Consider Hamlet as a Tragic Hero.

Consider Hamlet as a Tragic Hero.

Shakespeare's tragic heroes are all great men—kings, Princes or Generals. Naturally when we see a noble and virtuous person suffering greatly for slight mistakes which he could not avoid, our hearts are filled with pity and awe. The tragic hero with

Shakespeare, says Bradley, need not be good though generally he is good and therefore, at once gains our sympathy in his error. He has so much greatness and nobility in him that in his error and fall we may be conscious of the possibility of human nature. Like other tragic heroes of Shakespeare Hamlet is endowed with exceptional qualities like royal birth, high intellect, graceful and charming personality and popularity among his countrymen.

The tragic hero suddenly falls from his highest pinnacle of glory to dust due to a flaw (slight mistake or error of judgment) in his character, and Hamlet, too, has this tragic flaw. Hamlet's tragic flaw lies in his indecision, caused by his thinking too much and also feeling too much. According to Coleridge his enormous intellectual faculty prevents action, and he loses the power of action in the energy  of resolve. He refines and over-refines in the futile attempt to consider minutely every aspect of a question, the will to act is paralyzed, and so there is nothing but delay and irresolution.

Hamlet is an idealist who feels the hasty and incestuous second marriage of his mother too keenly. His moral idealism receives a rude shock; his faith in human nature is shaken and his melancholy sits brooding on his mind over the disloyalty and gross sensuality of his mother. As a result, he is exhausted and depressed and becomes incapable of determined and prompt action. This tragic flaw in his character makes Hamlet both a tragedy of reflection and a tragedy of moral idealism. The circumstances in which he is placed require prompt action. A Macbeth or Othello in these circumstances would have acted swiftly and the tragedy would have been averted. But the cruel destiny makes on Hamlet a call for action, just at the moment when he is very much weary, depressed, and listless. He fails to act, and the delay and irresolution prove fatal to him.

Like other Shakespearean tragic heroes, Hamlet suffers from both external and internal conflicts. The external conflict takes the form of conflict first with Claudius, and later on with Laertes and Claudius combined. The internal conflict is between his moral and religious nature and the act of revenge, which he is called upon to perform. Love of his father, the dishonor of his mother, and the villainy of his uncle are powerful promptings to swift revenge, while his nobility of soul, his idealism, his principles, his religion, all revolt against such a brutal act. As a result, he is torn within and suffers great spiritual tortures. His sufferings and calamities of life and finally death evoke the feelings of pify and awe in •the audience and the reader' as well.

To sum up, Hamlet is a typical tragic hero of Shakespeare. He is the only one of the tragic heroes, who does not lose our sympathies even for a moment.