The nature of the tragic conflict in Hamlet.

“…you would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass: and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ…”
(Hamlet; Act 3 scene 2)


There are many conflicts in Hamlet. To understand them requires careful examination of the plot and structure of the play and an appreciation of the complex relationship between man and his surroundings and the intricacy of man’s consciousness, particularly as embodied in Hamlet. A close study of text should turn out helpful insights to examine of the play’s conflict. Commentaries on the text will also help to bring attention to different aspects of the play.

When an occasion is referred to as tragic, there is an emphasis on the quality of suddenness, of unpredictability. A tragedy always involves irony; tragedies happen when occasions defy expectations. Man lives with an idea of order, although it is rather credulous to assume that order will stay intact. To pin down a definite idea of order is fiddly; it can only be said that one patterns one’s life by certain habits and assumptions to create a sense of order out of these. Presumably, tragedy happens when something occurs that does not fit into the framework of these habits and assumptions. Consider death as an example. Mortality is a known fact, so that death of old age saddens, but does not surprise. Death of a youth, on the other hand, is surprising because it is out of the regular run of things. In its erratic, unpredictable quality, death of a youth carries an aspect of a tragedy. It must have been an exceedingly human understanding that incited Aristotle to speak of tragedy as an occasion that inspires pity and fear. An occasion of tragedy is tragic because what causes it is beyond understanding. Accidents are tragic because they are not expected to occur and, in certain cases, they involve coincidences. It is coincidental (unpredictable) in, for example, a case of a stray bullet, that a person happens to be in a particular spot when the bullet is fired. It is impossible to account for why the bullet is shot when that particular person stands on the way of its course. The elements of the incomprehensible in tragedy inspire fear because, along with these, there is implied the presence of forces beyond human control, which, in certain cases, everyone must submit to. Tragedy is fearsome, really, because of the emphasis that some things cannot be avoided; it points to the vulnerability of human beings. To the audience of a tragic play, the feeling of pity must naturally follow the recognition of vulnerability. Pity comes along with certain selfish thankfulness for not being one involved in a tragedy.

It would seem that any tragic play is constructed in such a way to communicate the element of unpredictability that, as discussed, is particular to the notion of tragedy. It would seem that, in tragic plays (tragedies), elements of unpredictability (randomness) reinforce, even create, conflicts within the plays. If one could at all term the setback in the Othello-Desdemona’s relationship a conflict, it is one that results from mistrust on Othello’s part. The play has, from the beginning, called attention to Othello’s singularity: he is a Moor who occupies a high social position in the Venetian public because of his military aptitude and the services he has done for the State. Othello himself acknowledges personal characteristics that make him distinct within the social framework to which he belongs, as in this dialogue:

“…Rude am I in my speech,
And little bless’d with the soft phrase of peace;
For since these arms of mine has seven years pith,
Till now some nine moons wasted, they have us’d
Their dearest action in the tented field;
And little of this great world can I speak,
More than pertains to feats of broil and battle;
And therefore little shall I grace my cause
In speaking for myself.” (1175)

He understands that whatever social respect he is owed to his physical and military competency. He acknowledges that the Venetian public considers him lacking in sophistication. These are aspects of understanding that compose Othello’s rather anxious sense of self. Othello’s anxiousness makes him a particularly easy prey for Iago, who happens to be clever enough to make out the former’s mental constitution. Iago needs only to make Othello witness to a scene where Iago tricks the latter into believing that Desdemona really is unfaithful. Othello never confronts Desdemona personally; he never gives her a chance to speak. What accounts for Othello’s resolute trust in Iago? Why must Emilia let Iago have Desdemona’s handkerchief instead of returning it to its owner? Why must the handkerchief fall in the first place? These are some crucial questions that may be asked of the play, and there are no definite answers. It only so happens that Othello trusts Iago. It only so happens that Emilia lets Iago have the handkerchief. It only so happens, finally, that Desdemona loses her handkerchief. These are the chance elements (they are unpredictable, because one cannot assign them reasons), which incite the conflict between Othello and Desdemona. The couple’s relationship is initially solid because of the conviction one has in the other. Iago’s influence on Othello is such that the latter question’s Desdemona sincerity. The matter of the handkerchief furthers Othello’s suspicion. The conflict in the play occurs because Othello does not disclose his knowledge to Desdemona: if he had let Desdemona know about Iago’s private warnings, if he had trusted Desdemona, the conclusion of the story would have been very different. The causes of the conflict are contingent: they cannot be prevented because the grounds for their occurrence are unknown. For its contingency, the conflict is tragic. Conflicts in a tragedy are tragic because they may have been easily avoided or resolved – if only one is competent enough, or has sufficient knowledge, to do so. Certainly a tragedy demands that the characters concerned are incompetent to resolve or avoid crucial conflicts. Hamlet is filled with conflicts, although the most palpable seems to lie within the self of the protagonist.

