Hamlet’s procrastination led to his depression
Hamlet is the Prince of Denmark, who is seeking revenge for his father’s death. The ghost of the King, Hamlet’s father, tells Hamlet to “ . . . revenge his foul and most unnatural murder” . Since his father asked him, he finds it his duty to do as he says. In this essay, I am going to prove that Hamlet puts off what he has to do until a future time, which leads him to his depression. He builds things up inside of him until the point that he is not able to handle anything, or lacks courage, skill, and will to do something.
In his first soliloquy, “Oh that this too too solid flesh would melt . . .” , Hamlet talks about the first thing that has made him melancholy, or sad. He says that his mother barely mourned her husband’s death and a month later she remarried. To try and make himself feel better, Hamlet makes a joke about it when he tells Horatio, “The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables”. Everyone else knows how much the remarriage of his mother has bothered him. The soliloquy in act one scene two shows how upset he is at his mother and himself. He believes he is better off dead because no one seems to understand what he is feeling. He shows that he is upset at his mother because she got married in such a hurry. It makes him think that maybe his uncle and his mother had an affair before King Hamlet died. He says that his father used to treat her like she was everything and she degraded herself by marrying someone whom treats her as if she was nothing. For example, King Claudius, Hamlet’s stepfather always asks Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother to do things for him. Claudius tells her to talk to Hamlet so he can listen in on their conversation, without even asking Gertrude if she is willing to do that. When the play begins, the King is already dead so we do not know how he treated Gertrude. What we do know is that when the ghost of the king came back to talk to Hamlet and tell him about the situation, he tells Hamlet that he should leave Gertrude alone and to try as best as he can no to get her involved. Not only in this soliloquy, but also in other ones in this play, Hamlet talks about dying. In his soliloquy in the third act, Hamlet talks about dying so he will not have to face the human suffering that everyone had to go through in life. Hamlet, at this point, believes that everything he is living for is gone. The one person that he looked up to is now dead and he does not have a male figure he can look up to and set an example for himself of how he wants to be. His mother is blind and does not see the way Claudius has been treating and she is also blind because she does not realize that Claudius is the one that killed her husband. The last reason that he is upset, and the one thing that does occur during the play was when Ophelia started to neglect Hamlet. Hamlet loves Ophelia and after everything started going downhill for him, he began losing the one person he cared so much about. Hamlet gave hints during the play that he wanted to die and that he is depressed, even to people that he did not trust, like Polonius. Polonius asks him to come out of the air and Hamlet’s response was to go into his grave. When Rosencrantz and Guilderstern first visit Denmark, Hamlet refers to it as a “prison”, because he does not like being there anymore. He is having problems with everyone around him and he would rather be alone but at the same time have someone he can talk to and trust. Two other people that Hamlet did not trust were Rosencrantz and Guilderstern. He tells them that he has lost all his “mirth . . . and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this godly frame the earth seems to me as sterile promontory” . Hamlet realizes that they were sent for to take care of Hamlet in his time of need, and he tells them that he has lost any sort of energy he had within him. Not only does Hamlet have these problems but he has others to worry about. Everything came all at once and he is having a difficult time dealing with everything. The one thing that ends up confusing him a lot is Ophelia because one minute they are talking and being all nice to each other and then the next she is ignoring him. He does not seem to understand why.
“ . . . From this time forth have you so slander any moment leisure as to give words or talk with Lord Hamlet” . Polonius says this to his daughter Ophelia who is in love with Hamlet. This is another problem that has saddened Hamlet because the one person that he loves the most in the world is told never to talk to him again.
When Hamlet does speak to Ophelia, he says that he never loved her, which is a lie because before he used to kiss the ground she walked on and for this reason Polonius is convinced that Hamlet’s depression is caused by Ophelia’s unrequited love. He thinks this because when Ophelia gave Hamlet back the letters he “ . . . fell into a sadness, then into fast, thence to a watch, thence into a weakness . . .” . At this point, everyone is starting to recognize that there is truly something wrong with Hamlet.
After Hamlet finds out that Claudius killed his father, Hamlet is told by his father’s ghost to seek revenge. Every time he tries to kill Claudius, he stops himself. “A villain kills my father . . .I, his sole son, do the same villain send to heaven” . When Hamlet tries to kill Claudius, he uses the excuse that Claudius is praying, and that he can not kill him when he is connecting with God. A. C. Bradley believes that “melancholy, as the Elizabethans thought of it best explains Hamlet’s inactions” . Hamlet is too occupied with his sadness to deal with anything else. “Hamlet’s nature- his morality, optimism, idealism, and intelligence incline him to melancholy . . .” For example, he could have believed what the ghost told him, but he does not want to make any wrong decisions, until he realizes for himself that Claudius is guilty of the crime. If the ghost were wrong, he would have killed Claudius and would have made the worst decision in his life because he would have to face all the scorn of the people around him for killing Claudius and not having proof that Claudius killed his father.
