Hamlet as a Revenge Tragedy

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Hamlet as a Revenge Tragedy

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By dramatic conventions, the play Hamlet is considered a Revenge Tragedy. According to Shakespearean tradition, tragedy is the story of a man and depicts his sufferings and misfortunes leading to his death.

Hamlet is a man of noble birth, the heir to the throne of Denmark. He is forced out of his comfort zone to avenge the death of his father, who was murdered by his own uncle, Claudius in order for the throne. What adds fuel to his revenge is Gertrude’s hasty marriage to Claudius.

Like all Shakespearean heroes of tragedy like Macbeth, King Lear and Othello, Hamlet is a man of high and distinct qualities, who occupies an important position in society. Hamlet is loved by his people. He is a great philosopher, he is noble in his thoughts and dealings and refrains from doing evil acts.

A tragedy aims to produce a cathartic effect and Hamlet’s character successfully delivers it. The play begins in media res and we are introduced to Hamlet's sufferings starting from the beginning of the play to its end till he dies. He is introduced as a man mourning the death of his father. He is also heartbroken by the fact that his mother married his uncle Claudius even before the mourning period ended.

An important feature of a revenge tragedy is the supernatural element. The arrival of the ghost reveals the crime committed and lays upon the hero the duty of avenging the murderer. And this play confirms it. The scandalous revelations made by the ghost of Hamlet’s father are a shock to Hamlet. The ghost instils in him fire for revenge but we later see that Hamlet's tragic flaw does not allow him to fulfil the revenge successfully. His tragic flaw is his incapability to carry forward his plans or rather his “irresolution” in his character. He keeps on finding excuses and delays his action of avenging his father’s death. He thinks too much and meditates upon his actions.

Despite the direct account from the ghost, Hamlet still wants to confirm Claudius’s guilt so he orders for a play. He postpones the idea of killing Claudius at prayer, for he thinks that if he murders him at this present moment, instead of suffering for his evils in hell his soul would go to heaven. The consequence of this is that he avenges his father’s death at the cost of his own death. Had he avenged the murderer at the right time he would have avoided his own tragic death as well as the death of others.

Being a revenge tragedy there is much blood-shed a quite a number of deaths. And when the murder is avenged, the avenger and all the others closely related perish together. Ophelia turns mad and drowns, Gertrude dies having drunk the poisoned wine, Polonius is killed by Hamlet out of suspicion, Claudius is wounded by the poisoned sword, Laertes and Hamlet die with the wounds of the poisoned sword in each other’s hand.

“to be or not to be” is the question that Hamlet muses upon. Hamlet by nature is prone to thinking. He analyses his actions and sees whether there is justice in it or not. Thinking restrains him from doing his action and he becomes a less man of action. His soliloquies are the best examples to prove his analysing nature. In his soliloquies, he chides his delay in action. He calls himself “pigeon livered”, “lack gall”, “unpregnant of my cause”, and “muddy mettled” in his second soliloquy. He realises that he lacks the guts to commit a murder.

Laertes comes into the play as a foil to Hamlet. He is the typical ‘revenger’ all that Hamlet is not. His every word and gesture invites comparison with Hamlet. He would cut his enemy’s throat in church, while Hamlet spares the king at prayer. Laertes is ready to dare the damnation. Whereas Hamlet is a man who is kind to the kind and cruel to the cruel. His observations and thinking faculty help him to decipher the true nature of people. And it is this aspect of goodness in nature that prolongs the revenge and which ends his life.

Also, the treatment of the theme of revenge is not so crude or gross. The supernatural element is also not crude but acts as an instrument of justice to punish the evil-doer. What works again the theme of the play - a son’s duty to avenge the murder of his father - is complex. It is not material considerations that act as impediments but Hamlet’s own conscience, and his psychological refinements that are the impediments. Above all the language and imagery employed by Shakespeare makes the play a higher work of art, despite having been commonly accused of being a long and dragging play.


(Note: I enjoyed Macbeth more than Hamlet)


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