Hamlet is a crown prince, an heir to the throne of Denmark. The connotation of this identity is significant. According to Laertes:

“…(Hamlet’s) greatness weigh’d, his will is not his own;
For he himself is subject to his birth:
He may not, as unvalu’d persons do,
Carve for himself; for on his choice depends
The safety and the health of the whole state;
And therefore must his choice be circumscrib’d
Unto the voice and yielding of that body
Whereof he is the head.” (1132)

The lines are Laertes’ words to Ophelia as he warns her not to put too much faith on what she believes to be Hamlet’s affections. As a public figure, Hamlet is not at liberty to act as he wishes to. The analogy of the head and body is telling. It implies that Hamlet and the people of Denmark are attached in such a way that Hamlet’s every decision and action must bear a direct relevance to the populace. What is required of Hamlet is heavy: he carries responsibility for the people’s lives (as the analogy of the head suggests). As the crown Prince of Denmark, there are severe restrictions on Hamlet’s personal freedom. How, then, will he carry out his personal scheme of revenge? This scheme must necessarily be extricated from “the voice and yielding” of the people, since it involves the murder of a King (Claudius). Hamlet cannot, presumably, perform this particular act of revenge as the crown Prince: the role of the crown Prince demands that Hamlet put before him the needs of the people, such as the stability of the State. To murder a King, on the other hand, is to create disorder – however favoured Hamlet is by the people of Denmark. Hamlet must, therefore, create another identity - a role, which enables him to perform the murder. Hamlet has thought up a way out, and he tells Horatio, “I…hereafter shall…put an antic disposition on” (1135). Hamlet’s decision to put on ‘an antic disposition’ has resolved the first conflict, where Hamlet’s need for revenge is opposed by his public responsibility. Hamlet’s decision to put on ‘an antic disposition’ has resolved the first conflict, where Hamlet’s need for revenge is opposed by his public responsibility. Hamlet’s possible intention to assume such a constitution will be discussed further in a while.

Although disconcerted by Hamlet’s condition, Claudius is forced to keep Hamlet in Elsinore. Claudius, on the other hand, knows how favoured Hamlet is by the people of Denmark.

“How dangerous it is that this man (Hamlet) goes loose!
Yet must not we put the strong law on him:
He’s loved of the distracted multitude
Who like not in their judgement, but their eyes;
And where ‘tis so, the offender’s scourge is weigh’d,
But never the offence. To bear all smooth and even,
This sudden sending him away must seem
Deliberate pause: diseases desperate grown
By desperate appliance are reliev’d
Or not at all.” (1155)

Here again is a conflict between personal interests and public appearance. Claudius cannot make out the cause of Hamlet’s madness. The enactment of the ‘Murder of Gonzago’ terrified him, while the plot of the play, imaginably, tells him that Hamlet’s madness is not desultory. Claudius knows (as his dialogue suggests) that to send Hamlet away is the best alternative to keep out of harm’s way. But he needs to be careful: as Hamlet is loved by the people of Denmark, to send him away will only tip the favour towards the young prince. Polonius’ murder, while it confirms Claudius’ fear of Hamlet as a vital threat, permits Claudius to send Hamlet away from Denmark. While Hamlet has to work his way out of a similar conflict (by assuming a mad exterior), chance solves it for Claudius.

Hamlet’s simulated madness grants him space to carry out his plan of murder. As normalcy is associated with a specific code of behaviours, it is clever to devise madness as a way to circumvent expectations that one should keep to the code of the normal. The occupants of the Court seem keen to entertain Hamlet’s whims, thinking, initially, that his ‘madness’, initiated by his father’s death, will pass. It is because of Hamlet’s assumed madness, for example, that Claudius concedes to watch the play Hamlet has arranged. Having assumed the mannerisms of madness, Hamlet is granted lenience that would be denied him if he were his normal self.

