The Complicated Character of Hamlet

being his constant pondering over his actions and his reluctance to accept the vastness of the task he had promised to carry out. Also upheld by Shakespeare, is the Kydian form of a revenge tragedy, the separation into five acts, and Seneca's use of violence and blood. It was always expected for a revenge tragedy to end with all or almost all the characters being killed, and indeed this is what we get in Hamlet. Horatio in fact describes the revenge tragedy genre in the play itself at the very end:
             " So shall you hear
             Of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts,
             Of accidental judgements, casual slaughters,
             Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,
             And in this upshot, purposes mistook
             Fallen on th'inventors' heads. " (V.ii:374-379,page 203)
             Despite keeping the revenge tragedy construct, Shakespeare dwells heavily on the religious beliefs of his time and this is very reflective in Hamlet, and this helps explain a few of the play's events. When the ghost of Hamlet's father appears, it urges Hamlet to avenge his death because he was killed before confessing and because of this his soul is "confined to fast in fires" (I.v:11,page90), it is trapped in purgatory, and only "Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature/ Are burnt and purged away." (I.v:12-13, page 90), can he go to heaven. One other very important scene is where Hamlet g
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