Why Did Hamlet Want To Kill Claudius

As defined by the Oxford dictionary, revenge is “the action of inflicting hurt or harm on someone for an injury or wrong suffered at their hands.” It is based upon the principle of an eye for an eye, but it also causes one to act blindly through rage, rather than through reason. In Shakespeare’s Tragedy of Hamlet, Hamlet, Fortinbras, and Laertes all seek to avenge the deaths of their fathers, leading to the deaths of two of them because they were so clouded by emotion. Hamlet seeks to kill the newly crowned King Claudius because he murdered his father, King Hamlet, by poison: "The serpent that did sting thy father's life now wears his crown." Prince Fortinbras of Norway wants to attack Denmark because his father, King Fortinbras, died by the

Hamlet, however, even with the perfect opportunity, pulls back, because he wants to kill Claudius while he is not saved so he will go to hell and not heaven when he dies. While his excuse for not killing him was not unreasonable, Hamlet yet again proved to be doubtful of his mission, which also puts into question what the hero will gain out of killing Claudius: “Now might I do it pat, now he is praying, And now I'll do 't. [He draws his sword.] And so he goes to heaven, And so am I revenged. That would be scanned: A villain kills my father, and for that, I, his sole son, do this same villain send To heaven” (3.3.77-83). Sure, he will be dead, but maybe death will be too quick for what he had done, perhaps death will not make him suffer. Hamlet now has to wait until Claudius committed another sin to kill him, but now that the King knows that he is aware of the murder, he must find a way to seem innocent.
This decision further deepens the plot, taking a toll on other characters like the domino effect. Hamlet pretends to be insane to convince Claudius of his ignorance., so the king sends Polonius to spy on Hamlet to find out whether or not his insanity is a ruse. Hamlet, in a conversation with his mother, realizes that someone is eavesdropping behind the curtains and, without even checking who it was,

Ophelia seems to lose sanity and is so distraught that she ends up falling into a brook and drowning. Laertes, on his end, seeks revenge for his father's undeserved death. At first, he turns to Claudius, blaming him for his death, but Claudius reveals that it was Hamlet who killed Polonius. The king, wanting Hamlet dead to serve his agenda, provokes Laertes by not only reinforcing the fact that he killed his father but also by blaming him for Ophelia’s death, saying that it is his fault because he played with her feelings and drove her mad by killing her father. Laertes reacts just as the king wants and becomes bloodthirsty and the two devise a plot to poison Hamlet in a duel.
The lengths Claudius goes to provoke Laertes shows just how emotion-driven the act of revenge is because love does, in fact, make one blind. Laertes becomes so angry that he is willing to go against his own beliefs to get his revenge, “Claudius Hamlet comes back; what would you undertake To show yourself indeed your father's son More than in words? Laertes To cut his throat i' th' church.”, however, the fact that this mindset had to be triggered by Claudius shows that revenge is not the best and only solution when you have been