“…Was’t Hamlet wronged Laertes? Never Hamlet:
If Hamlet from himself be taken away,
And when he’s not himself does wrong Laertes,
Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.
Who does it, then? His madness: if’t be so,
Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong’d;
His madness is poor Hamlet’s enemy.” (1168)

Really, Hamlet is a player himself. His words to the player: “…in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness” (1146) is no accidental wisdom. Hamlet comprehends it because he himself plays a part, and he does it extremely well. However, while the player Hamlet understands how to “suit the action to the word, the word to the action” so that nobody but Hamlet’s confidantes can see beneath the veneer of madness, the real Hamlet fails. The real Hamlet fails precisely at the point where he must create balance between words and action. Hamlet promises revenge but finds it difficult to perform the deed. What stops him?

Consider the circumstances. Arriving in Elsinore, Hamlet finds his father dead and his uncle, now the King, married to his mother.

“O, that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter!
…How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
…‘tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely…” (1130)

Hamlet’s first soliloquy spells out how worldview, which leads to a desire for suicide. To the young prince, the image that resembles most the condition of the world is an ‘unweeded garden’ – containing coarse and unpleasant things – that grows only to produce more gardens of a similar nature (“grows to seed”). It is perhaps this point of view that accounts for Hamlet’s remark to Ophelia in Act 3 scene 1: “Get thee to a nunnery!” If the world is already appalling because of the nature of its populace, why preserve it through procreation?

The first soliloquy also underlines Hamlet’s tendency to weigh Claudius against the elder Hamlet.

“… So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr… “ (1130)

Claudius lacks the constitution that Hamlet respects in the deceased King. There is, to Hamlet, a fundamental difference in character that distinguishes the two brothers, marking Claudius out as unsophisticated. Since the first soliloquy occurs before the Ghost discloses the elder Hamlet’s murder, it may be understood that Hamlet’s dislike of his uncle is founded on Claudius’ assumed lack of character. It would seem that what disturbs Hamlet about Gertrude’s marriage is the fact that she has married someone far inferior in character to the elder Hamlet.

“…Frailty, thy name is woman!— A little month, or ere those shoes were old With which she follow'd my poor father's body, Like Niobe, all tears:—why she, even she— …a beast, that wants discourse of reason, Would have mourn'd longer—married with my uncle, My father's brother, but no more like my father Than I to Hercules…” (1130-1131)

That Gertrude has remarried hastily renders the marriage more of an insult to the memory of the dead King. To Hamlet, the world is rank where a satyr (Claudius) easily replaces Hyperion (the elder Hamlet); it is a rank world where Hyperion’s wife agrees to marry a satyr almost without deliberation. This is the kind of world Hamlet refuses to be a part of: if to live is to be a part of an unweeded garden, he wishes that his ‘solid flesh’ should melt instead.
The first soliloquy suggests that other than his own belief system (“that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter”), nothing prevents Hamlet from committing suicide at this point. That is, until the Ghost puts in an appearance and tells Hamlet of his father’s murder. The Ghost extracts from Hamlet a promise for revenge. Hamlet’s promise to avenge his father’s murder, however, does not appear to occupy him enough to drive thoughts of suicide away. In the second soliloquy which occurs moments after Hamlet finalizes the arrangements for the crucial play that is to be staged before the King, there is a concentrated reflection on suicide.

“…who would bear the whips and corns of time,
…When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
…But that the dread of something after death, -
The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn
No traveler returns, - puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all…” (1145)


Is it more dignified, Hamlet wonders, to live – however unpleasantly – than to kill oneself? Suicide, given that it will end the difficulties and troubles of life, does appear to promise relief. It is, on the other hand, daunting since what follows death is unknown. The ‘rub’ is all too clear for Hamlet: he longs for peace that death promises, but death demands him to contend with the unknown. The cowardice Hamlet talks about is the fear of the unknown. It is perhaps the unpredictable outcome of human actions that turns into fear and paralyzes human actions:

“Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.” (1149)

