The problem of choice in the tragedy of W. Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”


To be or not to be, that is the question.

V. Shakespeare. Hamlet

The tragedy of W. Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” is rightly recognized as one of the greatest philosophical tragedies, since it touches upon questions that for centuries worried thinking people: what is life and what is death? what is the cause of misfortunes and misfortunes in the destiny of man? can a person avoid or destroy evil, or should one accept life as it is?

We are present at the birth and development of the internal conflict of Prince Danish Hamlet. What was its cause?

The king, Hamlet’s father, dies under unclear circumstances, and the mother, without waiting a month of mourning after his death, marries Claudius, the brother of the late king, and shares with him the throne.

The ghost of his father, telling Hamlet the real cause of the death of the king, calls the prince to revenge.

All this breaks Hamlet’s ideas about the world and its place in

it. Most of all, it’s not the very fact of a terrible crime that hurts him, but the fact that Claudius preserves the face of virtue and decency, and the mother-queen stands next to him:

No month! And the shoes
in which the father’s coffin accompanied…

So evil and injustice enter Hamlet’s life, and he realizes that he will never be the same again. The prince decides to oppose the evil, but he remains alone, as his school friends betray him, and the beloved becomes an obedient tool in the hands of the enemies. Hamlet’s trials shook his faith in man.

The Prince wears a mask of insanity that helps him to hide bitterness, confusion and pain and gives him the right to speak the truth in the face of people without embellishing it. It’s terrible that everyone accepts Hamlet’s disease at face value.

Hamlet is a man of his time and lives by his laws, which require immediate revenge for his father. But the prince does not want to assimilate the murderer Claudius, “a thief who steals power and the state.” He does not want to kill, but to expose

the evil, and therefore he waits, experiencing heavy guilt of conscience because of his inactivity. However, this postponement gives him the opportunity and time to address the most important questions about the choice, meaning of life, the fate of the century:

To be or not to be, that is the question.
Resigned to the blows of fate
Or should be resisted
And in a mortal battle with a whole sea of ​​misery
End them at once. Die. To forget
And to know that by this cut off the chain of
Heart Torture and the thousands of hardships that Affect the body…

Hamlet rejects thoughts of suicide right away, because he understands that this will not solve the problem and will not bring relief to his suffering heart.

“To be” for a prince is to resist evil, to act in accordance with one’s beliefs and faith. But even here everything is not so simple, because evil is not in one Claudia, but the whole world is full of injustice and deceit. Hamlet takes on the task of “restoring” the shattered age, but realizes how this task is unreasonable for one person.

Accelerating the tragedy, Hamlet accidentally kills Polonius, Ophelia’s father. Soon because of the prince, the girl loses her mind.

These troubles drive Hamlet, he reproaches himself for slowness and indecision, because revenge has not yet been realized. But his disobedience and external resistance have already done their job: Claudius’s conscience is hurt, and he has lost peace, the people in the country murmur.

Fleeing from the prince and wanting his death, the king sends him to England, but Hamlet destroyed his plans, suddenly returning. With bitterness the prince learns of the death of Ophelia, his beloved. In addition, the brother of Ophelia, Laertes, who is full of hatred for Hamlet came and is eager to avenge his father. Unlike Hamlet himself, whose father is murdered treacherously and villainously, Laertes does not want to wait and is not too discreet about the choice of means of revenge. He conspired with the king, after which Hamlet is invited to a “friendly” duel, where Laertes must injure him with a poisoned rapier. Before the fight, Hamlet, suspecting another deception and villainy, does not change either himself or his moral principles. He admits his guilt for the accidental murder of Polonius and asks Laertes for forgiveness.

Laertes also begins a treacherous duel, without warning the prince of danger. Constantly waiting for some next misfortune, Hamlet did not even guess how tragic the ending of this story will be. The queen is poisoned, the king is stabbed. Laertes and Hamlet himself perish from the poison deposited on the point of the rapier. But the victory remains for Hamlet, since revenge is committed, evil is exposed, justice has triumphed. Horatio will tell the world and us, the descendants, about this story, which not only can push us to search for answers to the questions posed in it, but also to make the right choice.


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The problem of choice in the tragedy of W. Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”