Hamlet as Revenge Hero
Before discussing the degree to which Hamlet does or does not fit thecriteria for being what is known, typically speaking, as a "revenge hero,"we must first settle on what the criteria for being designated as suchshould be. Indeed, much in the way that tragedy has a classical form of thesort prescribed by Aristotle in his Poetics, so does the revenge hero, too,possess these sorts of rigorous requirements by which we can decide whetheror not he fits within the classical model, so to speak. These criteria willbe deployed and enumerated and subsequent to a discussion of these salientfeature and analysis of the ways in which Hamlet does or does not conformto these requirements will then be offered. The first requirement for arevenge hero is that he forced to act by specific forces outside of hiscontrol. The second of the criteria is that the existing authorities provethemselves to be either unwilling or incapable of satisfying the most basicmandates of justice and, for this very simple reason, the hero is thenrequired to take up his own arms and take justice into his own hands.Thirdly, being a revenge hero requires that the putative hero dreams up acomplicated and cunning plan that he then follows
Certainly the first of the outside forces is the onerepresented very simply by Claudius himself, who in his violent murder ofHamlet's father and egregious usurpation of the throne has stolen not onlyHamlet's father from him, but his birthright of the throne as well. Indeed, although thefirst part of the plan works he seems to lack either the cunning or thedrive to push it into a second phase that would call for the actual act ofretribution to take place and at this point we come to see Hamlet as verymuch a reluctant revenge hero who seems genuinely incapable of any realaction per se. Hamlet more or less fulfills the third element of the prerequisitesfor being a revenge hero as well. Indeed,this would be almost enough to goad almost anyone on to take revenge on agiven person, but, indeed, aside from this, there is yet another factor,which will spur Hamlet on to take up arms against the man that has robbedhim, his own flesh-and-blood. While Hamlet fulfills the first twocriteria, the second too are considerable more ambiguous in a way that keepshim from really being a revenge hero, per se. Here iswhere the logical argument for Hamlet being a revenge hero in the truesense of the world begins to break down completely. Here, we seethat Hamlet at least hatches a complex plan to prove that Claudius at leastmurdered his father by having a roving troupe of players perform a playthat details the usurpation of a King in a series of acts very similar tothose performed by Hamlet, which prompts him to remark famously "The play'sthing/wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king. Indeed, he does confrontClaudius at the end and kill him, but only after a series of accidents inwhich he is forced into a dual with Laertes and in which Hamlet is fatallypoisoned. " Indeed, this play issuccessful in that after seeing the play Claudius is indeed unnerved andunmanned. Lastly,there must be a moment where the revenge hero tells his deserving victimthe reason that he is seeking justice and why the victim's death isrequired to serve the ends of justice. Indeed, the reasonfor this particular situation in which the authorities cannot act is soobvious that it hardly even justifies explication-in this instance, theperpetrator of the crime, Claudius, is also a usurper of the throne. Moreover, Hamlet largely does this under duress and fear ofdeath, and, without this outward goading, it seems very unlikely that hewould have been able to do so. Despite this early success, however, Hamlet hen seems completelyincapable of proceeding with his plan any further past this point. Though all three deal with this aspect in different ways,the Olivier version and Zeferelli version both clearly offer a portrayal ofHamlet that suggests that he is more active and takes a larger role inavenging his father making him more of a revenge hero. The Branaugh versionon the other hand presents a more brooding version of the Prince ofDenmark, who is not a standard revenge hero.
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