Book Review 04 – Hamlet by William Shakespeare: Review and Literary Analysis

Hamlet by William Shakespeare: Review and Literary Analysis

1. Introduction

What happens when grief demands action but the mind keeps asking for proof?  

William Shakespeare’s Hamlet begins with murder, a ghost and a prince who cannot act without knowing what revenge will cost. 

Beneath the royal crime lies a deeper struggle with doubt, loneliness and moral responsibility. 

More than four centuries later, the play still feels modern because it understands how grief unsettles judgment and how power turns relationships into tools.

2. Hamlet at a Glance

Title: Hamlet
Author: William Shakespeare
Written: Around 1600–1601
First printed: 1603
Genre: Tragedy and revenge tragedy
Setting: Elsinore Castle in Denmark
Central character: Prince Hamlet
Major concerns: Grief, revenge, mortality, corruption and moral uncertainty

3. Entering the Uneasy World of Elsinore

The story opens after the death of King Hamlet. His brother Claudius has taken the throne and quickly married Queen Gertrude. Prince Hamlet returns from university to find the court celebrating while he is still mourning.

His grief becomes horror when his father’s Ghost claims that Claudius poisoned him. The spirit demands revenge yet Hamlet hesitates. 

He questions whether the Ghost is trustworthy, whether murder can answer murder and whether justice is possible in a court built on deception.

This conflict between conscience and action gives Hamlet a central place in the study of world literature.

4. Historical Context and the Revenge-Tragedy Tradition

Shakespeare wrote Hamlet around 1600 or 1601 during the final years of Elizabeth I’s reign. Questions about royal succession, political spying and religious uncertainty shaped English public life. 

The play reflects those anxieties through a Danish court filled with secrecy and fear.

It also draws on revenge tragedy which often featured ghosts, hidden murders, madness and violent punishment. Shakespeare keeps these familiar elements but changes their meaning. 

Hamlet questions the Ghost, searches for evidence and fears that punishing murder may turn him into another murderer.

Like Oedipus Rex and the tragic hero tradition, the play follows a search for truth that leads the hero closer to ruin.

5. The Story at Elsinore

Hamlet pretends to be unstable while Claudius sends Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to observe him. 

When traveling actors arrive, Hamlet asks them to perform a murder resembling the Ghost’s account. Claudius reacts with visible guilt and Hamlet accepts this as proof.

Yet justice quickly turns into chaos. Hamlet kills Polonius by mistake and Claudius sends him to England under a secret death order. Hamlet escapes and returns after Ophelia’s death.

Claudius arranges a poisoned duel with Laertes. Gertrude drinks from the poisoned cup while Laertes and Hamlet are wounded. Hamlet finally kills Claudius then asks Horatio to preserve the truth.

6. Hamlet’s Delay Is Not Simple Cowardice

Hamlet is often described as a man who thinks too much and acts too little. That view is partly true yet it ignores how unevenly he behaves. 

He delays when he wants moral certainty but acts quickly when anger or survival takes control.

Without checking who is concealed behind the curtain, Hamlet attacks and kills Polonius. Later he rewrites his execution order and sends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their deaths. 

During the final duel he strikes Claudius once the king’s guilt becomes undeniable.

Hamlet is not incapable of action. He wants revenge to be effective and morally justified. He hopes to punish evil without becoming part of it but perfect certainty never arrives. 

Laertes offers the opposite example. He acts quickly and Claudius turns his anger into a weapon.

The play shows that thought can become paralysis while action without reflection can become manipulation.

7. Grief, Madness and Emotional Isolation

Hamlet is wounded before the Ghost appears. The court moves from funeral to marriage while he is still mourning. 

Claudius treats his grief as stubbornness and Gertrude urges him to accept death as natural. Hamlet hears a demand to forget.

His performed madness helps him hide his purpose and speak dangerous truths. At times the disguise protects him. At other moments his anger feels too raw to be entirely theatrical.

Ophelia’s suffering forms a painful contrast. She obeys her father, is watched by the king and is rejected by Hamlet. 

After Polonius dies, her songs express grief that court language cannot contain. Hamlet can turn pain into argument. Ophelia is heard only after others decide she has lost her reason.

8. Surveillance and Moral Decay

Elsinore is a court of watchers. Claudius sends Hamlet’s old friends to question him. Polonius hides behind curtains and uses Ophelia as evidence.

Even Hamlet copies these methods when he stages the players’ scene and studies Claudius. The hidden crime begins with the king but the habits that protect it spread through the court.

Readers of Othello will recognize how suspicion and manipulation destroy trust. Something is rotten in Denmark because deception has become normal.

9. Ophelia and Gertrude Beyond Hamlet’s Judgment

Hamlet’s anger shapes the audience’s first view of the women around him. Gertrude’s remarriage appears as betrayal while Ophelia’s obedience appears as dishonesty. A closer reading asks what neither woman is allowed to explain.

The play does not clearly explain Gertrude’s motives for marrying Claudius, leaving room for interpretations involving security, stability, affection or political necessity. The play gives no clear proof that she knew about the murder. Her concern for Hamlet continues despite their conflict.

Ophelia has even less freedom. Laertes warns her about Hamlet. Polonius ends the relationship for her then uses her in a trap. 

