Revenge is a retaliatory action to the unfairness of either insult or one’s death. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the theme of revenge is presented in various ways. Hamlet’s approach to the revenge he had promised to enact against Claudius, in the play, was marred by his indecisiveness, whereas Laertes’s quest for revenge is based on his rashness and impulsiveness. While both Hamlet and Laertes are bent on revenge, their motives and ability to act differ dramatically. Hamlet is clearly a rational thinker in vengeance, as he thoughtfully and hesitantly makes each step. Informed the cause of his father’s death at the beginning, Hamlet dares not to go off to the deep end to avenge on Claudius until the end of the play. Thus, he feels depressed and confused throughout the entire process of his revenge. Revenge itself is a rational behavior to Hamlet, requiring basic knowledge of deceptions, prudent plans, and dispassionate judgments. The encounter with his father-like ghost alters Hamlet who asked his fellows to “swear by his sword” use the act, scene, line, citation(p65) that they would “never make known what they have seen to-night”. (Act 1, scene 5, p64) Nevertheless, due to …show more content…
While Hamlet is concerned whether revenge is reasonable, Laertes focuses on how to “revenge most thoroughly”. (Act 4, Scene 5, p156) At the moment Laertes hears about his father Polonius’s death, he, armed with Danes, recklessly breaks into the castle in Denmark. He is too angry thinking about revenging that he doesn’t notice Claudius watching his actions while planning on a backup plan to kill Hamlet. Out of this accumulative anger and grief of vengeance, Laertes is an easy victim of Claudius’s manipulation, becoming a tool of the King in the murder of Hamlet. He agrees to put poison on the sword instead of considering his own risk of death, which, indeed, demonstrates Laertes’s impulsion in