He Who Hesitates... One to many (death)

I think Hamlet's abundance of hesitation reveals something other than his timid nature. Ordered by his deceased father to get revenge on Claudius, Hamlet is forced to go against his moral conscience and commit murder. Is Hamlet's hesitation not only a result of his indecisive, skitzo character, but also that beside the fact that he loved his father, he is not willing to jeopardize his holy being. During the scene in which Claudius is praying and Hamlet convinces himself it would not be right to send Claudius to heaven and himself to hell, he decides not to stab him, revealing his connection to God and possibly his intentions to not destroy his relationship with the Holy Spirit. My impression was that despite Hamlet's various attempts to kill Claudius, he fails to follow through because he is some how afraid the same fate will befall him - in other words what goes around comes around.

I believe the presences of death throughout the play in some way connect to the central theme that revenge is merciless. Far more characters are sacrificed than seems necessary, which in a way exaggerates the prominent message: to avenge at any cost. The initial act of murder, Claudius poisoning his brother Hamlet, has an immense effect on the lives and actions of those close to him. Hamlet's wife, Gertrude, rushes into a shotgun wedding, Hamlet Jr. becomes depressed, Claudius is given the throne, and the ghost of Hamlet comes back to tell his son to seek revenge on his murderer. Each resulting death is tied in one way or another to Claudius's initial act of violence on his own brother, revealing the deadly implications of murder. One death ultimately resulted in the slaughter of over half of the characters, which does seem a tad overdone, but nonetheless it makes known Shakespeare's beliefs about murder and accordingly its effects.