Many of Hamlet's problems stem from?

Answer 1

If there was a simple answer to this, everyone would have forgotten about the play long ago. Here are some suggestions.

1. Hamlet has a defective character, in that he is indecisive which does not change or alter during the play and which prevents him from carrying out his revenge. Sort of hard to reconcile with his decisiveness during the pirate attack and in the Closet Scene.

2. Hamlet loves his mother too much and is secretly jealous of his stepfather. He would have approached the matter more sensibly had he not had this Oedipal problem. This problem is apparent before he even hears about the ghost, in his "O that this too too solid flesh" speech.

3. Hamlet is a man caught between the medieval duty of revenge and the modern sensibility that such behaviour leads to chaos. Torn between these poles, he sometimes acts like a medieval man and sometimes like a modern man.

4. Hamlet is actually insane and delusional. He has projected his hatred of the king into the mouth of the ghost. The fact that Claudius did actually kill Hamlet's father is a coincidence.

5. Hamlet's problems all come from Claudius. He is the villain of the piece, and caused the problems by killing Hamlet Sr., then by planting spies on Hamlet (including Polonius who is killed because he is a spy), then by sending Hamlet to England, and finally by arranging the Fencing match with Laertes. Hamlet is thrown that way and this while trying to Dodge these constant attacks.