Indecision, Hesitation and Delay in Shakespeares Hamlet Essay

The Indecisiveness and Hesitation of Hamlet  Ã‚        Ã‚  Ã‚   In the Shakespearean drama Hamlet considerable literary critical comment swirls about the subject of the hero’s hesitation or indecision in the prayer scene. Is it weakness? Is it representative of a mental condition? Are there other incidences of hesitation? Let us explore the subject in this essay and interpret the key scene in light of other scenes, with input from literary critics.    David Bevington, in the Introduction to Twentieth Century Interpretations of Hamlet, eliminates some possible reasons for Hamlet’s hesitation in killing Claudius during the prayer scene:    Several limits can be placed upon the search for an explanation of Hamlet’s apparent hesitation to avenge. He is not ineffectual under ordinary circumstances. Elizabethan theories of melancholy did not suppose the sufferer to be made necessarily inactive. Hamlet has a deserved reputation in Denmark for manliness and princely demeanor. He keeps up his fencing practice and will â€Å"win at the odds† against Laertes. He threatens with death those who would restrain him from speaking with the ghost – even his friend Horatio – and stabs the concealed Polonius unflinchingly. On the sea voyage to England he boards a pirate ship single-handed in the grapple, after having arranged without remorse for the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. In light of these deeds, Hamlet’s self-accusations are signs of burning impatience in one who would surely act if he could. (5-6)    Harry Levin comments on Hamlet’s uncharacteristic hesitation in dispatching the king, in the General Introduction to The Riverside Shakespeare:    Comparably, Hamlet has been taken to task – or, perhaps more often, se... ...ilm, Television and Audio Performance. Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. P., 1988.    Levin, Harry. General Introduction. The Riverside Shakespeare. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1974.    Nevo, Ruth. â€Å"Acts III and IV: Problems of Text and Staging.† Modern Critical Interpretations: Hamlet. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1986. Rpt. from Tragic Form in Shakespeare. N.p.: Princeton University Press, 1972.    Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1995. http://www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/hamlet/full.html    West, Rebecca. â€Å"A Court and World Infected by the Disease of Corruption.† Readings on Hamlet. Ed. Don Nardo. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1999. Rpt. from The Court and the Castle. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1957.