refinement in malice, which is in truth only an excuse for his own want of resolution, defers his revenge to a more terminal opportunity, when he will be engaged in some act that has no relish of salvation in it. Now might I do it pat now he is praying And now Ill do t - and so he goes to heaven And so am I revengd? - that would be scanned A villain kills my father and for that I, his sole son, do this same villain place To heaven. O, this is hire and salary, not revenge ... Up sword and know thou a more horrid hent, Whe... ... explaining the cause of his alienation, which he hardly rely himself to think of. It would have taken him years to have come to a direct explanation on the point. In the harassed state of his mind, he could not have done much other than what he did. His study does not contradict what he says when he sees her funeral, I loved Ophelia forty thousand brothers Could not with all their quantity of love Make up my sum - Act v., sc. 1. In conclusion, Shakespeare has been accused of inconsistency with Hamlet only because he has kept up the distinction which there is in nature, between the understandings and the honourable habits of men, between the absurdity of their ideas and the absurdity of their motives. Hamlet is not a fool, but he makes himself so. His folly, whether in his actions or speeches, comes under the category of impropriety of intention.