The Causes of Hamlet's Tragedy
As we know, Hamlet is one of the most powerful and influential tragedies wrote by William Shakespeare. He gives deep impression to almost everyone who have read the story. Every reader has their own idea about Hamlet’s tragedy.
This story describes a prince’s of Denmark revenge for his father’s death. The King of Denmark died, young prince Hamlet who was studying abroad came back to his country only to find out that his mother married his uncle Claudius just a short time after his father’s death. A ghost who looked like the old King appeared at night, and told Hamlet that it was Claudius who killed him, so Hamlet promised to revenge for his father. He began to pretend to be mad, and left Ophelia who was loved by him very much. To spy on the reflection of Claudius, Hamlet arranged a play. Claudius realized it, he sent Hamlet to England, and asked the man who kept an eye on Hamlet and sent a letter to the king of England to have Hamlet died. But Claudius failed. Hamlet came back to Denmark again. Meanwhile Ophelia was drawn because of her father’s death and Hamlet’s departure. Her brother Laertes asked to fight with Hamlet and Claudius gave a sword to them. In this fight, Hamlet was killed by the poison sword, Laertes was wounded to die. The Queen, Hamlet’s mother, died from the poison wine which was prepared for Hamlet by Claudius. Before death, Laertes told the truth. Finally Hamlet killed Claudius with the cost of his life.
In my opinion, there are four mainly causes of Hamlet’s tragedy.
Firstly, Hamlet was the prince of Denmark, he was noble and simple. So when Hamlet found his father’s death and his mother’s marriage with his uncle, who had become the new king, he was barely to get over of these matters. Filled by sorrows, Hamlet cannot thought about his revenge clearly, which is one of the reason of his filled. Secondly,Hamlet had complex characteristics which made him though a lot about his plan of revenge. H e was struggling with the choice of the cause of his father’s death, suicide as people said or murdered by his uncle. Therefore, he was entangled with the question “To be or not to be”. Besides, his faith in religious hindered his idea of killing his uncle. His struggle of this question made him hesitate to kill his uncle for the revenge of his father.
Thirdly, before all of these horrible things, Hamlet lived a happy and bright life as the prince of Denmark. During his study aboard, Hamlet has wonderful dreams and brilliant image of his future. In his mind, the world is peace and prosperous. However, these over-optimistic thoughts gave him a frail will which led him to tragedy. Fourthly, as a prince, hamlet refused to tell his friends about his experiences and ideas. He was unwilling to cooperate with others, because he believed that he was the
only person to finish the revenge of hosting father. His ego became one of the important causes of his failure.
In conclusion, Hamlet was a poor prince with complex characters. His hesitation, simple, stubborn and reasonless led to his failure and tragedy together.。