OK Massassians, I'm looking for some assistance on my Hamlet paper. It's got to be 5 pages long. My thesis statement is as follows:

"Hamlet's procrastination [to kill Claudius] is not related to his frailty, but an underscore to his detached sense of reality"

I'm basically going to talk about Hamlet's love for plays, and his addiction to drama that allows him to try and build this entire thing around him. I'm also going to touch on his blind following of his faith that would have lead most men to say no to the ideal of revenge.

The act of revenge was frowned down upon by Hamlet's society, so I'd like to draw parelells the the fact that Claudius couldn't have outright killed Hamlet and done away with the entirety of the royal family, but instead has to wait for the oppertune moment to strike. Hamlet himself is doing this exact same thing, we're only calling it "Procrastination" because of our assumption of his state of detached reality.

I've run into a problem, though as you might see, these 2 things are very contridictory. They're also hard to find online support for, and I need 2 sources; at least. Anyone have any ideas how I can incorporate both ideas into a single paper?

JediKirby

Try thinking about the kind of society Hamlet takes place in. Denmark is Catholic, and Hamlet is torn between the idea of forgiving and delivering revenge. He most likely thinks that killing Cladius will be a sin, and that probably frightens him, but he promised his father to avenge his death.... he's torn.

[Edit : actually after re-reading what you already said, seems like you already get that. But I think Hamlet is procrastinating because of being torn, I mean, he doesn't do anything for two months.]

One question you might look into is what eventually prompted Hamlet to actually murder Claudius. Did his sense of reality eventually return? Or was it something else?

Sorry, can't help much with the research, though. I had to something similar towards the beginning of the year and didn't have much luck, myself.

[Edit- perhaps it would be helpful to look for things written by Northrup Frye. He's a pretty big Shakespearean critic these days.]

I wouldn't really ever say that his sense of reality ever left him. I mean, he puts it off for 2 months, but I think he's torn. He's not entirely sure whether or not to believe this ghost, and moreover, there's the whole idea of his mother- did his mother have anything to do with his father's death or is she innocent of that? The play seemed to be a way of guaging Claudious's reaction. Granted, feigning insanity is definitely not the most effective route to revenge (and you know it was feigned because of a lot of things that were said, I could probably cite examples if necessary), but he really had no way of knowing if this apparition were really his father or really telling the truth. So I guess I can't really help you unless I know what made you say that he has a detached sense of reality.

hey.... I dont know if this will be much help, but here's a Macbeth vs Hamlet comparison i had to write for English.... sorry if its no good...use it for a source if you want or just delete it.. there's a bit of a formatting issue because i converted it from a ms word file into plain text..
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