What is Hamlet's excuse for his behavior?

Answer 1

; Claudius mentions more than one thing. From Act 4 scene 3:

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Clau: Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety

Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve

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Claudius claims there that he's concerned for Hamlet's well being. We know it's a lie, of course, since Claudius has set up the mission to England to kill Hamlet.

Also Act 4 scene 7:

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Clau: Oh, for two special reasons : Which may to you perhaps seem much unsinewed,

But yet to me they're strong; the Queen, his mother

Lives almost by his looks, and for myself,

My virtue or my plague, be it either which,

She is so concleave to my life and soul,

That as the star moves not but in his sphere

I could not but by her; the other motive,

Why to a public count I might not go,

Is the great love the general gender bear him,

Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,

Work like the spring that turneth wood to stone:

Convert his gyves to graces, so that my arrows,

Too slightly timbered for so loved, armed,

Would have reverted to my bow again,

But not where I have aimed them. ; -------

In talking to Laertes, Claudius says he needs Gertrude's political support, and she dotes on Hamlet. That's true.

Then, the "public count" idea is that Claudius doesn't want to challenge Hamlet before the general public, because he's afraid people, in general, might like Hamlet better than they like him. Politics, in other words. So altogether, Claudius basically mentions two things. The first one is the lie that he has personal affection for Hamlet. The second is true, that he's worried about his political support against Hamlet, and he doesn't want to risk people turning against him in favor of Hamlet.

Of course when Laertes led his mob to storm the castle, that got Claudius thinking about how popular he was, and it obviously didn't look good for him.

Answer 2

When Hamlet wants to take revenge, he hesitates and delays his decision. He creates the story of his madness. He wants to test the ghost. He does not want to make a decision directly. Here we see his wisdom in delaying the matter. As a result of this hesitation, he discovers the truth, and he knows that his uncle is the real murderer.

Answer 3

It isn't an excuse. It's a doubt. "The spirit I have seen may be the devil, and the devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape. Yea and out of my weakness and my melancholy (as he is most potent with such spirits) abuses me--to damn me." Hamlet really doesn't know whether the ghost has told him the truth or not. He'd like to believe it, it sorts with his suspicions, but that is not good enough to commit murder, and the murder of a close kinsman and his king at that. We don't admire Macbeth much for that kind of murder. Thus he sets The Mousetrap.

Answer 4

For Hamlet, it is not enough that he just kill Claudius. He has to kill him in such a way as to maximize his pain, not in this world, but in the next. So, when he has the opportunity to kill Claudius when he is kneeling to pray, he refuses to do it, because then Claudius might go to heaven (Clearly theology wasn't what Hamlet was studying at Wittenburg). Hamlet is waiting for the perfect moment which, of course, never comes. In the end, it's a last-minute hodge-podge affair, in which people are dying right left and centre, and Hamlet has to kill Claudius twice, once with poison and again with a sword.

Answer 5

he is a weak man and second guesses himself many times. He is hesitant.

Answer 6

Hamlet has his youth to blame for his irrational behavior, as well as trauma over the tragedies that have befallen him throughout the course of the play.

Answer 7

He hesitated because he thought that if he killed Claudius in while he was "praying" then he would go to heaven. Although, Claudius was not praying at all, thus causing Hamlet to hesitate.

Answer 8

true