Morality And Irrationality In Shakespeare's Hamlet

480 Words2 Pages

In William Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet, Ophelia and Hamlet allow many things to cause them to behave irrationally. She allows Hamlet to consume her thoughts and everyday life. She does not want to listen to anyone’s advice, even if she knows what they are saying about Hamlet is true. Hamlet and Ophelia have a slight age difference and very different mindsets, therefore Hamlet is worried about many other things besides Ophelia. She eventually can no longer handled the feeling of being denied and willingly commits suicide. Throughout the book, Hamlet has many reason to behave irrationally. The first and most major reason is that his father was killed by his own uncle. Not only that but his uncle then decides to marry his mother and become the king. Hamlet is disgusted by the invest going on in his family and is soon set out to kill his uncle. His father’s ghost comes and speaks to him and encourages him to seek his revenge. Once he sees his father would agree with the idea of killing Claudius, he has a stronger urge to do it. Hamlet and his father were very close so talking to the ghost and obeying it seemed very important to him. Everyone around Hamlet seemed to be quickly over his father’s death and he was the only one still holding …show more content…

According to behavioral economist Dan Ariely, our decision making can sometimes change in times of strong emotion. Whereas we may not do something in our normal mind, when we feel a certain type of way our decisions might be different. This shows throughout the story when the characters are extremely hurt or heartbroken. Both Ophelia and Hamlet suffered from the loss of their fathers. Not only that but their forbidden love for each other. Both of these instances can cause a lot of emotional pain and in both situations, something important to them is lost. When people are hurt it can causes them to do a lot of things that seem