Shakespeare's Hamlet as an Ethical Dilemma

            As of late, I’ve had the pleasure of reading Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet: Prince of Denmark in my English class. This play has prompted me to consider an ethical dilemma of a different nature than I normally think about, namely, about the ethical and unethical qualities of the main character of the play, Hamlet.

           Hamlet is clearly established to be the “good guy” in this play. For those of you rusty or unfamiliar with the plot of Hamlet, it basically follows the plot Hamlet carries out to revenge the death of his father, King Hamlet, who was murdered by Hamlet’s uncle Claudius. In the play, Hamlet’s quest for revenge can certainly be seen as a noble act against an unethical character. However, certain aspects and consequences of Hamlet’s elaborate scheme also lend themselves to a more unethical interpretation.

            For the Hamlet-as-ethical argument, there is the perspective that Hamlet is doing a very honorable thing for his father to his own detriment. The picture of a Hamlet as a restorer-of-justice is a valid one in that he seeks to punish a man who has done something unethical by poisoning his own brother. Hamlet could just as easily have ignored his ghost-father’s plea for vengeance with no harm to himself. In fact, it can certainly be argued that without the vengeance plot and the consequential madness, Claudius would never have arranged for Hamlet’s death. However, to do so would be choosing to essentially ignore a highly unethical act (murder) as well as the final wish of his father. In this way, he has punished the unethical treatment of another character and avoided the unethical treatment of his own father at the consequence of losing his own life. Perhaps one of the best examples is Hamlet’s choice to not kill Claudius while he is praying and vulnerable.  Arguably, a completely unethical character would have taken that opportunity.

            However, Hamlet’s character is far from perfect, which is why he makes such a good ethical dilemma. Although he is the clearly established “hero” figure of this play, Hamlet’s direct actions and the indirect consequences of them have very unethical effects on the people around him. For example, in the bedroom scene with his mother, Hamlet stabs Polonius and kills him. Although Hamlet did not intend to kill Polonius, and instead believed that he had stabbed Claudius, his intention was murder either way which is far from ethical. Furthermore, his response to Polonius’ death is hardly remorseful: “Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell./ I took thee for thy better” (Act. 3 Sc. 4 Line: 32-33).Another unethical consequence of Hamlet’s actions in the play is the death of almost every other character. Hamlet personally kills Laertes and Claudius and his plot/feigned madness is indirectly responsible for the deaths of Ophelia, Gertrude, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern. Finally, in response to the argument that not killing Claudius immediately, it is important to note than in the actual scene Hamlet’s reasoning for restraint is not honor but the fear that if killed during prayer Claudius would go to Heaven instead of Hell. In this way, Hamlet’s actions arguably cause much more harm than good, and therefore, arguably, his character has a very unethical aspect as well.

  

          The fact that Hamlet’s character is so controversial from an ethical standpoint speaks to the skill of Shakespeare as a playwright. Characters with ethical ambiguity have more depth and complexity than characters clearly fall into a good/bad category, and in this particular play, Hamlet’s ambiguity is what helped to this play one of Shakespeare’s most loved and well-known works.