Hamlet: Thought versus action

Hamlet is a man of thought, reason and intellect. He responds to events by thinking about them. When the Ghost tells him that his father had been murdered, he says: “Haste me to know it, that I with wings as swift as meditation or the thoughts of love may sweep to my revenge.” (1.5.29-31).
When the ghost leaves, he says: ”Yea, from the table of my memory I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records, all saws of books, all forms, all pressures past that youth and observation copied there and thy commandment all along shall live within the book and volume of my brain unmixed with baser matter.” (1.5.98-104). To Rosencrantz and Guildernstern he says: “Denmark’s a prison . . . for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” (2.2.239, 244-245). When Fortinbras passes through Denmark, he ponders about reason and thinking. (4.4.32 –66). “Sure he that made us with such large discourse . . . gave us not that capability and god like reason to fust in us unused. Now, whether it be bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple of thinking too precisely on the event (A thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom and ever three parts coward), I do not know. . . O, from this time forth, my thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth”. (4.4.36-43, 65-66).
When he contemplates action, he thinks about it, and finds reasons not to act. The first time he contemplates suicide, he decides not to act because it is against cannon law. “The Everlasting . . .fixed his cannon against self-slaughter” (1.2.131-132). The next time he thinks about suicide, he again finds reasons not to act. “Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pitch and moment with this regard their currents turn awry, and lose the name of action”. (3.1.83-87). When he is about to kill Claudius after the play, he ponders the matter and reasons that it would not be revenge, since Claudius would go to heaven if he were killed while in prayer. (3.3.73-96). “And now I’ll do it, and so he goes to heaven. And so am I revenged . . . A villain kills my father, and for that I, his sole son, do this same villain send to heaven. Why this is hire and salary, not revenge.” (3.3.74-79).
Hamlet is also an irrational man. When he does act, he does so impetuously, impulsively, rashly and without thought. He visits Ophelia in her chambers and frightens her with his irrational and bizarre behavior. (2.1.74-97). He stabs Polonius to death behind the Arras without investigating, thinking it was Claudius. Hamlet: “: Dead for a ducat, dead” . . . Queen: “O me, what hast thou done?” Hamlet: “Nay, I know not. Is it the king?” Queen: “O what a rash and bloody deed is this.” (3.4.24-28). He jumps aboard the Pirate ship in the heat of battle. (4.6.14-17). He jumps into Ophelia’s grave and fights with Laertes (5.1.248-254). Of this action, he says to Horatio “But sure, the bravery of his [Laertes’] grief did put me into a towering passion” (5.2.78-79). When he tells Horatio of substituting the letters on board the ship in Rosencrantz and Guildernstern’s cabin, he describes the action as being rash and shaped by fate. (5.2.4-62). “Rashly-and praised be rashness for it: let us know our indiscretion sometimes serves us well when our deep plots do pall, and that should learn us there’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will.” (5.2.6-11).. When doubtful about whether to dual with Laertes, he again reveals his fatalism and lets it overrule his reason. Hamlet: “I shall win at the odds; but thou wouldst not think how ill all’s here about my heart--but it is no matter . . . Horatio: “If your mind dislike anything, obey it.” . . . Hamlet: “Not a whit, we defy augury. There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ‘tis not to come; if it be not to come it will be now; if it be not now, yet if will come; the readiness is all.” (5.2.196-207). Finally, he kills Claudius in a rage, stabbing and poisoning him. (5.2.315-319).
Hamlet represents a conflict between a paralyzing intellect and a destructive irrationality.