What Makes Hamlet's Tragic Flaw

Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a tragedy which is built upon moral and emotional conflicts and casts a doubt in reader/audience’s mind about the personality of the protagonist. Unlike Shakespeare’s other tragic heroes, who take quick action, Hamlet is often characterized with idealism and procrastination. He is posed by big philosophical questions and preoccupied with his thoughts. This preoccupation lends an aura to the audience that Hamlet’s tragic flaw lies in his inaction. William Hazlitt claims that “Hamlet is a name: his speeches and sayings but the idle coinage of the poet’s brain” (71). He further throws light upon the character of Hamlet and presumes the viewpoint that Hamlet’s “ruling passion is to think, not to act” (74). This particular …show more content…
His father is slain by his treacherous uncle who has usurped the throne and deprived Hamlet of his due right. Now it is up to him to decide that whether he wants to suffer the misfortune throughout his life or take revenge of his father’s murder by facing the trials and tribulations. He is alone in his struggle like a one man army. He decides to take revenge, come what may. He takes arms against a sea of troubles and dives deep into it. He is to oppose his uncle and chooses the hard path which leads to his death. But death does not matter to him; it is the doing, the action. He has devised many strategies to take action. The very first approach he adopts is his feigned insanity. He has crafty madness at his disposal as he points out “I essentially am not in madness, but mad in craft (154). His madness is an active working agent. Just as Iago uses the words as his tool to manipulate Othello, Hamlet uses his madness as a tool to sketch out his plans. His thoughts are not idle but busy in planning. By wearing the garb of insanity, he does not let others believe that he is …show more content…
He knows when and where to kill and he does so. When Claudius gets a feeling of apprehension from Hamlet, he decides to send him to England and get him killed there. He employs Rosencrantz and Guildenstern for this purpose. But Hamlet gets hold of the letter and orders to kill these two spies out of his own defense mechanism. He could have saved himself by staying away but he comes back and is ready to come face to face with Laertes and kills him, gets killed bringing forth the deaths of queen and king. In short, he actively and consciously wages a war with the king and employs strategies to kill him, no matter his own life is gone. He has taken action, larger than life action of taking revenge which makes him a tragic hero. He has faced a sea of troubles not letting himself suffering from the agony of outrageous fortune and life-long burden of taking revenge. It can be summed up that Hamlet is not a static character who takes refuge in idealism rather he takes actions and puts his thoughts into practice. He is not idly a name but a character on his way to