Hamlet's tragic flaw was not his inability to act

Hamlet's inaction is his virtue not his vice. Her contemporaries also criticized Queen Elizabeth for her "indecisiveness" and "inaction." But her "inaction" kept England out of several wars and set the stage for future greatness. HAMLET (3,4,169-171) . . . . Forgive me this my virtue; For in the fatness of these pursy times Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg, Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good. http://www.thyorisons.com... - Part 1 - So Like the King "Who's there?" The rest of the play answers that initial question. Hamlet is the "glass of fashion" and most of the other characters reflect some aspect of Hamlet. But who is Hamlet? A son of his warrior father, but also one who "could be bounded in a nut shell and count myself a king of infinite space." Hamlet the soldier rants in golden couplets of warlike noise, while Hamlet the scholar unfolds himself through inaction and silence. But to be true to himself, Hamlet has to recognize that he is both soldier and scholar. He is the princely soldier who courageously returns to the fate awaiting him in his native soil (a graveyard). But he is also the gentle scholar who confesses the sins of his warlike nature. http://www.thyorisons.com... - Hamlet in a Nutshell The title says it all: "The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark." Because he is Prince of Denmark he is not free to carve for himself. He is subject to the voice of Denmark - and that voice was sent from Hell to speak of horrors. Hamlet, like all the other major characters, is untrue to himself. When he is himself, he is like Horatio, a student from Wittenberg. But as he said, "Horatio, or I do forget myself." He does forget himself. He erases himself and his humanist education (all saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, that youth and observation copied there) from his own brain and there in the book and volume of his brain he writes his father's commandment (the voice of Denmark, sent from Hell to speak of horrors, to breathe contagion, unfolding the secrets of his prison-house that he was forbid to tell to mortal ears). Hamlet is from himself taken away. When he is not "from himself taken away," Hamlet is a rational humanist scholar from Wittenberg. But Hamlet erases that side of himself from the book and volume of his brain and replaces it with the commandment of his warlike father. Thereafter all of Hamlet's soliloquies are really debates between the warring sides of his divided soul. Hamlet is a valiant soldier of the spirit, fighting a desperate internal battle to defend the sovereignty of his soul. In the "my thoughts be bloody" soliloquy: Hamlet the scholar says, Sure, he that made us with such large discourse, Looking before and after, gave us not That capability and god-like reason To fust in us unused. But Prince Hamlet, the soldier-son of a warlike king scoffs at "thinking too precisely on the event" and concludes: My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth! A gravedigger was hired on the very day that Hamlet emerged from his mother's womb, which was the same day his father put old Fortinbras into the womb of earth (his grave), thus acquiring land "that was and is the question of these wars" and which was Hamlet's inheritance, figuratively a graveyard, not big enough to cover the dead from the impending war. BERNARDO (Act 1, Scene 1, lines 121-124) I think it be no other but e'en so: Well may it sort that this portentous figure Comes armed through our watch; so like the king that was and is the question of these wars. That is Hamlet's dilemma - whether "TO BE OR NOT TO BE," like the Ghost, "so like the king THAT was and IS THE QUESTION of these wars." Also please see http://www.thyorisons.com... - God-like Reason Unused http://www.thyorisons.com... - Where Kings Lead, Folly Follows http://www.thyorisons.com...; - A Document in Madness http://www.thyorisons.com...; - An Honest Ghost? http://www.thyorisons.com...; - The Memory Be Green - Hamlet in Historical Context http://www.thyorisons.com...; - Terms Compulsatory Source(s): My website: http://www.thyorisons.com... Be All My Sins Remembered Essays on motifs, symbolism, & themes in Hamlet.