Hamlet Indecisiveness Essay

Shakespeare’s Hamlet is often interpreted as a play about a highly indecisive man who procrastinates so much, the story ends in ruin. The plot focuses on Hamlet’s, the prince of Denmark’s, internal struggle regarding his plans to kill his stepfather, Claudius, as revenge, since his stepfather had killed his father and married his mother. This struggle is not short-lived and spans the length of the book. Scholars speculate on why Hamlet took this long to make his decisions, and their theories vary widely. Among them are lack of opportunity, too much thought and analysis, melancholy, oedipus complex, doubt about the honesty of the gods, and doubts about his own ambitious motives. The theory that Hamlet stalls because of lack of opportunity is supported in the scene in which Claudius kneels on the floor of the chapel and
This is epitomized in Hamlet’s excessive mourning for the dead king, being the last person in the kingdom to still wear mourning clothes, or dress in “nighted color.” Indecision also is a result of his melancholia, which results in his stalling in relation to killing the king. One of the most widely researched reasons for Hamlet’s indecisiveness is the relation between Hamlet’s situation and that of Oedipus, who wanted to kill his father and marry his mother. Hamlet often conveys his love for his mother, as he does when he berates her for marrying Claudius. However, his hesitation in relation to killing his stepfather stems from his unconsciously identifying with Claudius, since he has done the very thing Hamlet himself wishes to do. Hamlet is indecisive as well because of his fear that the gods are lying to him. This is exemplified when he questions the validity of his dead father’s ghost’s assessment that Claudius had killed his father. Indeed, Hamlet continues to verify that as the truth late into the book, which seems merely an excuse to