Just Do Something, Hamlet

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Term Paper Title	Just Do Something, Hamlet
# of Words	781
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	3.12

Just Do Something, Hamlet

     Action plays an important role in drama, and is well modified by dialogue.  In
Shakespeare's Hamlet, there is much talk of action.  Unfortunately, there is mostly talk of
action on Hamlet's part and very little action taken.  This becomes frustrating for the
audience because Hamlet constantly tortures himself and others with his thought process
and never really intentionally acts on it until it is too late.
     In the first act of the play, Hamlet's grief of his father's death is what keeps him
inactive.  "Together with all forms, moods, [shapes]  of grief, That can [denote] me truly.
These indeed seem, For they are actions that a man might play, But I have that within
which passes show, These but the trappings and the suits of woe.] (I.ii, 82-86).  He is
mourning his father's death at the beginning of the play without knowledge of his father's
murderer.  The audience begins to think that Hamlet might actually do something when he
is confronted by his father's ghost.  The ghost tells him that Claudius is his murderer
demands revenge for his death.  Hamlet is enraged, but still completely inactive.  He talks
makes references to action throughout the play, but does nothing for the first three acts.
"What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and
moving, how express and admirable in action, how like an angel in apprehension, how like
a god!" (II. ii, 303-307).  Hamlet speaks of how much he appreciates quick action, but
does nothing.  Another good example of this is in one of Hamlet's many soliloquies.  In
Act II, Scene II, he talks of his problem.  "What would he do Had he the motive and [the
sue] for passion That I have?  He would drown the stage with tears, And cleave the
general ear with horrid speech, Make mad the guilty, and appall the free, Confound the
ignorant, and amaze indeed the very faculties of eyes and ears." (560-566).  Hamlet speaks
of what he wants to do, but he still does absolutely nothing.  He acknowledges that later in
the speech, and admits his delay.  He is afraid of becoming a coward (II.ii,571), but his
lack of movement is obvious.  "But I am pigeon-livered, and lack gall To make oppression
bitter," (II.ii, 577-578) he confesses to himself of his cowardice.  Before he fin...

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