Examples Of Free Will In Hamlet

Hamlet Essay:
William Shakespeare’s tragedy ‘Hamlet: Prince of Denmark’ remains one of the most celebrated, influential texts in world history, holding continuing relevance and significance throughout history due to its detailed, multi-faceted elucidation and exploration of many core facets of human existence; such as revenge, loyalty, truth, mortality, and power. As he alludes to in Act 3, Scene 2, Shakespeare uses the play to “hold, as ‘twere’, the mirror up to nature”, and display a paradigm and example of the complexity of humanity. Above all, however, Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ exemplifies the complexity and uncertainity surrounding the extent to which humans can exercise free will upon their own lives. Through this, Shakespeare explores
Within the play, the Ghost can be viewed as a personification of fate, in his appearing to Hamlet and his directing of him towards acts of vengeance against Claudius. In Act 1, Scene 5, Hamlet suggests it is his fate to follow the ghost, and later, avenge his father’s death through the rhyming couplet which concludes Act 1, giving it emphasis: “O cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right!” Despite this, the play sees Hamlet choosing to ignore his fate, and exercising free will, through his failure and refusal to act upon his father’s wishes. Inaction is as much, in this case more, of a choice than action. Even though Hamlet eventually ‘accepts’ his fate and murders Claudius, this may be because he has the “cause and will and strength and means to”, as he had explained in the final soliloquy of Act 4, Scene 4. Hamlet’s internal struggle to exercise his own free will also strongly involves the complexity surrounding his own mortality, and his coming to terms with the inevitability of death, as encapsulated during Act 3, Scene 3: “The undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveler returns puzzles the will”. While during this soliloquy Hamlet had expressed fear
Through paralleling characterisation, Shakespeare proposes that each character has an excess of their own unique tragic flaw, or “vicious mole of nature”, as Hamlet puts it, which in many cases defines their persona, and is ultimately responsible for their eventual death in the play’s closing scenes. In his lengthy speech in Act 1, Scene 4, “the stamp of one defect…to his own scandal” (Lines 31-49), Hamlet comments that this flaw can totally ruin one’s reputation and come to rule their lives. However; suggests this ‘defect’ does not result from personal choices and decisions, but rather is cast upon them, either due to “nature’s livery or fortune’s star”. Alternatively, Gertrude’s ‘hamartia’, as the ancient philosopher Aristotle historically termed it, is undoubtedly her lust, suggested by the ghost of Hamlet’s father in Act 1, Scene 5: “So lust, though to a radiant angel linked, will sate itself in a celestial bed and prey on garbage”. Polonius, ‘defect’ is evidently his excessive concern and obsession with his own social status and standing in the Royal Court; exemplified in Act 1, Scene 3 in which the motives behind Polonius’