William Shakespeare's Hamlet

The play Hamlet by William Shakespeare begins with the death of King Hamlet. His death is quickly followed by his wife, Queen Gertrude’s, remarriage to his brother, Claudius. But his son, Prince Hamlet, is devastated. He deeply mourns the loss of his father, and seeing his mother remarry so soon confuses and angers him. Meanwhile, his friends are confronted by his father’s ghost and tell the prince. His father’s ghost tells Hamlet that he was murdered by his brother, King Claudius. Hamlet wants to avenge his father’s death, but he wants to be sure what the ghost told him is true. In Hamlet’s soliloquy at the end of Act 2 Scene 2, he struggles with himself. Conflicted, he goes back and forth over whether he should kill King Claudius. Even in revenge, it is against his character to murder, but Hamlet wants to avenge his father’s death. “May be the devil, and the devil hath power/ T' assume a pleasing shape. Yea, and perhaps/ Out of my weakness and my melancholy,/ As he is very potent with such spirits,/

He calls himself “a rogue and peasant slave,” a low-life, for not being able to express his intentions as well as the actors that he watches perform. (II.ii.578). Hamlet asks, “Am I a coward? For it cannot be/ But I am pigeon-livered and lack gall to make oppression bitter” (II.ii.598-605). He feels that he is weak for not being able to act on his feelings and express his intentions as well as the actors. Hamlet uses similes to criticize himself. He says, “Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,/ That I, the son of a dear [father] murdered,/ Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,/ Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words/ And fall a-cursing like a very drab,/ A stallion! Fie upon ‘t! Foh!/ About, my brains!” (611-617). Hamlet thinks he is also a liar and a coward because his father has been murdered, but all he can do is stand around