Seeking Revenge In Hamlet

In this play, Hamlet, written by William Shakespeare, one of the main themes that are important is revenge. It was a motive not only for our main protagonist, Hamlet but also for other characters such as Laertes and Fortinbras. All three characters, in their own ways, have attempted to seek revenge for their own cause against another. Having lost their fathers, Hamlet, Laertes, and Fortinbras take vengeance on those who killed them by using extreme measures of violence and belligerence. For instance, Hamlet had lost his father because he was murdered by the hands of his uncle, Claudius through poisoning in order to marry his mother, Gertrude. Due to this, he attempts to seek revenge. In Laertes’ case, his father was killed by the hands of Hamlet,
who mistook him for Claudius. As a result, he accidently stabbed him while he was hiding to spy Hamlet over his suspicious behaviors. Because of this, Laertes is determined to exact revenge from Hamlet. And finally, with Fortinbras, his father was killed in battle, fighting against Hamlet’s father and lost the land that Denmark had gained. Therefore, this gave him all the motive to seek revenge by gaining back that land in his father’s name. Revenge has affected other characters from the play, through the characters of Hamlet, Laertes, and Fortinbras.
Revenge has affected Hamlet throughout the play. Hamlet’s father was the king of Denmark. However, his own brother, Claudius, attempted to kill him by poisoning him and succeeded. He then marries Gertrude after killing his father and is then hailed as the new king of Denmark. Hamlet discovers that his uncle had killed his father when he was met by his father’s ghost. He secretly told Hamlet about what had happened. Upon that moment, he swore revenge over his death by murdering Claudius. However, this forever changed him. He pretends to act crazy and starts rejecting love towards Ophelia. He even started to orchestrate his uncle’s death. Hamlet says, “Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damnèd Dane, Drink off this potion,” (5. 2. 320-21). This proves that as a result, he killed his uncle by stabbing him with a poisoned sword and forced him to drink a poisoned drink, in a similar manner of death over his father. In an article, Revenge, Honor, and Conscience in "Hamlet", by Harold Skulsky, Skulsky compares Hamlet in the play that revenge had affected him to assume the role of the scourge of God. “Hamlet is devoted, at this point at least, to the death of his uncle's soul; and the devotion is not ennobling. His idea of mercy as a physic to prolong disease is a grotesque parody of the medicinal function traditionally ascribed to equitable punishment, a function performed by Hamlet himself in rebuking his mother”, (Skulsky.79). What Skulsky means by this is that as a scourge of God, it is Hamlet’s duty to make examples of other sinners. In a sense, it is his duty to punish them for their sins, as decreed by God. Even though he made it obvious that Hamlet was more so after revenge, he proposed that Hamlet was taking revenge on Claudius because it was ordained by God This is so that he could make examples of them before God through exacting revenge.
Revenge has affected Laertes throughout the play. His father, Polonius, was murdered and stabbed in an accidental manner by Hamlet, who mistook him for Claudius. After Laertes hears of his father’s death, he traveled back to Denmark in an instant. At first, Laertes assumed that Claudius partook in the killing of his father, but later finds out the real person to blame was Hamlet. As Claudius and Laertes talk, he explains to the king “Let come what comes, only I’ll be reveng’d most thoroughly for my father,” (4. 7. 26). He talks about how he was going to avenge the man that killed his father. Laertes goes on to explain to Claudius regarding how far he would go to seek revenge for the loss Polonius “to cut his throat i’th church,” (4. 7. 26). For Laertes to say he would kill a someone in a church is very serious because religion plays a very large role in all of their lives throughout the play. Murder is already a sin, but to kill a man in a church only described how far he was willing to go. This describes how revenge has affected him and his way of thinking. In an article, “Hamlet, Revenge,” by Millicent Bell, Bell furthermore adds on to Laertes’ vengeance and describes the audience's role for the play. Bell says, “... it is Laertes' drive to avenge the death of his father, Polonius, which takes the action to its finish. The audience would recognize these reprises and wait for the turn Shakespeare would put on them,” (Bell 311-12). What Bell was trying to describe is that the audiences were meant to grasp how revenge had affected Laertes, as that was what Shakespeare was aiming for. Shakespeare wrote in a sense where the audience could see how much revenge had affected him and react accordingly to this change in the play.
