Hamlet Character Analysis

In Hamlet, many think of Hamlet as being the main or only tragically flawed character within the play. However, in actuality, the play contains many other characters that possess varying severities of imperfection, some of which put the shortcomings of Hamlet, the title character of Hamlet, to shame. Despite the tragically flawed nature of Hamlet’s character, other characters in the play are clearly more flawed in comparison to Hamlet. As a result of this character’s imperfection, many of the characters within the play Hamlet are considered tragic; however, those in which this trait is predominant are Claudius, Laertes and Gertrude. In order to illustrate that the supporting characters are in fact more tragic than Hamlet, one needs to take
Considering these key characteristics Aristotle has identified in his theory, many will apply to Hamlet's character. However, not all of these characteristics can be found within
This is due to his teaming up with Claudius to execute Hamlet, which resulted in the death of more people than Hamlet has killed himself; Claudius and Laertes ended up killing more people than Hamlet had: Claudius and Laertes kill Gertrude, Hamlet and themselves indirectly whereas Hamlet kills Laertes, Polonius and Claudius directly. Other characteristics from Aristotle's theory can be are possessed by Laertes such as a fatal flaw and error in judgment, excessive pride, his fate was greater than deserved, he suffered more than deserved, was noble in nature, had imperfections, understood his own doom, was physically wounded by his experience which led to his death, was intelligent enough to learn from his mistakes and evoked empathy from the audience. Furthermore, one can see that Laertes' nature is flawed as he acted to keep Denmark and its people safe; however, he put more people in danger than the man he was trying to