Hamlet - Is there Indecision? Essay -- GCSE English Literature Coursew

The Bard of Avon has in the char worker of Hamlet (in the cataclysm of that name) a hero who has been accused of hesitation and indecisiveness. Are such accusations bewitch? L.C. Knights in An Approach to Hamlet explains the modern appeal of the cataclysm in terms of the indecisiveness of its hero Hamlet is a man who in the face of life and of death can make no affirmation, and it may well be that this irresolution which goes far deeper than irresolution about the deed of a specific act this fundamental doubt, explains the great appeal of the tackle in modern times. The point has been made by D.G. James in The Dream of Learning. Shakespeargons play, he says, is an image of modernity, of the soul without clear sentiment losing its way, and bringing itself and others to great distress and finally to disaster it is a tragedy not of excessive thought but of defeated thought, and Hamlet himself is a man caught in ethical and metaphysical uncertainties. Now I am sure that Mr. J ames is right in emphasizing the element of mental rejection in Hamlets makeup the weighing of alternative possibilities in such a way as to make choice amid them virtually impossible . . . . (64) Is there a connection between verbal hesitation and hesitation in action and decisions? Lawrence Danson in the essay tragic Alphabet discusses the hesitation in action by the hero as related to his hesitation in speech To speak or act in a world where all speech and action are equivocal seeming is, for Hamlet, both perilous and demeaning, a kind of whoring. The safe and sound vexed question of Hamlets delay ought, I believe, to be considered in light of this dilemma. To a man alienated from his societys most basic symboli... ...ions Hamlet. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York Chelsea House Publishers, 1986. Rpt. from Tragic Form in Shakespeare. N.p. Princeton University Press, 1972. Rose, Mark. Reforming the Role. Modern Critical Interpretations Hamlet. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York Chelsea Ho use Publishers, 1986. Rpt. from Homer to Brecht The European epic poem and Dramatic Traditions. Ed. Michael Seidel and Edward Mendelson. N.p. Yale University Press, 1977. Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1995. http//www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/hamlet/full.html No draw in nos. West, Rebecca. A Court and World Infected by the Disease of Corruption. Readings on Hamlet. Ed. Don Nardo. San Diego Greenhaven Press, 1999. Rpt. from The Court and the Castle. New Haven, CT Yale University Press, 1957.