We are familiar with at least one of William Shakespeare's work. Let's mention Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Othello, or The Tempest. But Hamlet was number one appealing to me when I decided to take a peek of this very thick book contained of Shakespeare materials.
It's very difficult task, honestly, because it's written in old English, its lack of narrative sometimes so confusing (fyi it's in drama script format). Last but not least, English isn't my first language.
Anyways, I'd like to talk about it because it is a great tragedy. Sometimes I can relate to that.
Hamlet story began with the appearance of ghost of Hamlet's father, which led to several murders, also Hamlet death at the end. It's a continuous agony in Hamlet's deep mind due to procrastination of him to finally pay his father's murderer his revenge. Because he can't live with that. He's being sad all the time, he's questioning all things. Because the murderer was, in fact, his uncle. Because the murderer married his mother. He's gone mad.
Hamlet himself was a prince of Denmark who'd been studying abroad, Â got home to find his father's dead and his mother got married with his uncle, Claudius, who took the crown and the kingdom.
Hamlet has been represented as brilliantly intelligent and brave. But he has been placed in the most agonizing circumstances that a human being can be placed in (Javed 2013).
He was been so alert and sensitive to accomplish the task of killing Claudius, which was his first conflict with his own inner self. Hamlet's moral conflict got appeared by his plot of attempting suicide. As he was perplexed that his own uncle did murder his father and at the same time his mother has married with that murderer Claudius. But after all he has to take revenge which made him fall into despair and in extreme moral dilemma as his inner heart didnt want to deal with all these incredibly hard and risky steps (Farhana 2016)
The appearance of his father ghost was like apocalypse to him. But he did not instantly do the revenge because he's basically a kind man, he 's not "just want revenge". He is not always certain his pursuit is morally correct.
Hamlet often questions himself and his actions throughout the play in order to make sure that his motives are morally justified. This mode of self-reflection creates an image of Hamletthat makes it difficult to dislike him. Since he is so critical of himself and is unsure of what path is more correct, it is difficult for the audience to dislike his character because he analyzes multiple situations in order to arrive at what he feels is divinely ordained (Vasquez 2012)
PLAY WITHIN PLAY
There's a play within play in Hamlet story. Shakespeare did depict the direct reference to the tradition with this play within play (Farhana 2016). In this despreration and madness, Hamlet set a drama play named "The Murder of Gonzago" with the same story line of his father's murder case. And he invited Claudius and Gertrude (his mother) to attend. He wanted to see the reaction upon Claudius by seeing the slightest hint of guilty in him.