Bradley also believes that “Hamlet’s melancholy accounts . . . for apathy . . . and Hamlet’s inability to understand why he delays” . We see this when he asks “Why do I linger . . . can the cause be cowardice . . . can it be thinking to precisely of the event . . .” Hamlet does not want to lack courage, skill, will, or opportunity, but everything that happens makes him think excessively. Hamlet is upset that he does not show any emotion for what has happened throughout the past couple of months. He believes that he is insensitive, and we see this when he watches the play, and sees “the imminent death of twenty thousand men . . . fight for a plot whereon the numbers cannot try the
cause . . .” . Hamlet has not shown his emotions for his father’s death, his mother’s remarriage and Ophelia’s unrequited love, while the people in the play are sobbing for something that has not yet even occurred in their lives. He does not understand why he is so unemotional about something that is so important. The actors in the play are sobbing and Hamlet can not get one tear out after all the things that have happened to him. Bradley believes that Hamlet had “an unbounded delight and faith in everything good and beautiful” . Whoever did not cause him harm, Hamlet was being nice to. For example, Horatio became Hamlet’s confidant because he was there to help him without being sent for by anyone, unlike Rosencrantz and Guilderstern who only show up when the king and the queen need him to help Hamlet. Bradley thought that if he would take actions, it would “further weaken him and enslave him to his melancholy” . Whenever Ophelia did not acknowledge him, he would sink deeper into depression. Bradley believed that Hamlet might have been depressed because he “lost a loved one”, but also because he “lost the crown” . Hamlet would have had the chance to rule Denmark, but instead his mother remarried, and his uncle took the position. Him losing the crown might not have been the major reason is depressed but it is linked to the main reason he is- his father’s death.
According to Samuel Coleridge, Hamlet lost the “equilibrium between real and imaginary worlds . . . Hamlet’s balanced is disturbed” . He was too occupied with himself that he forgot everything that he had to do outside himself. “ Hamlet is brave and careless of death . . . but he procrastinates from thought and loses the power of
action . . .” . We see this when Hamlet tries to kill Claudius when he is praying. He backs down at the last minute. We also realize that Hamlet does not take action when he “procrastinated from thought” when he kills Polonius. Hamlet was startled, and without thinking he killed Polonius, when he was behind the wall tapestry. Coleridge contrasts Hamlet to Macbeth, another Shakespearean character. Hamlet proceeds with the “utmost slowness”, while Macbeth with a “crowded and breathless rapidity” . Hamlet not only contrasts to Shakespearean characters outside the play but he also contrasts to a character from the same play- Laertes. Laertes finds out something and without thinking or realizing the consequences, goes out and does whatever he has to do. When he found out that his father was dead, Laertes tried to go after Hamlet, without thinking.
Samuel Johnson says “of feigned madness of Hamlet, there appears no adequate cause for he does nothing which he might not have done with the reputation of sanity . . .[Hamlet is] afraid of something in unknown futurity” . He wants to make sure that there are no consequences to uphold when he is done with his actions. Hamlet “makes no attempt to punish [Claudius]” , and at the end Claudius dies with no attempt from Hamlet. Hamlet “makes no attempt to punish him, and in his death is at last affected by an incident in which Hamlet has no part in producing” .
Most depressive people contemplate suicide, like Hamlet does in his soliloquies. “To be or not to be, that is the question . . .” . In this soliloquy, Hamlet is on the verge of suicide. He can not find a reason to live. The people that he loves are either gone or neglecting him. He believes that he is all alone and that there is no one to turn to for help.
Hamlet becomes depressed because he keeps things to himself, which makes him think about the melancholy things that are revolving around him. In the beginning of the play, Hamlet is just melancholy about everything that has happened to him, but by the middle of the play he is depressed, because more upsetting things build up inside of him. He became melancholy because he thought too much about everything that has happened to him. By thinking of all of this, he procrastinates which leads to his depression. It goes around in a circle. When he thinks too much he loses the courage to act, and he has to spend more time trying to gain the courage again. His procrastination leads him to build up things inside of him to the point that he can not deal with it anymore. Since he overanalyzed every situation, he thinks of all the bad things that happened and that possibly might happen if he takes action, and therefore makes himself be depressed. Hamlet’s procrastination not only led to his death, but to the death of many people around him. His depression not only affected himself but also affected the people around him. If Hamlet did not procrastinate, he would have, probably saved the lives of the people he loved.
Bibliography
Bibliography
Bradley, A. C. Shakespearean Tragedy 1st Edition New York: Macmillian, 1904
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor Hamlet volume two ed. Henry Nelson Coleridge London: William Pickering, 1836
Johnson, Samuel The Plays of William Shakespeare volume eight London J&R Tunson, 1765
Shakespeare, William Hamlet ed. Alan Durband U.S. edition: Barrons Educational Series, Inc. 1986
Word Count: 2145
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