Perhaps the play Hamlet can be
considered as a tragedy of Hamlet. For, Hamlet's vacillation between resolve and doubt
is what drives the tragic events to the final act and Hamlet's demise. Thus, the
greatest conflict is within Hamlet himself, rather the drive for revenge. He is, then,
existentially his own adversary.
Undoubtedly, the
soliloquies of Hamlet are what propel the drama and action of Shakespeare's play. In
his first soliloquy, for instance, Hamlet becomes passionately resolved to avenge his
father's murder. However, by the second soliloquy, he has descended into a dark
melancholy in which "Man delights me not, nor woman neither" (2.2.300). Much of the
plot, then, revolves around Hamlet's attempts to ascertain the guilt of Claudius, for in
his self-debate and vacillation, he worries that if Claudius is not, indeed, culpable he
will be put to death for the crime of regicide. Yet, he is taken with the tears of an
actor for a pretended situation, and berates himself for his lack of action, returning
again to resolve, "The play's the thing!"
This pattern of
resolve followed by inaction is recurrent throughout the play as Hamlet even debates
existence. His final action come not so much from a desire to kill Claudius as it seems
to stem from his attempt to show himself a man like
Fortinbras,
...a delicate and tender
prince,
Whose spirit, with divine ambition
puffed,
Makes mouths at the invisible
event,
Exposing what is mortal and
unsure
To all that fortune, death, and danger
dare,
Even for an eggshell.
(4.4.48-53)
Finally, in a act
that emulates that of Fortinbras in his courage and integrity, Hamlet, too, "exposes
what is mortal and unsure" to death and danger inorder to prove "This is I,/Hamlet the
Dane," a prince of integrity, as well.
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