Hamlet’s Responsibility for his Own Death
I think Hamlet is responsible for his own death. It is Hamlet’s tendancy to procrastinate that leads to his death. If Hamlet had not procrastinated, he could have saved his own life and those of many other innocent characters in the play.
Hamlet found out about his father’s murder by talking to his father’s ghost and became obsessed with revenge. The ghost of his father asked Hamlet to revenge his death when he said:
If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not;
Let not the royal bed of Denmark
Be a couch for luxury and damned incest.
(Act I Scene V, Lines 82-84 )
At first, Hamlet was determined to carry out his father’s wishes and revenge his death. Later Hamlet began to wonder if the ghost was telling the truth. Therefore, Hamlet arranged for the players to enact the murder of his father in order to be certain that his uncle was guilty. Claudius jumped up in obvious distress when he saw the murder that was so close to the one he had commited.
However, Hamlet still did not act; instead, he made excuses for not killing the king when he had the chance to. Hamlet had a perfect chance to finish off the king while he was praying, but failed to act. Hamlet rationalized by saying that if he killed his uncle as he prayed, he would go to heaven because he had a chance to confess his sins.
Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;
And now I’ll do’t: and so he goes to heaven:
And so am I revenged. That would be scann’d:
A villain kills my father; and, for that,
I, his sole son, do his same villain send
To heaven.
(Act III, Scene V, Lines 74-79)
Since Hamlet took so long to revenge his father, the king had time to make plans of his own. Claudius decided that the best way to handle Hamlet was to set Hamlet up to be killed. Claudius arranged a duel between Hamlet and Laertes, which Hamlet thought was just a fight. Hamlet had no inkling of the poisoned drink or the poisoned sword. The duel precipitated the terrible tragedy and loss of life at the end of the play.
If only Hamlet could have been as decisive as his uncle; Claudius gets done what he wants done. If Hamlet hadn’t procrastinated, there would not have been any deaths but the king’s and his revenge would have been completed.