Hamlet is Too Smart for Himself :: English Literature Essays

Why Hamlet is Too Smart for Himself Hamlet only kills Claudius when he has also murdered the queen, Laertes, and has also poisoned himself. It takes a threat of death to do what his own dead father orders him to do. A largely held opinion is that he is to emotional to do it, but it is when his emotions all come together that he murders Polonius. Another opinion is that he to full of morals to kill, but how then can he alter a note and literally sentence two old friends who were just following orders too death. It is also believed that he is too cowardly to go through with it, but if a man is bold enough to face a ghost, confront a queen and kill an eavesdropper, than what should stop him from avenging his father and ridding Denmark of the disease that infests it's royal line. The answer is simple, he is to smart to get around to doing it. Hamlet's is a mind to be reckoned with. He thinks things out rather than just act on impulse. No matter what the situation, there is always something that stands in his way that a more impulsive, emotional man might overlook or just ignore. By thinking things over he gives Claudius time to figure out what he knows. If he had acted faster things may have turned out differently for our intellectual prince. The Brain can be a slow, bungling thing that is constantly tripping over it's own feet whereas a body controlled by emotion knows no limits. A complex mind will often add more and more factors and problems into the situation than is necessary. For example, why feign madness? What purpose does this really serve? All it did was isolate him from those that he loved. Rather than directly confront the king, Hamlet embarks upon a wild, complex scheme to discredit and trap Claudius. Wouldn't it have helped things out a lot more to forgo the charade and just be good old Hamlet. That way nobody would have suspected anything and Hamlet would have had lots more emotional support from those that meant the most to him. Don't get me wrong though. Some of Hamlet's plans almost worked out. The play for example. Claudius was so filled with rage that he was reduced to a stuttering imbecile and was ready to slaughter the actors right out in front of everybody.