Revenge is the major theme upon which William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is built. The topic of revenge manifests itself throughout the whole play, building up as the play progresses. As shown throughout history, humans will naturally want to get even with a person who has done them wrong. However, seeking revenge on someone is like trying to fill a desert with water from a nearby oasis, because the only things that will result are two deserts instead of one. When an innocent person seeks revenge against someone who wronged them, instead of having one criminal, there are now two. The formerly innocent person is just as guilty as the person who had wronged him. Furthermore, people who initially were not involved become involved and affected. Ultimately, the person seeking revenge suffers the same fate as his victim. Through this topic, Shakespeare is trying to say that revenge is a cycle, which eventually destroys the one seeking revenge himself.
Hamlet’s motive to seek revenge was sparked by a visit from a ghost who claimed to be Hamlet’s father. The ghost told him that if he ever did truly love his father, he should "Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder" (1.5.25). The ghost wanted revenge on Claudius to justify his death, and from then on, seeking revenge for his father became Hamlet’s one and only objective in life. “I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,/ all saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,/ that youth and observation copied there;/ and thy commandment all alone shall live.” (1.5.99-103). Here, Hamlet declares that there will be nothing else on his mind except for his father’s command of revenge on Claudius. This sets the cycle of revenge in motion and is the beginning of Hamlet’s end.
More than just simply revenge, Hamlet wanted Claudius to be punished to the fullest extent for his deeds. He saw that the opportunity presented to him would not fulfill his desire for the perfect revenge and thus delayed his plan to kill Claudius. “And am I then revenged/To take him in the purging of his soul/When he is fit and seasoned for his passage?/No./Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent.” (3.3.85-89) He sees Claudius praying and reasoned that if Claudius were to be killed at that very moment, he would go to heaven instead of hell where he was supposed to go. It did not seem like revenge to Hamlet if his father, whom he perceived to be a better man than Claudius, suffered during his afterlife in purgatory while Claudius went to heaven. Hamlet decided to wait for a better time to kill Claudius to ensure his soul went to hell. Hamlet’s plan for revenge had now materialized through his attempt to kill Claudius. This is a significant event in Hamlet’s process of revenge because it is at this time he makes the fatal mistake of causing the accidental death of Polonius. Through this incident, Shakespeare starts to show the effects of revenge that cause the involvement of people who were not initially involved. This gradually leads Hamlet to his eventual fate.
Hamlet ends up killing Polonius instead of Claudius. Hamlet’s hands are now tainted with blood. Hamlet is just as guilty for Polonius’ death as Claudius was guilty for the murder of Hamlet’s father. Now Hamlet becomes Laertes’ target of revenge for his father. Laertes understands that revenge has some sort of consequence when he says, “To this point I stand/That both the worlds I give to negligence./Let come what comes, only I’ll be revenged/Most thoroughly for my father.” (4.5.107-110) Laertes acknowledges that in seeking revenge, he could die and go to hell. The underlying message in Laertes’ statement refers back to the consequences of revenge, in which the person seeking it suffers the same fate as his victim. Laertes realizes that if he kills the one who killed his father, he will be killed in turn for doing so. However this knowledge does not daunt him, and he goes out to execute his plan.
A “friendly” fencing match is what Laertes uses to carry out his premeditated revenge. Before the match, he poisons the tip of his sword to ensure Hamlet’s death. After wounding Hamlet with his sword, Hamlet accidentally picks up Laertes’ poisoned sword during a brawl and wounds Laertes with his own sword in self defense. The fact that Hamlet did not know the sword was poisoned meant that he did not deliberately intend to kill Laertes. This shows that the cycle of revenge will never fail to catch up to the perpetrator. Laertes ends up suffering the same fate as Hamlet, his victim. His last words were, “The foul practice/Hath turned itself on me. Lo, here I lie,/Never to rise again.” (5.2.313-315). Here, he says that his own plans for revenge backfired on him, and Laertes ends up dying from his own sword. This shows how revenge destroyed the one who initially sought to destroy someone else in revenge.
Finally, the long cycle of revenge is complete. Hamlet finally avenges his father and kills Claudius. However, he was mortally wounded by Laertes’ poisoned sword dies shortly after, suffering the same fate as Claudius. The Norwegian army marches in and demands an answer for the ruin seen everywhere. Horatio explains, “So shall you hear/Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,/Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,/Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,/And, in this upshot, purposes mistook/Fall'n on th' inventors' heads.” (5.2.381-386) Not only is Horatio explaining the reason for the state of Denmark’s royal family, but Shakespeare is also subliminally explaining the consequences of revenge through Horatio’s words. The violent, unnatural acts were caused by the motive of revenge. Then accidental deaths occurred followed by premeditated ones, all for the sake of being able to follow through with successful revenge. However, all these revengeful plans of murder backfired, and ended up destroying the very ones who sought to destroy others in the name of revenge. This ends the cycle of revenge in Shakespeare’s tragedy.
By: Mikah Sosa
