Is Hamlet Justified Essay

567 Words3 Pages
What is human life worth? How can one human justify taking another’s life? These are the questions one must consider when dealing with justifying revenge. That is exactly what Hamlet, the main character of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”, has to think through. He knows of his father’s death, and believes it to be at the hands of his Uncle and father-in-law Claudius, the new king. He thinks this because of what he learned from the ghost of his father, King Hamlet, and because of various occurrences that he has witnessed Claudius perform that would be synonymous with that of the king’s killer. But should he kill Claudius? As far as revenge goes, Hamlet’s is about as justified as it can be. The first reason Hamlet’s revenge is justified is the most simplistic, the obligation he has to his father. According to the ghost of King Hamlet, the only way for him to gain peace in the life after life is if Hamlet avenges his death. As far as justifying revenge goes, that is a huge step in the right direction. Hamlet is not only helping himself by killing the new King Claudius, but also his father, the very motivation behind his revenge. Not only…show more content…
Hamlet was killed when he was sleeping, without warning or previous provocation, for the dual purposes of his killer bedding the wife of the deceased and taking his throne. It wasn’t as if Claudius was acting in the best interests of anyone but himself when he killed the king or that King Hamlet’s death was some kind of accident, King Hamlet was murdered in cold blood, had his death covered up, and had his killer usurp all of the pleasures of his life. Most legal systems would consider that horrible, and the systems that existed in England at the time of the writing of “Hamlet” would put Claudius to death, so wouldn’t Hamlet simply be fulfilling the legal obligations of his time by killing
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