Hamlet the Passive Intellect

The achieves and events in Shakespeares settlement revolve around Hamlets inactivity. Without Hamlets hesitation, constant thought, and inwrought deliberation, the plot would proceed directly from Hamlets meeting with the Ghost to his murder of Claudius. Hamlets philosophical strifeheightens the complexity of his life issues and intensifies the depth of his dilemma. Hamlets over-intellectualization coupled with his resistless tendencies paralyzes his ability to act, locking him in an inescapable prison of his own inner consciousness. Hamlets over-intellectualization begins with his questioning of the ghosts identity.When first told by Horatio that the ghost of his pay off haunts the battlements, Hamlet interrogates him obsessively to obtain every relevant detail to satisfy his intellectual curiosity. Hefiresa volley of questions at Horatio, ranging from whether his countenance is pale or red to how long it fixed eyes upon Horatio (1. 2. 250). His desire to dispel uncertainty and further his knowledge escalates in the physical encounter with the ghost. Rather than accepting his tidy sum for granted, Hamlet examines the validity of his perceptions by debating whether the ghost of a questionable shape is wicked or charitable (1. . 45-46). Hamlet initially pronounces to the ghost that he pull up stakes wipe away all trivial, fond records, all saw of books, all forms, all pressures past, that youth and observation copied there, declaring his resolution to act (1. 4. 108). However, when he reconvenes with his friends, he entreats them neer make known what you have seen tonight (1. 5. 160). Instead of seeking for an immediate collective action to avenge his fathers unnatural murder, he chooses to stretch the process to devise an elaborate scheme within his own mind.He forestalls actionbe it his friends or his ownto contemplate the implications of his experience. He concludes by profane swearing the fact that he was born to set it right(1. 5. 211). The ghosts revelation places him in a position where he must be the operator of action, whose filial responsibility is to affect justice and kill Claudius. Hamlets dilemma, then, stems from the need to become an avenging son while being a naturally passive intellectual. Hamlet addresses his dilemma in greater depth by engaging in a rigorous, intellectual process, which ironically perpetuates the vicious cycle of inactivity.In his intercourse with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, he confesses, thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison (2. 2. 270). Hamlet finds himself imprisoned by his intellect, as he must like a whore unpack his embrace with words (2. 2. 614). He cannot act by heart because he is bound to unpack his actions with reason first. He berates himself as a rogue and peasant break ones back and John-a-dream, unpregnant of my cause, and can say nothing (2. 2. 576-595). Hamlet recognizes that he is not taking any decisive action to dutifully avenge his fathers oddment in staying wi thin his comfort zone of intellectualism.As he articulates and explores his conflict of conscience, he concludes, Thus conscience does make cowards of us all and thus the innate hue of resolution is sicklied oer with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pitch and momentlose the name of action (3. 1. 91-96). Hamlet reaffirms that his constant rede and philosophizing stymie the very action he strives for. The inexorable clash between his predisposition for sedentary contemplations and the filial imperative to actively seek retaliation results in such strong feelings of self-loathing that he considers shuffling off the mortal coil (3. . 75). Committing suicide would proactively end his suffering, but he problematizes even that possibility as an unacceptable transgression against Godscanon gainst self-slaughter (1. 2. 136). Ironically, this very soliloquy devoted to meditating on his passivity epitomizes his inaction rather than coming up with pragmatic solutions to en d his dilemma, he explores and wallows in self-pity, which in turn exacerbates the intensity of his conundrum. Hamlet is so preoccupied with the enormous intellectual activity in his head that he closes himself off from all action in the external world.