There is a melancholic side to Hamlet that renders him flaccid and fragile. Hamlet’s sense of self that emerges out of the first soliloquy is that of being too uncorrupted in an ugly world. Hamlet does not appear to long for death because he lacks a sense of purpose, but because he does not consider the world a good enough place for him. Whatever the reason, suicide is finally not an option either: he admits that the prospect of an unknown place is much too terrifying. However hideous the world is, therefore – however unfitting Hamlet thinks it is for him – he must stay. This, one may conclude, is the first internal conflict. This conflict is further complicated by the information that the Ghost imparts. The complication of the Ghost’s identity will be discussed later; at the moment, it will help to keep the focus on the effect the Ghost’s information has on Hamlet.

It is well to remember that the ‘to be or not to be’ soliloquy occurs after Hamlet is acquainted with his father’s murder. One cannot be sure, for this reason, whether he decides against suicide for the philosophical reasoning against death (“…the dread of something after death, - the undiscover’d country, from whose bourn no traveler returns, - puzzles the will”) (1145) or because the promise of revenge that he has made demands that he fulfills it before he dies. The fear of the unknown, however, seems a more human excuse than a sense of duty does. In the meeting with his father’s Ghost, Hamlet has promised revenge. But Hamlet postpones carrying out his promise. The delay often disturbs Hamlet himself:

“…Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit…
… This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murder’d,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with ds
And fall a-cursing like a very drab,
A scullion!” (1144)

Comparing himself to a player, Hamlet reckons he lacks gall. The Player can induce himself to feel and show emotions he has no motive for, so much so that he convinces his audience. Hamlet, on the other hand, although possessing a strong motive for sorrow and revenge (because his father has been murdered) cannot press on to do what he must. Hamlet speaks with revulsion as he admits that, instead of taking revenge, he curse himself for not being determined enough, for lacking mettle. Still, he justifies his delay in the end, stating that he does not have solid enough grounds to seek revenge. He claims he is not convinced as to the identity of the Ghost.

“… The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil: and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape…
…I’ll have grounds
More relative than this: - the play’s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.” (1145)

He must have a more concrete proof, and this he will obtain from the staging of the ‘Murder of Gonzago’. At this point, even while the delay troubles Hamlet, he has means to pacify himself. But not on this occasion:

“…he that made us with such large discourse,
… gave us not
That capability and godlike reason
To fust in us unus’d. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on the event, --
A thought which, quarter’d hath but one part wisdom
And ever three parts coward, -- I do not know
Why yet I live to say, This thing’s to do;
Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means
To do’t. Examples, gross as earth, exhort me:
Witness this army, of such mass and charge,
…Makes mouths at the invisible event;
…Even for an egg-shell.
…How stand I, then,
That have a father kill’d, a mother stain’d,
Excitements of my reason and my blood,
And let all sleep?” (1157)

The soliloquy occurs on a battlefield near the Polish border, as Hamlet witnesses the army of Fortinbras. The land the army attempts to secure is not large; the army fights more because the honor of their State is at stake. Hamlet again compares the army’s fortitude and sense of honor with his temperaments. The soldiers in the army put their lives at risk for the State’s honor – something that does not affect directly their personal lives. Hamlet once more acknowledges that he has a definite cause for revenge (more particularly this time, since the play has ascertained, for Hamlet’s, Claudius’ responsibility) and ends with a determination to finally act.

“– O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!” (1157)

Yet this soliloquy outlines precisely what Hamlet’s problem is: he “(thinks) too precisely on the event.”

Hamlet postpones and the delay, on occasion, makes him feel guilty and worthless. Hamlet’s view of the world is clear in the first soliloquy: he considers the world a rank place and would much rather die than be a part of it. The only thing that prevents him from killing himself is his fear of the unknown. Perhaps to Hamlet what can redeem an existence in an ‘unweeded garden’ is an act of value. To avenge his father’s murder is one such. Yet he cannot do it and Hamlet is forced to return to the point where he considers existence ‘stale and unprofitable’. This is the point of stasis: because of inaction, Hamlet considers his existence reprehensible, but he cannot end it since he fears and endlessly philosophizes on the nature of the unknown (that is death), while the fear and the philosophizing bring him back to inaction.

