Hamlet Conflicts

In Shakespheres’ play, Hamlet, there are several major conflicts that appear throughout the play with the main character Hamlet. Of the several conflicts, only one major conflict stands out the most, the battle of his inner self. In this major conflict, Hamlet battles if he should avenge his father’s death. When approached by his ghostly father, who claims to have been murdered by his brother, Claudius “The serpent that did sting thy father’s life. Now wears his crown” (I.5.39-40). Hamlet is faced with the harsh reality that his uncle is possibly the murderer and his father’s death must be avenged, but at what cost? With the constant struggle of deciding to kill his uncle “A villain kills my father; and for that, I his sole son, do this same villain send to heaven” (III.3.77-79).

Caught between the moral conflict of Claudius being the king and married to his mother, Hamlet falls into a depression. Depressed and not wanting to deal with the reality, he contemplates dying “To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer” (III.1.56-57). Appalled at how his mother could so easily forget her first husband and marry his uncle, Hamlet lashes out at his mother Gertrude, who considers him “Mad as the sea and wind, when both contend Which is the mightier: in his lawless fit” (IV.1.6-7). Struggling with mixed emotions of anger, anxiety, and grief over his father’s death, Hamlet feels betrayed by his mother “A little month, or ere those shoes were old with which she followed my poor father’s body” (I.2.147-148). Not only is he betrayed by his mother, but also by Ophelia, his love, as she takes the side of Claudius over his, because of her father, Polonius. This alone, makes it harder for him to speak with Ophelia and adds to the list of events that causes Hamlet to be at war with his inner