What Hamlet Teaches Us About Revenge?

Hamlet is a revenge play. A bad guy kills someone; the son of the dead man wants to avenge it. The son carries out his promise, but in doing so he destroys himself. In Hamlet, the entire play has been centered on the task assigned by the ghost to Hamlet to avenge his father’s murder.

Hamlet abides with the responsibility of avenging his father’s horrible murder. However, he faces a problem. Should he believe in the ghost? The ghost could just be evil.

His first step is to test the truth of the ghost’s order, but this test causes delays. His extreme depression at his mother’s remarriage, and the fact that Claudius was made king, has made him sarcastic and disbelieving. A number of circumstances provide a series of obstacles that Hamlet must overcome in order to achieve his revenge. This, however, affects Hamlet on a spiritual level, as he accepts that both good and evil exist in the world.

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. His nobility and balance is at constant war with each other from the beginning to the end of the play. The concerns Hamlet has for Claudius and Gertrude are obvious, at the time, the church considered marriage to a sister in law similar to incest. To him, she is the one who has shown hypocrisy and he does not agree with her ‘seems’.

Hamlet’s concerns for Denmark is purely centered around the king and the influence he might have on the rest of the kingdom. Hamlet makes use of a double meaning pun that illustrates his dislike towards Claudius’s insincerity and Claudius’s attempt to clear up what has happened.

Hamlet displays clear unfriendliness, Hamlet is now closer in relation to Claudius, but he resents him and has no feelings of liking and kindness towards Claudius. Hamlet hates Claudius for all that he did to get the only thing he desired, power. Hamlet is put in various situations in which he has the opportunity to murder Claudius.

The seed of doubt is planted into Hamlet. Could everything Ghost Hamlet said not be true? Was Hamlet just insane and everything he said was just an illusion or a bad dream? Hamlet is fearful that this could all be a hoax. Therefore, Claudius’ death is delayed according to everything Hamlet has to go through to be convinced that Claudius did in fact murder his father. First, Hamlet has to prove that Claudius is in fact the murderer. Hamlet organizes a play that is completely reenacting King Hamlet's death exactly how Ghost Hamlet had described it. Claudius instantly storms out in guilt as he saw part of the play. Then, Hamlet once again gets another chance to kill Claudius. Hamlet finds Claudius praying for forgiveness for all that he has done. Hamlet then decides not to kill him as he is afraid Claudius would go to heaven for praying. Revenge had almost consumed him enough to betray his religion.

Revenge can take a completely different route as might be intended. Revenge is something that one can not control how far it may go. Occasionally it might go just how we wanted it, but more than often it backfires on us. Our soccer team was playing the top contender for the state championship, but I could not play because of an injury. Our team was getting torn apart as I could only sit on the bench and watch it happen. We lost eleven to two to Century High School. I was enraged not so much because of the loss, but because of how cocky they were after they won. I made sure I had recovered by the next time we played them. I was not going to let them tear us apart as they did. On a Thursday night, they arrive. It's a home game, Burley versus Century on senior night and I score the game-winner ending with a two to one lead. It was a great feeling. Next game we win a ticket to the district playoffs by beating Minico. We get drawn against the still state title favorites. This is my chance to get my complete revenge by knocking them out of the tournament and sending them home. The scores are zero to zero, I go in for a challenge and put my foot in front of the ball to cover it and the other player with all his strength hits my ankle. The pain was so bad I had to go down. I thought he might have just hit a nerve and I could just walk it off, but it turned out it was an ankle fracture. I was so disappointed in myself as in the time I am out the opponents score four goals. I could not just sit there and watch us get torn apart again so I lie to my coaches and tell them I am okay. I manage to get one goal back to make it four to one. The last whistle blows and I shove my head in my shirt in disappointment realizing I had focused so much on getting my revenge, and not so much on actually getting the win. Revenge had taken control of me and it took a turn for the worse.

Hamlet kills someone else in the crossfire though, he kills Polonius. The right hand of Claudius is murdered and Claudius knowing that Hamlet knows about his sin is quick to take action. Claudius explains his plan to Laertes to kill Hamlet and with Laertes raging for revenge, there is no hesitation. Laertes and Hamlet have a fencing duel and Laertes gives Hamlet a slash. Then as soon as they continue to battle they hit swords and they fall to the ground and they both end up getting the opposite sword. Hamlet gets Laertes’ sword that has poison on the tip and kills Laertes with a hit. Hamlet later dies with the slash of poison he got. The revenge is endless and so are the deaths. All for the vengeance of a dead man.