Hamlet's Behavior

If one looks at the facts of the case, it only makes sense that Hamlet would be depressed. Here is a young man who has been away at school and who has obviously adored his father and who, equally obviously, thought his mother did the same: "Must I remember? why, she would hang on him, / As if increase of appetite had grown / By what it fed on: and yet, within a month-- / Let me not think on't--Frailty, thy name is woman!" (I.ii.143-46). He is called back to Denmark in distress and mourning, and Claudius's gentle chiding of Hamlet's show of grief suggests that Hamlet deeply regrets the fact that he had no opportunity to say good-bye to his father. Claudius reminds Hamlet of his noble birth and his obligation to bend to God's will, noting that "to persever / In obstinate condolement is a course / Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief" (I.ii.93-95). This undoubtedly increases Hamlet's distress, for being told ho

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he prudently asks, "Where wilt thou lead me? speak; I'll go no further." In other words: Are you taking me to death, to heaven, to hell? When the Ghost disappears for the first time, having told Hamlet of murder most foul, Hamlet's mind is bewildered by the sweep of the cosmos that is pushing him toward revenge: "O all you host of heaven! O earth! what else? / And shall I couple hell?" (I.v.92-3). After brief consultation with Horatio, he considers going off to pray, to sort out what the Ghost has told him, whereupon the Ghost reappears, commanding him to "Swear" to undertake the revenge, even as Hamlet has commanded Horatio to keep the apparition a secret. This does nothing so much as cause Hamlet to question the whole episode again, questioning whether the Ghost, who repeatedly intones from beneath, the place of hell is really the devil, whom he compares to other denizens of the cellarage or underworld, such as the mole and pioner (miner). At the end of the long II.ii, when Hamlet determines to catch the conscience of the king by means of the play, he returns to the theme of the peril of his soul: "The spirit that I have seen / May be the devil; and the devil hath power / To assume a pleasing shape, yea, and perhaps / . . . Abu
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Approximate Word count = 4874
Approximate Pages = 19 (250 words per page)

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