William J. Shakespeare's Hamlet: An Analysis of Revenge Quest & Procrastination

Abstract

In expounding Shakespeare’s Hamlet, a trio of important plots comes to the top with great significance; the revenge plot, the Hamlet-Ophelia romance story, and Norway’s looming war. The trio of significant plots has laid the first stone for Hamlet to procrastinate the act of revenge as it is undone until the final act of Shakespeare’s drama. On the other hand, Hamlet’s playwright gives a picture of the tradition’s direct reference using the literary device Metadrama, i.e. the play within the play exemplified by The Murder of Gonzago. Attaining true justice for his father’s murder, Hamlet beautifies The Murder of Gonzago with grim insistence; Hamlet is determined to recognize the culprit behind the death of his father. Having this uneasy mission comes true causes Hamlet to ponder and slow down about various things. Along these lines, Hamlet goes through a slow decision process to revenge on his father’s murderer. Consequently, various deaths happen, namely: Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, Laertes, and Gertrude. Shakespeare’s exposition of various characters incapable of revenging heroically and determinedly draws a picture of Hamlet’s incapability to promptly avenge. Laertes, for example, plots to murder Hamlet to avenge for murdering Polonius, Laertes’s father, and in the last part of this play, Laertes successfully kills Hamlet with the poisonous sword. As various studies focus on the issues of romance, politics, and throne successions using descriptive and historical approaches, this study using the analytical approach, however, demonstrates Hamlet as a play structured on revenge, as the whole revenge events are appropriately incorporated by Shakespeare.