Hamlet as a Revenge Hero: Justice, Madness, and Morality

Introduction: Hamlet as a Revenge Hero

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is considered one of Shakespeare's greatest and most complex plays (Meyer, 2002). It charts the evolution of a character within the context of a revenge drama — that of Hamlet himself. In keeping with the revenge theme of the drama, this essay argues that Shakespeare exalts Hamlet as a hero, justifiably though within reason. Indeed, Hamlet is a hero: he rights a horrible wrong, and the reader of the play hopes against hope that his quest for vengeance is successful. This vengeance takes the form of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. The reader is taken through emotional upheavals when the failure of Hamlet's quest almost becomes a certainty — but for a quirk of fate, the exchange of swords.

One might alternatively decry Hamlet's methods, for in his quest for vengeful justice many innocents are killed. These include his beloved Ophelia, her father Polonius, her brother Laertes, Hamlet's mother Gertrude, and his friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern — and, justifiably, Claudius himself. Yet Shakespeare does provide a final resolution, and that resolution is good for Denmark. The nation is left in the hands of neither the criminal Claudius nor the mercurial — and possibly truly insane — Hamlet. Fortinbras rules Denmark, and we must hope that he does so justly.

A brief summary of the play reveals that the ghost of Hamlet's father visits Hamlet's friends, and later Hamlet himself, to inform him that his death two months prior was not caused by a snakebite as had been announced. It was his brother Claudius — who was conducting an adulterous affair with the queen — who had killed the king by pouring poison into his ear. This revelation rouses Hamlet from his melancholy, and he vows revenge: "Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder" (I.iv). He informs his close friends that he will feign madness in his vengeful quest. In the end, Hamlet does earn his revenge and kills Claudius. Unfortunately, this comes at the cost of his own life, his mother Gertrude's life, his prospective brother-in-law Laertes' life, and his prospective father-in-law Polonius' life. In the process, his lover Ophelia descends into genuine madness and kills herself. The only redeeming feature of this tragedy is that Hamlet ensures Denmark is left in capable hands.

The Revenge-Play Tradition and Its Influence

In keeping with [Elizabethan revenge-play](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenge_tragedy) formulas — which were themselves borrowed from the Greeks and, to some extent, from the Roman playwright Seneca — Shakespeare is considered by some to have borrowed liberally from Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy (Rowse, 2000). Both Shakespeare and Kyd adhered to the laws of England. They ensured that neither Hamlet, avenging his father's death, nor Hieronimo, avenging his son Andreas' death in the Kyd epic, went free. The former was killed in a duel via a poison-tipped sword; the latter commits suicide when Spanish soldiers come to arrest him.

The Web of Revenge in the Play

The entirety of Hamlet is suffused with the notion of revenge. Laertes wants revenge against Hamlet because Hamlet killed Polonius in a fit of rage — though it was a case of mistaken identity — and also broke off with Ophelia, causing her to go mad. Claudius, having discovered through Hamlet's impromptu play (performed by traveling players) that Hamlet knows how the elder Hamlet died, finds in Laertes' quest for revenge a perfect means to kill Hamlet and thus secure his hold on Denmark. Even Fortinbras, King of Norway, sets out to take revenge on Denmark because the elder Hamlet killed his father. Claudius manages to divert Fortinbras' attention toward waging war on Poland. Fortinbras, to his great fortune, is not overcome by rage to the point of irrationality, and he is rewarded for his restraint.

As in revenge plays of the era, Hamlet involves the audience in his schemes through soliloquies — the most famous being "To be or not to be…" (III.i). The target of Hamlet's revenge certainly does not deserve to live: Claudius killed his own brother and hastily married his sister-in-law, while Gertrude, possessed of a happy and carefree disposition, married her brother-in-law without apparent hesitation. The audience, aware that both have committed grievous crimes, supports Hamlet — and in doing so is blinded to the fact that his pursuit is unlawful.