Hamlet's Responsibility
In the play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, Hamlet is presented as a devoted son to the memory of his father King Hamlet. It is not until after he is visited by the ghost of the dead king that he is faced with the decision of what his responsibilities are in finding out and avenging any wrong doing's that may be related fathers death. Although Hamlet does wind up fulfilling his responsibilities to the ghost, he waits as long as possible to makes sure the information he received was one hundred percent true before doing so. When Prince Hamlet returns home after hearing of his fathers death, he is in great mourning for the obvious reason that he greatly respected and looked up to his father. At the same time that he is coping with this great loss in his life, he is also perplexed by the marriage of his mother, the queen, to his Uncle Claudius. The reason that he found this unsettling, other then the fact that she had chosen his father's brother as her new husband, was that she had done so in such an obscenely short amount of time. The prince knew something was wrong with the situation, but never suspected any foul play in his father's death until the ghost of his father visited him. When Hamlet saw the ghost for th
e first time his reaction was to be fearful of it. He questioned his own sanity and could not believe what he was seeing. After the ghost told him what had happened his reaction turned to astonishment and disbelief that such a horribly tainted act could have taken place, right in the home that he was raised. Despite the fact that he was very skeptical about the information the ghost was giving him, he was still disgusted about his mother's actions, and vengeful towards his uncle. Hamlet has a very hard time morally dealing with what he is supposedly required to do in order to avenge his father's death. At the start of the duel Claudius makes Hamlet believe that he is actually hoping for Hamlet to be victorious. In actuality he had not only poisoned Laertes sword but the wine that was intended for Hamlet. After Hamlet had delivered the first blow, Claudius attempts to coax him into taking a sip of the poisoned wine. After he states that he will wait until after the second blow, the queen drinks from the tainted cup. Amidst the confusion of the heated duel the poisoned blade wounds both participants. It is soon after this that the queen falls over and confesses to the crowd that she was poisoned. Once this announcement is made and he watches his mother die, anger comes over the prince. Laertes then proceeds to inform Hamlet of the treachery that was compiled by Cladius, and that they were both dying. In a fit of rage Hamlet stabs the king with the poisoned sword and then proceeds to force him to drink from the cup which killed his mother. The person who was solely responsible for the death of the king was Claudius. In order to carry out the ghost's requests, Prince Hamlet would have no other choice than to kill his uncle. His reasons for delaying as long as he did before carrying out this act, were not that he was afraid of Claudius, but
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Approximate Word count = 1266
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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