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From WikipediaPerhaps the most straightforward view sees Hamlet as seeking truth in order to be certain that he is justified in carrying out the revenge called for by a ghost that claims to be the spirit of his father. The most standard view is that Hamlet is highly indecisive, which is the view as proposed by Coleridge, and a number of other critics. "Shakespeare wished to impress upon us the truth, that action is the chief end to existence". The 1948 movie with Laurence Olivier in the title role is introduced by a voiceover: "This is the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind."
T.S. Eliot offers a similar view of Hamlet's character in his critical essay, "Hamlet and His Problems" (The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism). He states, "We find Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' not in the action, not in any quotations that we might select, so much as in an unmistakable tone...".
Others see Hamlet as a person charged with a duty that he both knows and feels is right, yet is unwilling to carry out. In this view, all of his efforts to satisfy himself of King Claudius' guilt, or his failure to act when he can, are evidence of this unwillingness, and Hamlet berates himself for his inability to carry out his task. After observing a play-actor performing a scene, he notes that the actor was moved to tears in the passion of the story and compares this passion for an ancient Greek character, Hecuba, in light of his own situation:
"O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
That from her working all his visage wan'd;
Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing!
For Hecuba?
What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her?"
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Have you ever seen the film Withnail & I, they quote you in that, too. And it is awesome.
I love Hamlet.
"Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me."
That is one of my favorite lines in the play. <3