In the play, Laertes and Fortinbras stand in contrast to Hamlet. The two are impulsive and forceful. Laertes, when he hears of his father’s death, returns to Denmark immediately to seek revenge. Fortinbras, in order to protect the honour of his country, risks his life and the lives of numerous soldiers to secure a minimal amount of land. Hamlet is far more equipped in terms of cause and political power than either Fortinbras or Laertes; what he lacks is resolution. To kill someone requires strength, resolution, and a measure of impulsiveness. Hamlet is quick, witty, and intelligent; he is not very physical or impulsive. (Hamlet is impulsive only when he murders Polonius; impulsiveness doesn’t seem a constant temperament with Hamlet). Yet impulsiveness is vital when one must kill; there cannot be deliberation in the moment of killing,. Othello, when he murders Desdemona, refuses to listen to Desdemona; he does not let his emotions interfere with his action. Hamlet is reminiscent of Prufrock: both think of the consequences of an action even before the action is committed. Hamlet is too contemplative to be a murderer. His words at the gravesite should clarify enough.

“That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once:
how the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were
Cain's jaw-bone, that did the first murder!
…Why, e'en so: and now my Lady Worm's;
chapless, and knocked about the mazzard
with a sexton's spade. Here's fine revolution,
and we had the trick to see't. Did these bones
cost no more the breeding, but to play at loggats
with 'em? mine ache to think on't.” (1163)

Hamlet tells Horatio: "To what base uses we may return, Horatio!" (1164). Hamlet’s words carry a weighty understanding and a deep grasp of the nature of human life. Because of his promise, and perhaps affection for his father, Hamlet feels that he has to do something as a payback gesture. Yet inferring from his lines, Hamlet cannot see the point of a murder. If every human being returns to dust, what is the point of murder? If everyone winds up in the same manner, what is the difference between being murdered and dying naturally? Hamlet comprehends too much too well. This, really, is the root of his conflict.

The plot of the play revolves around Hamlet’s reactions to the Ghost and to the world in general. Bloom expresses a similar opinion:

“Had Hamlet remained passive, after the Ghost’s visitation, then Polonius, Ophelia, Laertes, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, Claudius, Gertrude, and Hamlet himself would not have died violent deaths. Everything in the play depends upon Hamlet’s response to the Ghost, a response that is as highly dialectical as everything else about Hamlet.” (387)

It is up to him to decide whether the Ghost tells a credible enough account of murder, whether he will commit to an act of revenge, whether he will kill himself or choose to remain passive and let thing take care of themselves. His inability to decide shapes the plot to be what it is – that there should be many deaths and that Hamlet himself dies. Truly this is the tragedy of the play, and Hamlet’s indecision is the play’s tragic conflict: had Hamlet handled things differently – had he not reacted to the Ghost’s request, had he murdered Claudius when he had the chance to – the outcome would have been very different. But Hamlet’s way of handling things is decided by his worldview, as well as by the fact that there are elements in the play which blur reality, particularly for Hamlet. Leggat argues:

“In Hamlet the figure who triggers the action is “like” the late King Hamlet, and this
produces within the play that slight but crucial detachment from absolute belief that is
normally the condition of the audience. It is no wonder that an action started in this
manner has trouble fulfilling itself, and that the central character, who takes his own name
from this figure who cannot be named with certainty, is an actor who seems unable to act.” (61)

It may be helpful if, along with Leggat’s argument, one takes into account Bloom’s critical remark: “Why did Shakespeare compose the graveyard scene, since the evocation of Yorick scarcely advances the action of the play? The question has interest only if we apply it to a number of other scenes…” (400).

As is discussed earlier in this essay, in his dialogues at the gravesite Hamlet reflects on the nature of human life. Looking at the skeletons, Hamlet must concede to the fact that everybody dies and returns into dust. The view of the grave and the skeletons must give Hamlet – indeed, whoever sees it – a sense of finality about death. All human beings, after death, are reduced into skeletons and dust. Human beings cannot, if they lie as skeletons and dust in their graves, return to life after death. Yet hasn’t Hamlet seen his father ‘alive’ after his death? Hamlet has seen his father’s Ghost, has spoken to him and been commanded by him. Is it reasonable, then, that if in order to reconcile the opposing viewpoints, the prince gives in to the belief that there is something beyond human understanding, something that human beings are not meant to understand? Bradley, keeping focus on the last Act of the play, considers it likely enough:

