William Shakespeare's Hamlet

In William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Prince Hamlet contained three interesting qualities throughout the play. He was obsessive, emotional, and impulsive. Hamlet was obsessed with his mother's love life, revenge, life, and death. The way he expressed his emotions, and sometimes he does not think before he acts.

Hamlet was an obsessive thinker. His main thoughts are revenge, life, and death. In his 'To Be or not To Be' soliloquy, Hamlet's thoughts was to either stay alive or kill himself.

"To be, or not to be? That was the question, whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and, by opposing, end them? To die, to sleep -- the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh was heir to. 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream -- ay, there's the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come..."

This quote describes how Hamlet thinks about life and death. He asks himself if it was noble to end your life or to continue with the miserable life you have. He believes everyone seeks death so they can escape their painful lives. However, death was uncertain and it might be more miserable than life. Hamlet's second thought was revenge. After the ghost tells Hamlet to kill Claudius, he agrees to do so. Hamlet, although he wanted to kill his uncle, delays his goal and hesitates to kill him when he had the chance. For example, during the scene where Claudius was praying, Hamlet sees him and withdraws his sword. He realized if he killed him while praying, he will be sent to heaven instead of hell. Hamlet puts back his sword and leaves. He also felt his anger was not enough to kill Claudius, so he waited a couple of months until he was ready to proceed his goal. His mother's love life was another thing Hamlet obsesses over. Hamlet constantly calls his mom a whore and tries to make his mother realize her sin. Even though his father's ghost told Hamlet not to go against Gertrude, Hamlet was still disgusted and concludes all women love to play with men's hearts.

Another one of Hamlet's qualities was how he expressed his emotions. Four months after his father's death, Hamlet still felt grief. He expressed this by wearing black clothing. When his mother asked him to "cast thy nighted color off", refuses and told her he had real grief inside him that she could ever see. Claudius tried to tell Hamlet that he showed too much grief and has to move on. This showed how Hamlet cared so much for his father and how much he expressed his grief, even if it had been four months after the death of Hamlet. His first soliloquy shows what were his feelings and emotions.

"...Two months dead --nay, not so much, not two. So excellent a king, that was to this. Hyperion to a satyr. So loving to my mother

...