I need help with my high school debate

[Motomike48]

So I have to do a debate on why I think Hamlet is a coward and my sub-topic is: "How do you think Hamlet is a coward when it comes to killing his uncle Claudius"? I need 4 key arguments and proofs and I don't know where to start. The only point I can come up with is he is a coward for procrastinating towards the murder of his uncle.

[KCurtis]

you should read Hamlet again then.

[Charles Darnay]

I don't know where to start.


The only point I can come up with is he is a coward for procrastinating towards the murder of his uncle.

^this is a fine place to start. See how solutions come when you just think about them for a bit. Keep going and you will have four points.

[Calidore]

It's been a while since I've watched Hamlet, but just looking at the Wikipedia summary I saw two or three actions/nonactions that could be debated as cowardice. Since Hamlet is above all a play, it might help to watch it before reading it, as the actors' performances may give clues that are less obvious in the text. The BBC-TV version with Derek Jacobi is complete and unabridged, and I believe the Kenneth Branagh version is also.

[tonywalt]

Mel Gibson did a version of Hamlet also. I have a bootleg version in my boathouse.

[sonia bhardwaj]

I totally agree with the previous post. In addition, Shakespeare has helped me understand many current situations and his works helped me learn to delve deeper into the meaning of different texts.

[Corona]

To start with, I'd begin by saying by no means Hamlet was guilty of cowardice. This should be considered a romantic myth, not actuality.
Him procrastinating the killing of Claudius is not due to him being a coward or a poor-illed man; quite the contrary Hamlet is not lacking courage, the guts to kill - the convinction Hamlet is hesitating is the product of a likely wrong way of thinking, based on the assumption revenge was ethically conceived and justified during Elizabethan Age and that the Ghost was asking Hamlet to do "justice".
Quite differently, Hamlet's hesitation is he product of him not knowing actually what to do, if to give himself up to the savage istincts of revenge of if to let justice to Providence.