Best Examples Of Hamlet's Obsessive Nature example essay topic

Throughout Hamlet's ordeal, he must interact with many people. Each interaction poses several possible ways to act, because of his obsessive nature, he often chose to sacrifice relationships in order to accomplish other goals and feel better about his situation. Many times, Hamlet could have tried to confront people concerning the way they were acting, but instead chose to ignore their existence, or in more extreme cases, end their existence. I can't stress enough how different the situation could have been had Hamlet not letting his emotions get the best of him. One of the major themes within the play is people putting on acts. Hamlet was no exception; he pretended to have gone mad after his father died, even when this faux-madness led to losing people he loved.

For example, Hamlet acted completely out of his mind when he was with the woman he truly loved, Ophelia, because of this act, he lost her. Had Hamlet confided in his love, and let her know what was going on as far as his emotions, she may have stayed sane and stuck by Hamlet. This action would also leave the possibility of Ophelia living, rather than drowning in depression. The possibility of not seeing Ophelia anymore could have been explored as well.

While it would have been hard for Hamlet to ignore Ophelia, she may have lived her life much longer. Another major theme in Hamlet is procrastination. Throughout the play, Hamlet wants to avenge his father's death by killing Claudius, but every chance that arises is pushed aside by Hamlet. Claudius was praying all alone, and rather than kill him at that moment, Hamlet thought about the situation and decided that he didn't want Claudius to have a chance to go to heaven.

Had Hamlet simply went ahead and done what he wanted to do, deaths that occurred later in the play could have been prevented. It's this obsessive nature that led Hamlet to his tragic ending. Hamlet never thought about whether or not killing Claudius would hurt his mother; he never even thought to ask her what she thought about his theory that Claudius killed his father. This is yet another example of Hamlet throwing away relationships to deal with things on his own.

Another folly of Hamlet's obsessive nature is how he ended up killing Polonium. While talking to his mother, Hamlet was suspicious of being spied on, and when he noticed someone under a curtain, he immediately killed the person without even bothering to check who it was. Had Hamlet taken a step back and thought out the situation, he would have probably made a better decision. The obsessiveness comes into play before the talk even occurred; Hamlet was constantly thinking about killing Claudius, so his morals were slowly declining. In fact, he was under the impression that the man under the curtain may be Claudius, so not only did he kill the wrong person, but he did it in front of his mother, another example of giving up relationships to accomplish his goals. Quite possibly the best examples of Hamlet's obsessive nature affecting his choices are his soliloquies.

Each time Hamlet thinks situations through, he speaks out loud about his feelings, sometimes it's thoughts of suicide, other times its being upset that he couldn't act on his feelings. Hamlet compared himself to people doing things without any passion, even when he couldn't act while possessing extremely high amounts of passion. Hamlet views a play in which a man displays very realistic emotion, this bothers Hamlet because he knows that the man doesn't truly feel the emotion, yet he can act on it as though he did. If Hamlet would have tried to not think about his situation so much, he could have focused his energy on other things and possibly let it go, and ultimately allowed many people to live their lives out a lot longer. One more situation that Hamlet could have handled better was talking to the supposed ghost of his father. Instead of taking the information he got from a ghost and acting on it, he spent a whole lot of time trying to prove the information, whilst this attempt to prove the words, Hamlet was in constant thought about the possibility of his father being murdered; these thoughts definitely contributed to Hamlet's wanting to abandon his relationships as he found that people can easily give up on each other to gain power or status.

Overall, I feel that Hamlet should have better thought out many of his choices and maybe put more effort into caring for others than trying to avenge his father's death. Not necessarily just pretending that his father wasn't betrayed, but at least not letting that fact consume him. Just think, what would have happened if Hamlet had simply poisoned Claudius in his sleep, or called him out on the fact that there was a murder? Hamlet could have stayed with Ophelia and married her. He could have become king, and his best friends may have been spared, as well as his mother and many of his loved ones. Simply because Hamlet over analyzed things, he lost everything.