Hamlet’s Melancholy

Critics of Shakespeare’s Hamlet have debated, discussed, and thoroughly pondered the meaning of Hamlet’s inaction in the play and what drives him in his thoughts and actions. Many speculate that Hamlet’s inaction is caused by a number of obstacles throughout the play, but through careful inspection of Hamlet at his very worst and very best, one can see that obstacles are not the problem with his inability to act—it is the constant state of melancholy he is thrown into by the events that ultimately ruin his life. Hamlet, having just lost his father, is not given time or sympathy for his much-needed grieving; and this, in turn initiates his melancholic state that controls his actions and motives to the very end of the play (Kirsch 17).
Throughout the play one can see that Hamlet never once loses possession over those qualities that make him such a noble character. Even in his most tumultuous state he has healthy and positive feelings: a strong love of his father, longing for revenge, and disgust of his uncle and the deed he committed (Bradley 142). So, though Hamlet is not in his normal state, he is not distressed beyond reason and any obstacle that would not prevent him from acting before certainly should not now. The conclusion is inevitably that Hamlet is in a state of melancholy because of what has just happened. His healthy motives combined with the overwhelming feelings of melancholic aversion and lethargy create a seemingly unattainable mode of action. The new-found state of melancholy he has been thrown into also accounts for Hamlet’s new-found energy and impulsiveness. Having always been a well-rounded and educated thinker, his decisions were well thought out and carefully planned. Now that Hamlet is in such a state of confusion and wants for guidance, his actions are impulsive and energetic, reflective of how anyone might act upon having their lives hurled into a chaotic abyss (Belsey 128). The ferocious manner in which Hamlet inserts himself into the much expounding drama of his household most certainly would consume a great deal of his energy, leaving him utterly exhausted mentally and at a loss for answers or direction—when his energy is gone he has no desire to act upon what he knows in his heart. However, he does act upon his idea to make the play based upon The Murder of Gonzago a trap with increasing liveliness (Bradley 131).
When his step-father overreacts to the play and confirms Hamlet’s hopes and worst fears, he is ecstatic with the results, not because he is closer to his goal, but because it reflects his own cleverness and success (Bradley 133). At this point Hamlet has full permission of his own conscience to fulfill his father’s wishes for vengeance. However, Hamlet discovers the King in a most vulnerable state. He is on the floor, asking for forgiveness and genuinely overwhelmed by the severity of his deeds. Hamlet’s thoughts: “Now might I do it pat, now he is praying: / And now I'll do it: and so he goes to heaven / And so am I revenged. / That would be scanned (Shakespeare 3.3.73).” Hamlet has been given the perfect opportunity to avenge his father, yet he tell himself that he could not properly do so at this time. In his nobleness and dedication to the task at hand, Hamlet produces yet another excuse for not doing the job. Though the reason in waiting is firm enough, it is a complication to the complex feelings Hamlet has toward his now-clear destiny (Bradley 134).
Hamlet’s melancholy also accounts for his flaws—the most raw elements of his character that are seen in the play. He is self-absorbed and has a strong degree of aggression and impatience with those whom he loathes, and even occasionally with those he loves. These characteristics are classic symptoms of melancholy and Hamlet certainly displays them frequently and with fervor. In addition to the melancholic symptoms being present, Hamlet’s personality and mannerisms change, quite inexplicably, to outbursts of frenzied and futile emotion. An example of these would be when Hamlet converses with the ghost and refers to himself as being “lapsed in passion (Bradley 124)”. His thoughts are quite wild and fervent at this time; several events of great meaning in his life have now occurred and he is at loss for how to behave himself (Calderwood 270).
The melancholy displayed in Hamlet also explains two things that seem to have no other definition, the first being his lethargy. The text of the play provides evidence for the above mentioned fact, though it is routinely ignored by readers and critics alike (McCanse 477). Hamlet openly ponders a possible reason for his inaction and allows that it may be his “thinking too precisely on the event” or the “bestial oblivion” that creates a dullness and is “letting all sleep”; a God-sent reason is being allowed to “fust unused”. Hamlet says, “What is a man, / If his chief good and market of his time / Be but to sleep and feed? / A beast, no more (Shakespeare 4.4.29)”. His thoughts bring many more questions to the surface than simply his reasons for being unable to act. Though he makes a point of suggesting that he is too overcome with thoughts and worries of what his actions might bring about by ceaseless thoughts on the subject, he also suggests, perhaps subconsciously, that because of the close line between man and beast one might not even be able to tell the difference in certain circumstances (McCanse 477). And if man is no different than a beast, what is the point in trying to accomplish and keep in check any sort of moral code or system? His analysis of what propels these thoughts leaves him without hope and worthless, the lethargy in his thoughts and actions clear. His melancholy is propelled by his lethargic and dejected thinking, a demon that is constantly in his subconscious and nagging at the back of his mind (McCanse 478).
Hamlet possesses yet another trait that can only be explained by his melancholy and its power to incapacitate his ability to understand himself and what causes the impediment of his actions. He is often reminded of his inaction and is pained by the thought of what he should be doing (Belsey 146). “Why do I linger? Can the cause be cowardice? Can it be sloth? Can it be thinking too precisely of the event? And does that again mean cowardice? What is it that makes me sit idle when I have cause, will, and strength, and means to act (Shakespeare 3.4.55)?” Had Hamlet’s conscience damned the act in which he outwardly approved, that might have given grounds to his confusion and inability to deicide, but there is no evidence given that Hamlet is in any way against the task before him (Belsey 148). At that very moment he ponders his inaction, he is free from his melancholy but unable to make sense of what force it exerts upon him and what he should do to repair his state. In his first soliloquy Hamlet indicates most plainly his meaning:
O, that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d
His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on’t! ah fie! ‘tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely (Shakespeare 1.2.129).