Revenge has, also, affected Fortinbras throughout the play.
Fortinbras has a great deal of revenge as well. Because of his father’s death, Fortinbras wanted to take back the land that was lost to him and his people. Fortinbras’ uncle then took the throne and told him that he shouldn’t try to get back the land that was lost or exact revenge over the death of his father. Due to the loss, Fortinbras decides to go and take action to get the land take back as his own. So he and his soldiers travel into Denmark to discuss about the land he wished to gain back. Fortinbras tells the captain of his soldiers what to say to Hamlet when they encounter him, “Tell him that by his license Fortinbras craves the conveyance of a promis’d march over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous,” (4. 4. 2-4). Fortinbras believed that it was his right to take back the land, and he could so that by taking it from Hamlet because his father was the one who killed his father. This, therefore, shows how much vengeance has affected him as he is driven by that goal because of the loss of his own father. The captain then informs Hamlet of the reason for their visit “We go to gain a little patch of ground that hath in it no profit but the name,” (4. 4. 18-19). This tells us that Fortinbras did not wish to take the land to benefit himself and his people. He did it to gain back the land that once belonged to his father. He was completely focused on obtaining revenge and drove him so far so to forcefully try to
take back the land in honor of his own father.
All of these characters have been affected immensely due to their mindset of exacting revenge.
However, out of the three characters, the one who had really been affected was Hamlet. Hamlet had to deal with the most pressure, causing him to change his character in general. Hamlet had to go through the death of his own father, which he later figured out that his uncle killed him. He also had to cope with the idea that his uncle, Claudius, would marry Gertrude and felt disgusted for his mother, as he viewed the whole matter as incestuous. After finding out the truth behind his father’s death, he had crossed many lines for himself like acting insane and rejecting love from Ophelia all for the purpose of killing Claudius. Everyone around him, except for those Hamlet spoke to of his plan, felt suspicious about him and were concerned about why he was acting such way. After having gone through his planning, he finally found his revenge by killing Claudius. In an attempt at killing Hamlet, Claudius decided to poison a drink for Hamlet to drink during the duel between him and Laertes. He did this in hopes that Hamlet would drink from the glass within the duel as a method of recovery or rejoice. However, Gertrude decides to drink from the glass instead, with Claudius being unable to stop her from drinking. As Gertrude dies of poisoning, she then tells Hamlet that the drink was poisoned, revealing to Hamlet that Claudius attempted to murder him. In rage, he stabbed his uncle with his
poisoned sword and forced him to drink from the poisoned drink as penance for all that he had done. This revenge was a very fitting one for him as it shows how Claudius used the same method of poisoning to kill his father and accidently killing his mother. Hamlet would go on to use the same method over Claudius’ death. Eventually, Claudius dies of poisoning as well, concluding Hamlet’s motive at seeking revenge. Therefore, Hamlet’s way of seeking revenge and him exacting revenge shows how much it had affected him throughout the play. Even though Laertes and Fortinbras had been affected by it as well, Hamlet’s revenge was the most tragic, as it showed what he had to do and become to kill his uncle.
In this play, these three characters took on the role of revenge in terms of their own cause. Each one of the characters attempted to seek revenge against another all for the sake of what they had lost. Ironically, with these three characters, the main drive for their revenge was due to the loss of their fathers and going after the ones responsible for their deaths. Hamlet goes after his uncle for revenge. Laertes goes after Hamlet for killing his father, Polonius. And finally, Fortinbras goes after Hamlet’s father to gain back Denmark as a form of revenge. All of these three characters, in their own ways, have found vengeance, making them achieve their goals. Many characters were affected by revenge in this play, and they include characters such as Hamlet, Laertes, and Fortinbras.