Claudius treats her feelings as evidence. When she speaks through broken songs, the court calls her mad instead of listening.

Gertrude is more than a flawed mother and Ophelia is more than a tragic beauty. Their limited voices reveal a world where male authority defines women before women can define themselves.

10. Soliloquies, Performance and the Language of Doubt

Hamlet’s soliloquies turn thought into drama. Each speech moves through questions, images and reversals. He often begins with certainty then argues himself into doubt.

The famous question “To be or not to be” explores concerns far deeper than revenge. Hamlet considers suffering, death and the fear of what may follow. Its power comes from a private conflict many readers recognize.

Shakespeare also uses dramatic irony, poison imagery and the play within the play. The staged murder exposes Claudius and shows how performance can reveal what official language hides. 

A strong stage performance can make the language much clearer.

11. The Ghost, the Graveyard and the Meaning of Death

The Ghost gives Hamlet a duty but remains uncertain. It may be his father’s spirit or a dangerous force using grief to lead him toward sin. That doubt reflects anxiety about ghosts, purgatory and the afterlife.

The graveyard strips death of ceremony. Holding Yorick’s skull, Hamlet remembers the person behind it. Kings, servants, lovers and fools all return to the same earth. Status disappears in the grave.

By the end Hamlet accepts that no one can control every consequence. People sometimes must act without complete knowledge. The insight comes too late to save him but changes how calmly he faces the final scene.

12. Why Hamlet Still Rewards Modern Readers

Claudius is guilty but not simple. He can govern, persuade and understand his own corruption. His failed prayer reveals a man who wants forgiveness without surrendering the power gained through murder.

Hamlet is equally difficult to judge. He is intelligent, wounded and capable of tenderness. He is also cruel to Ophelia, reckless with Polonius and largely unmoved by the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

That complexity gives the play its human force. Intelligence does not guarantee kindness and guilt does not guarantee change.

Readers of Crime and Punishment will recognize the distance between understanding a wrong and repairing it. The language can feel demanding. An annotated edition or strong performance helps.

Among Shakespeare’s major tragedies, Hamlet is perhaps the most inward. King Lear expands family cruelty into national ruin while Othello tightens around jealousy. 

Hamlet pauses so that memory, doubt and moral pressure become part of the action.

13. How Hamlet Shaped Later Writers

Hamlet influenced later writers through its portrait of a divided mind. Goethe famously interpreted Hamlet as a sensitive nature burdened with a task too great for him.

Ivan Turgenev contrasted Hamlet with Don Quixote. Hamlet represented doubt and inward reflection while Don Quixote represented belief and decisive action.

T. S. Eliot later used the play while developing the idea of the “objective correlative” though he criticized its structure. 

Tom Stoppard reimagined the tragedy through two minor characters in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

14. What Hamlet Teaches Us About Choice and Responsibility

Hamlet shows that hesitation and reckless action can both cause harm. Hamlet waits for certainty that life cannot provide while Laertes acts too quickly and becomes Claudius’s weapon. Responsible action requires evidence, reflection and courage.

The play also warns that grief does not excuse cruelty. Claudius shows that recognizing guilt means little without giving up the rewards of wrongdoing. 

Horatio offers the final lesson: truth survives only when someone remains honest enough to preserve it.

15. Conclusion

Hamlet endures because it never settles into one meaning. It can be read as a revenge tragedy, a political drama, a study of grief or an argument about identity and performance. Each reading reveals something real but none closes the case.

Ophelia and Gertrude demand interpretations that move beyond Hamlet’s anger. His delay can be understood through morality, religion, psychology or politics. Even the Ghost resists a final explanation.

What remains after the bodies fall is not a simple lesson that action is better than thought. It is a quieter warning. When grief, fear and power distort every source of truth, both hesitation and certainty can become dangerous.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What Is the Main Message of Hamlet?

Hamlet examines revenge, moral uncertainty and the desire for truth. It shows how corruption spreads while delay and impulsive action carry serious consequences.

Why Does Hamlet Delay Killing Claudius?

Hamlet doubts the Ghost and wants proof that Claudius is guilty. He also fears that revenge may make him morally similar to the murderer.

Is Hamlet Really Mad?

Hamlet adopts an “antic disposition” to confuse the court. Some moments suggest that grief begins to exceed the performance so the boundary remains uncertain.

Why Is Ophelia Important?

Ophelia reveals the cost of a world where women have little authority over their identities. Her tragedy shows what happens when grief is controlled or dismissed instead of heard.

Is Hamlet Difficult for First-Time Readers?

The early modern language can be challenging. An annotated edition or stage performance helps readers follow the story and hear the emotion behind the words.

References

1. Bevington, David, Murder Most Foul: Hamlet Through the Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).

2. Bloom, Harold, Hamlet: Poem Unlimited (New York: Riverhead Books, 2003).

3. Bradley, A. C., Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth (London: Macmillan, 1904).

4. de Grazia, Margreta, Hamlet without Hamlet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

5. Greenblatt, Stephen, Hamlet in Purgatory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001).

6. Jenkins, Harold, ed., Hamlet by William Shakespeare (London: Methuen, 1982).

7. Jones, Ernest, Hamlet and Oedipus (London: Victor Gollancz, 1949).

 

Revised and updated: September 2, 2026

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