Historic Predictable Irrationality
In William Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet, almost all of the characters allow their emotions to cause the to act on impulse and behave irrationally. Throughout Hamlet, the emotions and impulsiveness of the characters dictate many of the various actions and events that transpire. This first occurs at the very beginning of the play when Claudius murders the King who is his brother, simply to gain the throne. The impulsiveness continues in many different forms including Gertrude immediately marrying Claudius after her husband’s death which in response added to Hamlet’s crippling depression. This concept of impulsiveness further deteriorates the rationalities of the characters through many accidents and events that
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Anger is experienced by almost all characters in Hamlet on and off throughout the play, but in the finale, more anger and hate is displayed there than in all the collective of the Tragedy of Hamlet acts combined. Dan Ariely continues to deduce that, the concept of being impassioned can severely affect our decisions in the heat of the moment and what we deem as acceptable (133). The majority of anger is displayed primarily by Hamlet himself once he is given his chance to display his anger in its entirety, which culminates with him killing Laertes and Claudius in Hamlet’s immense state of anger. Dan Ariely makes an adequate representation of how self-control and immediate gratification for our actions play a big part in how individuals can be so irrational (157). Hamlet’s truly embodies the concept of the appeal of immediate gratification in that during the final scene of fighting, he commits actions that he may not have had he not been so immensely affected by his emotions, particularly the sting of anger. The irrationality of humans is driven by emotion, but the majority of the reasons for why these irrational actions seem justifiable is because of our impulsiveness in the heat of the moment that we experience. We become impassioned and commit actions that in rationality, make no sense. It is only when we are aware of our tendencies and feelings, that we can divert the path to irrationality and allow rational thought and decision to