Humans are strongly influenced by both their beliefs and their emotions, and as such, they adapt easily to character developments. William Shakespeare, in Hamlet, exposes the audience to the inner conflicts of the royal house of Denmark. The most obvious and frequently repeated of these conflicts had to do with revenge. Hamlet's conflict with Claudius had to do with revenge and Laertes' conflict with Hamlet also had to do with revenge. Consequently, the consequences of these conflicts are death and chaos. Thus, one might conclude that revenge led to death and chaos.
             Early in the play, the emotional Hamlet was asked by the ghost of his father to exact revenge on his uncle Claudius. Hamlet was instantly vengeful: "Haste me to know 't, that I...May sweep to my revenge" (act 1, scene 5, lines 29-31). However, once he found out that Claudius was the perpetrator, Hamlet was very indecisive about what to do. He was torn between his beliefs on whether the ghost was telling the truth or not (act 2, scene 2, line 596-600), eventually, he devised a way to find out the truth (the mousetrap) and from there, had set his mind on taking revenge upon Claudius. Up to this point, the chaos and disruptions increased with every scene, but no deaths...yet. Now, after Hamlet was sure of the guilty Claudius, death came. Immediately after "the mousetrap," Hamlet killed Polonius who was behind a drape, thinking that Polonius was Claudius (act 3 scene 4, lines 25-26). This action started a chain reaction that led to further death and chaos. Ophelia, who had found out that the "mad" Hamlet had killed her father, went mad and drowned (act 4, scene 7, lines 185-186).
             Laertes found out about the misfortunes of his family and was quick to take revenge on Hamlet with the help of Claudius (who, although he did not know about this, had unintentionally sent Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their deaths in England). He and Claudius devised a plan to kill Hamlet by ...