Mental Decay In Hamlet

In his play Hamlet, Shakespeare relays the consequences of revenge through the love and loss of the main character, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Throughout the entirety of the storyline, each of Hamlet’s actions leads to the ultimate tragedy of his death. As outside forces, like the untimely murder of his father and remarriage of his mother to his uncle, fights against Hamlet, Hamlet fights inwardly as well. Not only destroying himself, Hamlet’s inner weakness leads to the deaths of those close to him. Through his hamartia, or tragic flaw, of responding in emotional impulsivity and mental instability to situations, Hamlet pens the fate of the entire play. Paralleling the deterioration of his mental state, Hamlet’s temperamental decisions, encouraged by his desire for revenge, propel the plot to its tragic ending. At the beginning of Hamlet, the young prince’s inner instability shines through in his

Without depression and suicidal thoughts, Hamlet never would have agreed to avenge his father, and would have never acted irrationally in killing Polonius. Additionally, Hamlet never would have revealed himself at the gravesite of Ophelia, had he a healthy mindset. Through the culmination of all these aspects, Shakespeare writes Hamlet as a character with whom the audience relates to on a basic human level. With each of his irrational decisions, Hamlet seems less like a character manipulated by an author for the sake of the plot, and becomes more like a regular man who feels anger, fear, and love. By writing Hamlet in this manner, Shakespeare formulates a poignant commentary on mental health, the archetypal story of revenge, and family. Though a fictional prince of Denmark, Hamlet truly represents the entirety of the human race as a creature of