“In what spirit does (Hamlet) return (having being sent to England by the King)?
Unquestionably, I think, we can observe a certain change, though it is not great. First, we
notice here and there what seems to be a consciousness of power, due probably to his
success in countermining Claudius and blowing the courtiers to the moon, and to his
vigorous action in the sea fight. Secondly, we nowhere find any direct expression of that
weariness of life and that longing for death which were so marked in the first soliloquy and
in the speech “To be or not to be.”
…Shakespeare means to show in the Hamlet of the Fifth Act a slight thinning of the dark
cloud of melancholy, and means us to feel it tragic that this change comes too late. In the
third place, there is…a sense in Hamlet that he is in the hands of Providence. “There’s a
divinity that shapes our ends,” he declares to Horatio in speaking of the fighting of the
fighting in his heart that would not let him sleep, and of his rashness in groping his way to
the courtiers to find their commission….And though he has a presentiment of evil about
the fencing match he refuses to yield to it: “we defy augury: there is special providence in
the fall of a sparrow…the readiness is all.” (121-122)

A sense of Providence does seem to reign in the last bit of the play, up till the point where Hamlet – appearing to have adopted the attitude of ‘come what may’ – is coerced into a duel and dies poisoned, fulfilling his father’s command only because he realizes he is pressed by time.

Leggat does acknowledge the internal conflict within Hamlet and grounds the source of the conflict in the uncertain identity of the Ghost. The Ghost necessarily stands outside Hamlet’s comprehension. Death, to Hamlet, is either final or not final. It cannot be both. The Ghost straddles the two possibilities, and Hamlet can only respond: “time is out of joint.” Hamlet hesitates because he finds no reality on which he can ground his actions. Blooms, too, recognizes Hamlet’s internal conflict:

“…(Hamlet) has no center: Othello has his “occupation” of honorable warfare, Lear has
the majesty of being every inch a king, Macbeth a proleptic imagination that lepas ahead of
his own ambition. Hamlet is too intelligent to be at one with any role…
….One aspect of Hamlet is free, and entertains itself with bitter wit and bitterly intended
play, but other aspects are bound, and we cannot find the balance.” (406)

One aspect of Hamlet – the mental aspect – is free because he has a vast knowledge and has a capacity to understand many things. His intellectual capacity grants him freedom to construct his own worldview and opinions about his surroundings. He does not have to concede to a particular point of view because he is capable of thinking for himself. The problem with Hamlet is of course that he cannot stop reasoning things out, and he cannot block out completely viewpoints that he does not wish to adhere to. The view of the skeleton at the gravesite obliges Hamlet to concede to the finality of death, but the appearance of his father’s Ghost persuades him to believe that death is not after all, final. The play never sees this conflict within Hamlet resolved at all. Not actively by the protagonist’s will, anyway. There is, on the other hand, the physical aspect of Hamlet. He must, like everyone else, either live or die. Hamlet chooses to live because he fears the unknown in death, but he indicates only too often that he is not exactly thrilled about living either. If Bloom speaks of Hamlet as transcending himself, it is in this sense. Physically, Hamlet exists. Hamlet’s thoughts of existence, however, goes beyond the physicality of existence, which is why, to Hamlet, all actions are difficult. Hamlet cannot see actions as ending with the physical, on earth. One cannot comprehend this deeply without being cautious. This caution consequentially results in inaction, which is central to the plot of the play.

The tragic conflict in Hamlet is internal; it exists within the protagonist’s self. It is difficult to point out precisely what the conflict is. If anything can be pinned down as the source of Hamlet’s conflict, it is the combination of his personality and knowledge and the unfortunate position he happens to find himself in.


Works Cited:

Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. New York: Bantam, 1988. 1127-1170.

Shakespeare, William. Othello. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. New York: Bantam, 1988. 1171-1210.

Bloom, Harold. “Hamlet.” Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. New York: Riverhead, 1998. 383-431.

Bradley, A.C. “Lecture IV: Hamlet.” Shakespearean Tragedy. New York: St. Martin’s, 1981. 110-147.

Leggat, Alexander. “Hamlet: A figure like your father.” Shakespeare’s Tragedies: Violation and Identity. Cambridge: CUP, 2005. 55-83.