Hamlet Tragedies Flaws And Honor Analysis

1180 Words5 Pages
| Tragedies, Flaws, and Honor | AP Literature and Composition | | | In Shakespeare’s tragic play, Hamlet, the main character, the Prince of Denmark, Hamlet caused the prolonged fall of Denmark through his tragic flaw: his inability to act. His inability to avenge his father’s murder caused conflict for Hamlet and everyone around him because as the future leader of Denmark he had to be sane and strong. His emotional soliloquys let the audience feel his frustrations and pains, but they also lead us to conclude that Hamlet had to clear his family name. In Hamlet’s first major soliloquy, Hamlet is emotionally distraught over his father’s death and his mother’s hasty remarriage. These two events cause him to wish that he could just “melt,” and that his “too sullied flesh” could just dissolve itself “into a dew.” He wishes that God’s laws did not forbid “self-slaughter.” He sees the world as “an unweeded garden” that grows to seed, and only produces things “rank and gross in nature.” His thoughts then drift to the source of his emotional pain: it has not yet been two months since his father’s death,…show more content…
For example, in the first three soliloquies, Hamlet was hesitant about avenging his father’s murder; he was looking for ways and reasons to stall. In his fourth and fifth soliloquies, he finally began to understand why he had to retaliate for his father’s murder: because he was the only one left to defend his family’s honor. His mother’s hasty marriage and father’s murder caused their name to be soiled and he was the only one who could save it. Thus, as a tragic hero he was able to clean his name but because it took him so long, it prolonged the fall of Denmark. His tragic flaw, inability to act, created so much conflict within himself that he, in other words, caused the fall of Denmark through weak leadership. Everyone was always concerned with him and that took attention away from the

More about Hamlet Tragedies Flaws And Honor Analysis

Open Document