delay

During the play we get to know Hamlet as a person who thinks a lot about his actions and his surroundings.  He probably feels alone and betrayed by his mother and uncle, and doesn’t know whom to trust. Hamlet’s reluctance shows his values. He isn’t a mindless murderer because the act to kill someone is a big step into a direction which not everybody likes. To live with the thought  that you have ended somebody’s life is not easy. So his reluctance makes sense and is reasonable, whereas the question arises: when Hamlet is that mindful and doesn’t want to kill somebody initially why does he kill Polonius without thinking.  Is it only because he is listening and apparently “a rat”? For me this action doesn’t make sense. It is completely contrary to everything we see about Hamlet’s values in the beginning of the play.

I can understand that Hamlet feels a lot of anger against his uncle because Claudius killed his father and so Hamlet wants this revenge. I guess I would feel the same; and Hamlet probably wants more. He wants Claudius to suffer in hell and rather than going to heaven if Hamlet were to kill him in the Chapel. We as an audience know that Claudius would go either way to hell but Hamlet doesn’t know that.

Because we have continued the play and we know that Hamlet kills Polonius without a reason, I think the delay in Hamlet becoming a murderer is senseless. He should have killed Claudius earlier because this was the person Hamlet wanted to kill and had a reason for killing, not Polonius.