What Is Hamlet's Downfall

An honorable king was sleeping in the garden, a man driven for the crown and kills his own brother, A wife to the old king and a wife to the new king, and the son who is caught up in the middle of it all. These are all characters in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Hamlet encounters his deceased father’s ghost, who reveals to Hamlet how he really died...murder. Hamlet embarks on a mission to avenge his father’s death. He must kill the new king. Hamlet is provided with many opportunities to avenge his death, but never takes one up, because he let his conscience get in the way of taking action. In Hamlet, Hamlet illustrates his traits as tragic flaws which eventually leads to his downfall because he thinks and stalls too much which ends up with everyone dying in the end.

Because since everything is overthought it affects his relationships with the other characters. Due to his actions the relationship between him and his mother is ruined since he doesn’t trust her because of Claudius. “Now might I do it pat, now he is praying and now I’ll do it and so he goes to heaven.” Hamlet expresses that if he kills him now while he is confessing and apologizing for all of his wrong doings that Claudius could have a chance to go to heaven. The ghost motivated Hamlet the most in the story, because he told Hamlet how his brother killed him and how he needed to get revenge. When Hamlet heard what happened that’s when he started to get really motivated and hungry for revenge. “To be or not to be…” Hamlet’s famous to be or not to be is a prime example of why Hamlet thinks too much into things. He compares whether or not it is better to live or commit suicide. He proposes that maybe it is better to die so that he doesn’t have to kill Claudius. Hamlet’s overthinking really ends the play because once everything happens and he kills the king they all