The Role of Duty In William Shakespeares Hamlet Essays -- Shakespeare

The Role of Duty In William Shakespeares Hamlet cleanup spot a person is not something that anyone can take lightly. In the falsehood of Hamlet, the uncle of the plays focus char croper, Prince Hamlet ofDenmark, has murdered the princes father, stolen the crown, and weds hismother. The g force of king Hamlet comes to the prince and tells him that hemust avenge his murder. The play follows Hamlets quest of revenge againsthis murdering incestuous uncle. The fountainhead thats left to the reader to function is whether or not the utmost putting to death of Claudius was an act of dutyor appetite for young Hamlet. Some whitethorn suspect that the reason he wentthrough with his act of revenge was because he wanted to, but the majorityof readers seem to come to the conclusion that his final act was an act ofduty.Hamlets first thoughts on the revenge he has to exercise went as follows Ill wipe away tout ensemble trivial fond records, whole saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, that youth and observation copied at that place and thy commandment all alone shall live. (A1, S5,L99-103)This statement makes it perfectly clear that Hamlet views what he has to doas a job that he has to do for his father.In act 2, scene 2 Hamlet meets an actor who easily displays intense senseand passion on matters that have just come to his head. Hamlet askshimself in the soliloquy that followed if he was a coward for notcompleting his task yet. This makes it unambiguous that killing Claudius isntsomething that Haml... ...on has resulted withLeartes and his mother both dead, and himself mortally wounded. Had hisquest of murder been for desire and not for duty, he wound have killedClaudius before any of this had happened. but since he had to first testthe ghost, and then wait to kill Claudius when he wasnt praying, Hamletends up dying in this scene, along with a host of others. On the slightlybrighter side, Hamlet finally gets the revenge his father needs.The answer to the qu estion of duty or desire arises another question. Ifwe arrived at the identical circumstances as Hamlet, could we have actedquicker? Although it seems like Hamlet went somewhat this the wrong waybecause everyone ended up dead, I dont suspect that there are many of usthat could have performed this still-villainous act at the tramp of a hat.