Who Is Hamlet?

Who is Hamlet?

Hamlet has one of the most compelling and complex personalities in literature. The play of Hamlet tells the readers that he is impulsive, intuitive, witty, conflicted, violent, brilliant, and charismatic just to name a few. In a way, his personality is a mixture of contradicting characteristics and that is what makes him so interesting. Reading the story, you’re really looking forward to see what Hamlet will do next and by examining a few personality traits he has, it helps us as the reader get who he is and what motivates him.

In the beginning of the play we learn that Hamlets father has died from what seems to be a natural death however, we soon learn that his own brother and Hamlet’s Uncle poisoned his father. It is thought that a snake had killed King Hamlet but young Hamlet learns the truth by his father’s ghost. Hamlet is completely distraught over his father’s death that even after a month and a few weeks’ passes he’s still dressed in black. His mother, like everyone else it seems, has moved on and takes notice with Hamlets appearance of mourning. Hamlet makes it clear that his grief is not only shown on the outside but inside as well. “These indeed ‘seem,’ for they are actions that a man might play. But I have that within which passeth show, these but the trappings and the suits of woe”(Act i.ii, 83-6). Hamlet cannot, even agreeing to stay in Denmark with his mother and uncle, forget his father even when all those around them have continued with their lives.

Speaking of those who around him have moved on with their lives, Hamlet’s remarkable grief is deepened by the actions of his mother, who married her brother in law within a month of her husbands death. This act by Gertrude, who Hamlet loved obviously at one time, makes him so sad and angry that he tortures himself with the memories of his late father’s actions and affections towards his mother. “So excellent a king, that was to his hyperion to a satyr, so loving to my mother, that he might not beteem the winds of heaven visit her face too roughly; heaven and earth, must I remember?” (Act i.ii, 141-45). With her actions of marrying too quickly, Hamlet’s image of his parents’ love is tarnished. As I said earlier as the play goes on and he learns that Claudius killed his father, this discontent with his mother turns into a sense of betrayal and rage, but Hamlet didn’t hate his mother, after all if he did he simply could of killed her without hesitation.

At this point, after Hamlet sees his fathers ghost; he is ready to avenge his fathers death and kill Claudius. He is basically an unmotivated person and prefers to think rather than act.