Tragic Flaw Of Hamlet Research Paper

The play "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare is a tragedy based on the flaws of many characters and how their lives are affected because of it. The main character, Hamlet exemplifies the greatest flaw throughout the story. The fact that Hamlet deals with so much causes him to make careless and difficult decisions that end in his demise. Hamlet's main tragic flaw is his inability to act in situations such as, ending his life, killing his mother, as well as killing Claudius.
From the beginning of the play, Hamlet struggles with the solution to the news he receives regarding his father's death. He starts by thinking about revenge for his father but begins to not know what to believe and it plagues him. He cannot figure what the right thing to do so he waits and waits and begins to think ending his life would be a
viable option to end the pain. Hamlet says, " Or that the Everlasting had not fixed his canon' gainst self-slaughter. O God, God! How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seems to me all the uses of the world" ( 1.2,131-134). This mean that Hamlet thinks his life has lost all meaning, however it is forbidden for him to commit suicide. This manner is also repeated in the "To be or not to be" speech where he is debating suicide but he decides not to because he is afraid of what lies on the other side. Another situation that Hamlet struggles to act upon is the killing of his mother. He continues to deny the fact that his mother broke her vows to King Hamlet and wasn’t loyal, be believes he should kill her but he can't. In Act 3 Scene 4 Hamlet enters the room of his mother
Gertrude. He tells her to be virtuous and tells her to repent, but all just so he can delay the fact that he has to kill her for breaking her marriage vows to King Hamlet. He tells her that she needs to cut off total communications with Claudius for him to believe that she is a honest woman. However she does not obey him and continues to slither around like a serpent under Hamlet, however he does not act and kill her like he should. This is another example of how Hamlets procrastination to act will come back to hurt him.
The third and final action that will contribute to his downfall because of his flaws is his inability to kill Claudius and achieve revenge for his father's murder.
He hesitates to killing Claudius because he doesn’t know who to trust or what is even real at times. When the ghost appears to seek revenge of his death Hamlet wants to do what is right but doesn’t know if he is being tricked or not. Since he begins to doubt that the ghost is real; he stages a plan to confirm his suspicions about Claudius: " The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscious of the King"(2.2.616-617). Hamlet cannot act without being certain that Claudius murdered his father. The play is a direct mirror of what the ghost claims happened to King Hamlet. When the play got to the murder scene Claudius stopped the play; therefor confirming his suspicion that Claudius murdered his father. Now that Hamlet knows what he must do he has a great opportunity to kill Claudius while he is praying. However Hamlet fails to kill him because he believes it would be hire and salary, not revenge. It is ironic that the revenge would have actually been completed because Claudius was not truly
praying.
In conclusion, Hamlets tragic flaw of his inability to act resulted in a painful and stressful life. He could have killed his mother for not being loyal, the king for murdering his father, and even himself if need be. Since he didn’t do this, he continued to be haunted and many more people of the royal family ended up dying. Also the fact the he wasn’t able to trust anyone made the whole situation harder. He had to plan out and create a play because he didn’t know if his suspicions were correct therefore enabling Claudius to figure out his plan or seeking revenge.