The Role of Duty In William Shakespeares Hamlet Essays -- Shakespeare

The Role of Duty In William Shakespeares HamletKilling a person is not something that anyone lavatory take lightly. In thestory of Hamlet, the uncle of the plays focus character, Prince Hamlet ofDenmark, has murdered the princes incur, stolen the crown, and weds hismother. The ghost of king Hamlet comes to the prince and tells him that hemust avenge his murder. The play follows Hamlets quest of vindicate againsthis murdering incestuous uncle. The question thats left to the reader toanswer is whether or not the last(a) killing of Claudius was an act of dutyor desire for young Hamlet. many may suspect that the reason he wentthrough with his act of revenge was because he wanted to, but the majorityof readers seem to come to the conclusion that his final act was an act ofduty.Hamlets first thoughts on the revenge he has to perform went as follows Ill wipe away each(prenominal) trivial fond records, all saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, that youth and observation copied there and thy commandment all alone shall live. (A1, S5,L99-103)This statement makes it perfectly clear that Hamlet views what he has to doas a job that he has to do for his father.In act 2, scene 2 Hamlet meets an actor who easily displays intense emotionand passion on matters that wear just come to his head. Hamlet askshimself in the soliloquy that followed if he was a coward for notcompleting his task yet. This makes it obvious that killing Claudius isntsomething that Haml... ...on has resulted withLeartes and his mother both dead, and himself mortally wounded. Had hisquest of murder been for desire and not for duty, he wound have killedClaudius before any of this had happened. But since he had to first testthe ghost, and then bide to kill Claudius when he wasnt praying, Hamletends up dying in this scene, along with a host of others. On the slightlybrighter side, Hamlet finally gets the revenge his father needs.The answer to the question of duty or desire arises another quest ion. Ifwe arrived at the same circumstances as Hamlet, could we have actedquicker? Although it seems like Hamlet went astir(predicate) this the wrong waybecause everyone ended up dead, I dont suspect that there are many of usthat could have performed this still-villainous act at the drop of a hat.