Murder and Marriage in William Shakespeares Hamlett

Imagine the scenario where a man murders his brother and then marries his brother’s wife. In William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, this is Hamlet’s reality. Hamlet’s uncle, Claudius, killed his father, Old Hamlet, the king of Denmark, and then his mother, Gertrude, and uncle got married approximately two months later. The effects of these morbid events are substantial on the young prince’s psyche. Later, the ghost of Old Hamlet appears to Hamlet and commands him to exact vengeance for what Claudius has done and murder the new king. This makes Hamlet desperate for revenge, so intermittently, Hamlet soliloquizes his current state of mind and his plans of revenge to the audience. Hamlets attitude of revenge progresses throughout the play from analytical and indecisive to rash and bloodthirsty because of an increased need to avenge his fathers death before he no longer is able to kill Claudius. After having an inimical conversation with Gertrude and Claudius, in the opening scene of the play, Hamlet is in ruins, grief-stricken, and despairing; the only killing he wants to execute is of himself. Hamlet is in Hell; his mother and uncle’s â€Å"o’erhasty marriage† (Shakespeare II, ii, 57) has presided before Hamlet has stopped mourning his father’s unexplained and unexpected death. He cries out for death, wishing that â€Å"the Everlasting had not fixed his canon gainst self-slaughter! O God, God!(Shakespeare I, ii, 131-132), yet he know that he must continue to live miserably, in this