Hamlet's behavior

[learntodiscover]

Question: Hamlet is violent and verbally abusive towards his mother. He also shows little or no remorse for slaying Polonius. Do you think he is justified in his behaviour or is it cruel and unkind?

What do you guys think, I think it is justified. For some reason I don't hate him for what he did. I just think that the way he speaks to his mum and Ophelia is a bit rude but then again It's hard for him to trust anyone........everybody is an enemy.......As for killing polonius, well I feel he probably thaught it was his chance to kill the king and without thinking just went for it. Maybe he should have shown a little more compasion but polonius was a bit of a pain in the derriere, good riddance to bad rubish.

[Sunny Gardens]

"Do you think he is justified in his behaviour or is it cruel and unkind?"

Neither. I would say his behavior is understandable in his circumstances. He is grieving (over his father's death), angry (at his mother for her hasty marriage and apparent lack of grief), frustrated (by his own indolence toward avenging his father's death), and heartbroken (because he has forced himself to be cruel to Ophelia). He is seemingly at his wits end, and his actions are that of a desperate, tragic figure who is forced into action against his nature and who deserves only our pity.

[Gladys]

We tend to downplay Hamlet's bad behaviour because Shakespeare provides deep insight through internal monologue. With the same insight, we might sympathize with many a narcissist, bully, fanatic or wrongdoer, wreaking mayhem on their fellow man while acting upon some flawed, inner vision.

Just like them, Hamlet can behave atrociously as well as impeccably. And his ‘noble mind’ seduces us. Would we be as sympathetic if Hamlet were foreign, uneducated, uncultured, uncouth and plain ugly?

[superfabulous]

'Question: Hamlet is violent and verbally abusive towards his mother. He also shows little or no remorse for slaying Polonius. Do you think he is justified in his behaviour or is it cruel and unkind?'

I don't think he is completely justified in his behaviour although considering the circumstances he is under it's understandable how he talks to his mother.
'I will speak daggers, but use none.'
He has vowed to the apparition of the late King, his father, that he would not harm Gertrude.
As for slaying Polonius, I can understand his initial instinct as he thought it was Claudius hiding behind the arras but I don't emphasise with the fact that he didn't show any remorse. Of course, considering 'Hamlet' as a stage play and the audience and context of the time, his actions were most probably accepted more than how they would be today.

[JBI]

He regards his mother as a whore, because she was unchaste in her relationship to her father (he thinks so, it isn't proved). He then goes through the "Get ye to a nunnery" bit, nunnery being slang for whorehouse at the time, with Ophelia, because he, following Freud's psychology, loses faith in all women, and begins to see them all as prostitutes, because of his mother's fall from grandeur in his eyes. Justified? I think every character, and I mean every character, in Shakespeare is justified in his actions. That's the beauty of Shakespeare.

[learntodiscover]

He regards his mother as a whore, because she was unchaste in her relationship to her father (he thinks so, it isn't proved). He then goes through the "Get ye to a nunnery" bit, nunnery being slang for whorehouse at the time, with Ophelia, because he, following Freud's psychology, loses faith in all women, and begins to see them all as prostitutes, because of his mother's fall from grandeur in his eyes. Justified? I think every character, and I mean every character, in Shakespeare is justified in his actions. That's the beauty of Shakespeare.

I agree, he tends to find anything sexual to be repulsive.........and about that poin of all shakespearian characters being jstified, good point:)

Thanks guys for all your insight, it helps to look at the situation from all angles:)

[rich14285]

When we hear or read Wm Shakespeare's "Hamlet", one may ask questions regarding the behavior of the Prince of Denmark, a behavior that at some point seems increasingly filled with malice. Even so, are we not surprised when Ophelia is scorned by Hamlet, and it kills her? For Hamlet tells us that he feigns madness to purchase time, and so one might think that when Ophelia comes within the level of Hamlet's frown, and is scorned, and she waxes melancholy, and drowns by willful suicide, surely this is not what Hamlet premeditated? When he scorns Ophelia, surely he does not do so as in an understanding of her premeditated murder. For if he did, then he is guilty of an offense that hath three braunches in it, or homicide: 1) a breach of the King's peace; 2) a felony; 3) with malice aforethought. We may hear allusion to this offense in Act 5, scene i, where in a mood of satire that feeds upon the law of coroner's inquest, and with words given unto a grave digger, Good Man Delver:

"First Clown
How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her
own defence?
Second Clown
Why, 'tis found so.
First Clown
It must be 'se offendendo;' it cannot be else. For
here lies the point: if I drown myself wittingly,
it argues an act: and an act hath three branches: it
is, to act, to do, to perform: argal, she drowned
herself wittingly.
Second Clown
Nay, but hear you, goodman delver,--
First Clown
Give me leave. Here lies the water; good: here
stands the man; good; if the man go to this water,
and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he
goes,--mark you that; but if the water come to him
and drown him, he drowns not himself: argal, he
that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.
Second Clown
But is this law?
First Clown
Ay, marry, is't; crowner's quest law."
Retrieved from: http://www.online-literature.com/shakespeare/hamlet/20/

Shakespeare's political/legal satire apparantly turns upon an understanding of an oxymoron, i.e., "se offendendo". The two things strange: 1) "se defendendo", or self defense, of course fully pardonable since the testing of a case scenario by a coroner finds no element of malice aforethought; 2) homicide an offense that hath three braunches or an act that has three parts in it as indicated above. A point here being the latter offense that has three parts is as in an understanding of the element of malice aforethought. One may hear the first clown, Good Man Delver, explain "How tis possible" for Ophelia's body to have Christian burial because the coroner who sat on this case has room under Crowner's Quest law to find cause of death either on she who went into the water or upon the water that went into she who went into the water, and since the finding was that cause of death was the water, ergo, we may hear Shakespeare's satire feeding upon a finding of water that makes it "guilty of true love's blood" (to borrow from the first line of "Hero and Leander" by Marlowe) more agreeable as in compare.

So, what actually is rotten in Denmark? Something clearly is rotten at the Royal Court in Denmark, and just as clearly it is not unrelated to an influence of the spirit of adoption, the adoption of the young Prince of Denmark, Prince Hamlet by the usurper King Claudius. Is there not a causal relationship between Prince Hamlet's violent behavior and this influence which stems from a spirit of adoption that is laced with malice in the name of Claudius? We may recall I John 3.15 reminds us: "Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him." The tragedy of the Prince of Denmark includes the fact that he has "murderer's eyes" (to borrow from a speech given unto Phebe, in "As You Like It"). And there is no righteousness in him. That is the tragedy of the influence of the spirit of adoption upon the Prince of Denmark. That is what is rotten in Denmark. I submit that the tragedy of the Prince of Denmark is the tragedy of a ward of the crown.

[Odysseus93]

I think that Hamlet can be excused for his actions, especially if one considers all that he has been through in the play; eg: seeing his fathers [I]ghost[I], who tells him that the man who married his mother is a murderer of the darkest ilk, Hamlet's own repulsion at killing, which he sees as weakness, and Ophelia's perceived rejection of him. Its enough to send anyone slightly over the edge.