Hamlet Tragic Flaw Essay

In life, everyone experiences things that makes them angry, and revenge is a frequent rebuttal to those things. In the play Hamlet, William Shakespeare incorporates psychological and emotional boundaries to show why Hamlet delays his revenge on King Claudius for the murder of his father King Hamlet Sr. and to relate to the themes of morality, revenge, and madness. Shakespeare created Hamlet with a tragic flaw that all tragic heroes have. A tragic flawa characteristic or quality that leads to the tragic hero’s downfall or demise. In Hamlets case, Shakespeare created him with a tragic flaw of inability. This inability causes Hamlet to become mentally paralyzed when he is confronted by the ghost of his Father, King Hamlet Sr. This confrontation

He has to deal with tough issues but, him being a tragic hero gives him the courage to tackle them with precautions. Hamlets trait of self-doubt begins after his confrontation with the ghost (source 1), “Rest, rest, perturbèd spirit! —So, gentlemen, with all my love I do commend me to you, and what so poor a man as Hamlet is may do, to express his love and friending to you, God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together, and still your fingers on your lips, I pray. The time is out of joint. O cursèd spite, that ever I was born to set it right! Nay, come, let’s go together.” (1.5.8.183) (source 6). This experience with the ghost exposes his tragic flaw of inability and his flaw of self-doubt, which connects to the themes of culture and madness which halts his quick revenge of his father’s murderous death due to his religious knowledge of sins and repentance (source 1). Hamlets most famous soliloquy, “To be, or not to be? That is the question— Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And, by opposing, end them? To die, to sleep— No more—and by a sleep to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation devoutly to be wished! To die, to sleep.” (3.1.3) (source 6), reveals to the reader that Hamlet truly experiences moments of self-doubt

To contrast, it could be a psychological disorder that is referred to as the Oedipal Complex, which is the desire of the child to be sexually connected to their parent (source 3). These both could be caused by him not achieving the role of king or feeling excluded as his father is no longer present. In the matters of morality Hamlet says, ‘Now could I drink hot blood, / And do such bitter business as the day / Would quake to look on’ (3.2.390-92) (source 6)., which shows how he understands the trouble in his anger but his desire for revenge shuts out his sane thoughts. To add Hamlet mentions, ‘some vicious mole of nature’ and ‘the stamp of one defect’ (1.4.24, 31) (source 6), which in turn lets the readers know that if the horrible action hadn’t scarred Hamlet with the magnitude that it did, in the end, only Claudius would have been struck down (source 2). With the matter of the Oedipal Complex which is a mental disease mentioned in words of the famous Sigmund Freud, Hamlet becomes aggressive and feels the need to require a sexual connection with his mother, Gertrude. The lust could be a reason for Hamlets halt of revenge as it might persuade her into a different direction sexually. This desire can be seen in Act III, Scene IV