In these words Hamlet gives knowledge of his sickness of life, desire for death, and feelings so powerful to leave this world that nothing could not stop him were it not for his respect and devotion to God (Preston 130). What is it that causes this desire to commit suicide? It could not be the death of his father, for though Hamlet loved him and grieved over his loss, one as noble as Hamlet would not feel the need to leave the world because it was missing his father (Preston 362). After all, he described things as “rank and gross”—the world would not be so much worse without his father in it. And it certainly was not that Hamlet was not given the title of king rather than his uncle, for Hamlet was concerned with much greater things than grief over losing the crown. Though he must have felt a slight suspicion of what Claudius had done, it was not enough at the time to drive him to kill himself. The thing that drove him to feel such anguish is possibly the most obvious (Preston 353). It was the shock in knowing his mother’s true nature (Kirsch 19). His disgust in her actions combined with the sorrow in his heart from the loss of his father no doubt put such a large burden on his heart. Having known and admired his mother his entire life, nothing could prepare Hamlet for the shock he received when his mother married his uncle within a month of his father’s death. Further proof of Hamlet’s new-found feelings toward women is evident when it becomes clear that he does not feel the same way about Ophelia as before. Though Polonius mistakes Hamlet’s actions toward his daughter for love, he could not be further from the truth—for at that time Hamlet is already well beyond his feelings for Ophelia and is beginning to fall into the state of melancholy that defines his character throughout the play (Kirsch 28). The onset of Hamlet’s melancholy is started not by his father’s sudden death, but from the lack of sympathy from those around him. Without their sympathy and feelings of understanding toward his condition, he is unable to properly grieve the death of a king with which no one seems to miss. His mother expresses that she is not in the slightest bit sad by her actions of marrying Claudius and in the way in which she converses with Hamlet (Kirsch 18):
Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not for ever with thy vailed lids Seek for thy noble father in the dust.
Thou know'st 'tis common-all that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity (Shakespeare 1.2.68).

The next person to offer advice and consolation to Hamlet is the King, the last person any sort of response would be desired from:
'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,
To give these mourning duties to your father;
But you must know your father lost a father;
That father lost lost his; and the survivor bound,
In filial obligation, for some term To do obsequious sorrow. But to persever In obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief;
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient, An understanding simple and unschool'd; For what we know must be, and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense, Why should we in our peevish opposition
Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd; whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried, From the first corse till he that died to-day, 'This must be so' (Shakespeare 1.2.87).

Though Claudius’s words are most certainly logical and applicable to someone wanting to overcome grief, they are all wrong for Hamlet in the context (Kirsch 18). Hamlet has not even had a month to properly mourn his father and already the people closest to him are telling him to move on. Not only is this an absurd request, but it also instills feelings of shock and doubt in Hamlet about the rest of the court. He is appalled that they could move on so quickly from such a traumatic experience, and one within the very core of their lives at that. Hamlet’s initial inability to grieve or understand why sets into motion his melancholy and further inability to take action on his father’s death. Had someone else than Claudius, and at a later time, said the above speech to Hamlet, it might have sustained a much different effect on Hamlet (Kirsch 18). These unfeeling and surprising words from his family bring about not only confusion over suppressed guilt and an unidentifiable sadness, but also arouse an anger and sense of vengeance. First, it is aimed toward his mother, as he is obsessed with her haste in the marriage and obvious need for sexual relations. These feelings of anger gradually turn to those of vengeance as he learns from the ghost of his father what Claudius has done, and later when the allegations are confirmed. It is vengeance and anger that fuel Hamlet’s melancholy and his retarded and dysfunctional grief. “But if vengeance composes the plot of the revenge play, grief composes its essential emotional content, its substance” (Kirsch 17). The tragedy of Hamlet is one of the most infamous and important of all Shakespeare’s writings. It contains all of the things an audience likes to see in a play and any good story (Bradley 132). Hamlet is a character, though flawed and susceptible to the evils of the outside world as he is, that holds a place in every heart who knows his story. Hamlet is a person that is easy to identify with and very much like every person that has ever been through a traumatic experience similar to his own. It is in the nature of humans to sympathize with those who they realize have lost and are grieving (Bradley 145). Hamlet’s inability to grieve and his constant state of melancholy put him in a position that makes it difficult to think clearly or make effective decisions, and while he earns the critical eye, he is considered a hero and a success in some ways because of the love and sympathy he has earned from his audience. Through personal insight and careful observation of Hamlet’s actions throughout the play, it is clear that his inability to act upon his father’s death is a result of his lack of a proper period of grieving and the state of melancholy that overcomes and controls his decisions and thinking that would allow him to properly avenge the death of the King; the melancholic state ultimately leads to the tragic end of the court and Hamlet himself. The vengeance is obtained at last, but at a lofty price and in the worst possible imagined scenario (Kirsch 20).

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