Moral Ambiguity In Hamlet Essay

Clara Chen

Hamlet ICW Revision

Mrs. Yurchak

In Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, the prince of Denmark, Hamlet, is approached by his father's ghost, the last king, and told to avenge his murder by killing Hamlet’s uncle, Claudius. Throughout the play, Hamlet struggles to kill Claudius despite being given multiple opportunities. Hamlet shows no remorse for hurting characters he previously was close to through rashness and illogical/tunnel visioned thinking, painting him as an immoral character. Yet he also acts in the name of justice for his father, which partly defends his in-morality. These factors make it challenging to classify Hamlet’s character as good or evil. The morally ambiguous nature of Hamlet’s justifications and reasonings for wanting

Hamlet approaches Claudius with his sword drawn but notices he is praying. Hamlet notes that if he kills Claudius in prayer, he will avoid divine judgment and undeservingly go to heaven. This train of thought implies that Hamlet believes with different nature of Claudius’s death, God would condemn Claudius to hell to receive the appropriate punishment for his sins. If Hamlet hesitated because he knew killing someone in prayer is immoral according to his religion (which he implies by mentioning Claudius will automatically go to heaven), then his mercy was him acting morally. Yet, suppose he let Claudius live just to ensure he goes to hell because of Hamlet’s personal bias due to what his father’s ghost told him. In that case, Hamlet is acting out of a desire to satisfy his revenge mission, not out of morality. Hamlet’s reluctance could have also stemmed from believing Claudius was praying. Hamlet and the royal family are religious, which indicates he was likely

After Hamlet spares Claudius's life, he arranges a play to determine Claudius’s guilt. The plan succeeds, and later, Gertrude and Hamlet have an argument where she feels threatened and calls out for help. Polonius, the past and present king’s advisor hiding behind the arras yells as well. Unluckily for Polonius, Hamlet misinterprets his voice for Claudius and instantly stabs his sword at the arras, killing Polonius. This lack of hesitance is logical, as Hamlet had just confirmed that Claudius killed his father, which was a moral action as Hamlet truly wanted to avenge his father. However, when it is revealed that the murdered man is Polonius, Hamlet’s actions are incredibly immoral. Polonius was a family friend and advisor since Hamlet was young, and yet Hamlet dragged his body out of the room without a word. Dragging a dead body is extremely disrespectful, yet Hamlet does this to the past friend and innocent man he murdered. This disrespectful action, in hand with no words of remorse, indicates Hamlet has lost his morality. His lack of remorse for killing Polonius implies that Hamlet has become tunnel-visioned, only able to care about things relating to his goal of killing Claudius. When he recognizes he failed to achieve that and killed the wrong person, disappointment is likely the