Procrastination of Hamlet

 

Procrastination of Hamlet

 

          William Shakespeare is said to be not of an age, but of all time and not of a land but of all lands. He had an amazing genius for words.  Hamlet is considered as one of the best tragedies of Shakespeare.  The mental torture that Hamlet faces makes this tragedy at the top of all tragedies of Shakespeare.  The death of his father and the hasty marriage of his mother with Claudius shattered Hamlet.  When the ghost of his father appeared and asked him to take revenge upon his uncle Claudius, who had killed him, Hamlet decided to kill his uncle.  But there appeared procrastination.  Though he was fully aware that Procrastination as the thief of time, he postponed his revenge.  He unnecessarily delayed to get confirmed whether it was Claudius, who had killed his father.  But unfortunately he had to pay a big price for his delay.

          There is a play within the play in the third act.  Before that Hamlet asks one of the players to deliver a dialogue from Virgil’s Aeneus.  When he saw the genuine emotion of the actor on his narrating the pathetic condition of Hecuba, after her husband Priam’s death, Hamlet delivers a soliloquy.  There Hamlet bitterly scolds himself for his ruthless delay to execute his revenge.  He calls himself as “A dull and muddy-mettled rascal”.  He even considers himself as a prostitute and a kitchen menial, who suffer everything and lead a life of shame and vulgar as he can’t take revenge upon his uncle.  However, he finds the reason that causes procrastination in him.  So he wants to play, ‘Mouse trap’ and catch the king red handed.  He says

          “The Play’s the thing

          Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.”

Thus he justifies his procrastination.  Moreover he doubts the ghost and thinks that sometimes it may deceive him and lead him to commit the sin of murder.  So, he wants to get confirmed of the crime of Claudius before taking revenge.

          Then in his soliloquy, “To be or not to be, that is the question’, Hamlet has a doubt in his mind.  He is in a dilemma: whether he has to suffer silently the cruelties of fate or to put an end to all the sufferings by committing suicide.  As he doesn’t know what is waiting for him after his death, he decides not to commit suicide.  Thus this soliloquy reveals the speculative nature of Hamlet than any other soliloquy.  Here he becomes more of a philosopher than a man of action by saying,

          “Thus conscience does make cowards of us all”

          In another situation, he hesitates to kill his uncle on his finding him in prayer.  He thinks that as Claudius is in direct connection with God then, his killing him will send him to heaven.  When his father gets tortured in Hell, how can he send his murderer to heaven?  So, he decides not to kill him then.  He puts his sword down by saying

          “And now I’ll do it,

            And so a goes to Heaven’

Instead, he decides to wait for an opportunity, where he may find him sleep and drunk or do some equally wicked deed.  Here he evades the responsibility that has been entrusted to him by the ghost, by finding same reasons not to kill his uncle.  Thus Hamlet’s procrastination becomes the assassin of opportunity.  As Hamlet is a man of moral idealism he shows an unlimited delight and faith in everything that’s good and beautiful.  So, it is clear that the revenge is delayed because of  the peculiar temperament and character of  him.  Instead he might have killed his uncle and revealed the truth to all.  Thus he could have made his revenge an inevitable one.  But that he never did. So, his delay makes many die including the innocent people like Ophelia and Laertes.  Thus the procrastination of Hamlet becomes the main villain in the play that creates all the troubles in Hamlet’s life.

Woman Characters in Hamlet have been designed to be called as "Frailty thy name is woman"

 

          Shakespeare's Hamlet is remarkable for its richness and variety, its fullness of interesting characters, and its striking contrasts. There are only two female characters, Gertrude and Ophelia. Both are sincerely loving Hamlet and are loved by Hamlet. But the words and deeds of them make big wounds in the mind of Hamlet. Mainly the hasty second marriage of his mother with his uncle Claudius ruins Hamlet. His concept about women changes, and he generalizes that all women are weak and they have no strength of character. His remark 'Frailty thy name is woman' is fully applicable to both the female characters in the play. This remark comes in the soliloquy that he makes just after the urge of his mother and uncle Claudius not to go to the University.

          Hamlet recalls the profuse tears that his mother had shed at the time of his father's death. Like Niobe she had followed his father's dead body to the graveyard. He wonders how it was possible to get married to Claudius within a month, who is far inferior to his father.  Moreover, he deplores the fact that she has now entered into an incestuous relationship by getting married to her late husband's brother.  In his opinion, his mother's behaviour is proof of frailty.  Moreover, the Ghost of his father tells Hamlet that Gertrude had been having an incestuous relationship with Claudius during the very lifetime of her, with his first husband. This adds fuel to the fire of his hatred towards women.  Actually, Gertrude is fully aware that the main causes of the disappointment are both the death of his father and her hasty remarriage with Claudius.  But, she miserably failed to think about it before the marriage.  This later realization is also a powerful evidence that makes us think that she is weak-minded and weak-willed.

          When Hamlet has his private interview with his mother, she asks if a middle-aged woman like her has behaved in this manner under the influence of her lust, how would a young woman behave under the influence of her youthful passion. Gertrude begs Hamlet not to go on talking to her in that manner. She says, "these words like daggers enter in my ears". These all show that Gertrude has realized her mistake, but she is incapable of either convincing her son or avoiding the incestuous relationship with her existing husband. Thus, she proves to herself again and again that she is too frail to tackle the problems of her life.

          But, when Ophelia says that she wants to return all the gifts that Hamlet had given her as tokens of love, he gets angry. He thinks that she must have taken that decision under the influence of her father. Then he begins to talk in a most cynical manner about the chastity of women. Here he thinks about his mother and believes that all beautiful women have a tendency to become immoral. He advises Ophelia, "Get thee to a nunnery." The fact that Hamlet once loved Ophelia becomes clear from his behaviour in the graveyard when he challenges Laertes saying that forty thousand brothers could not love Ophelia as much as he loved her. But later, he suppresses his love for her and behaves as if he were no longer interested in her.

Moreover, Ophelia fails to understand Hamlet. She decides to dance according to the tunes of her father. This is nothing but the frailty of Ophelia. Then she too becomes a frail character in this play.  Both Ophelia and Gertrude have miserable deaths in the play. As they were very weak, they couldn't survive.  However, the words of Ophelia and the deeds of his mother might have made Hamlet think like this and deliver the sentence, "Frailty thy name is woman".

---Thulasidharan V