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Hamlet Tragic Hero Essay

793 Words4 Pages

he entire play of Hamlet revolves around Hamlet’s plot to kill his uncle and although the time span of the play is not entirely clear, it is obvious that Hamlet had been planning on killing his uncle for a long time but he opts to procrastinate. Hamlet finds out Claudius killed Hamlet Sr. in act one scene five and he even vows to kill Claudius in line 100-102 when he says,
I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past.
At this point Hamlet starts to over think and abandons the murder plot until act two, scene two (line 525- 530) when he gets upset at himself for delaying his revenge and decides to instead expose Claudius by putting on a play so that Claudius feels guilty and admits to killing Hamlet …show more content…

The epitome of a classical tragic hero is Oedipus who starts off as a good ruler who cares about the well-being of his people. The admiration that the audience feels for Oedipus at the beginning of the play is very far from their feelings about Hamlet at the beginning of the play Hamlet. Hamlet’s first appearance in the play is in act one scene two after Claudius addresses Laertes and Hamlet’s first dialogue in the play portrays him to have the same level of maturity as a whining pre-teen which is difficult to admire. Additionally, Hamlet portrays some characters of a tragic hero but he embodies more characteristics of a villain. In act three scene four, Hamlet kills Polonius who is an innocent man and rather than feeling remorse for killing a person or killing who he thinks is the king, he tries to direct the blame to Gertrude who thinks she is a widow for the second time (act three, scene four, line 29-30). Hamlet then decides to escape his actions by running away in act four, scene two. Hamlet’s inability to take responsibility for his actions and his lack of maturity are characteristics that make a character that the audience cannot admire or respect. Hamlet is a character that is hard to respect and admire which leads him to stray from the classical definition of a tragic hero requires the feeling of admiration from the

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