Nicole Ventzke
Crystal Jensen
1102 T/H
2/14/11
Hamlet Character Analysis: Hamlet
One aspect that makes William Shakespeare’s Hamlet alluring is how he broke the limiting mold of the one-dimensional character by representing characters in all of their human complexity. Hamlet, for example, is a compelling character because he is complicated. As Hamlet himself observes early in the play in, “Tis not alone my inky cloak/nor customary suits of solemn black, /Nor…forced breath/No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, /Nor the dejected ‘havior of the visage…/with all forms, moods, and shapes of grief, /That can denote me truly” (1.2.80-86). Hamlet insists that he is an individual with many psychological and philosophical facets, though he
For instance, although Hamlet believes instinctively that Claudius murdered his father, he goes to great lengths to investigate his suspicion in order to confirm it, and he sets up an elaborate ruse that is intended to provoke the revelation of Claudius’s guilt. “The play’s the thing/Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king,” he says at the end of Act II, Scene II (633-634). The play that Hamlet arranges is cleverly designed and he guides the players as skillfully as a director with an almost maniacal sense of purpose and attention to small particulars. He urges the actors to convey the authenticity of their characters, issuing the directive that they should, as stated in the beginning of Act 3 Scene 2, “Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you/Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand,/in the very torrent, tempest, and/the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness” (3.2.2-8). Still, even his seemingly singular dedication to bringing the play to the stage is not entirely straightforward. Hamlet is deeply conflicted about the choices he is making to avenge his father’s death. In a moving soliloquy, Hamlet pauses and takes the time to examine his motives and his very character: “I am pigeon-livered and lack gall/Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,/That I…Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with/ words,/And fall a-cursing, like a very drab, a scullion!”