Internal Conflict In Hamlet

Imagine being plagued with internal conflicts, so strong that you no longer want to live, but your religious beliefs prevent you from doing so. In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the main character is tormented throughout the play with inner conflicts of whether he should commit suicide or murder his uncle. Due to the internal conflicts, the reader can see that those conflicts influence how Hamlet acts (or doesn’t act) and how he feels, leaving a sense of excitement and suspense for the reader to experience. In Act I, Hamlet’s overwhelmed with grief for his departed father and anger towards his mother marrying his uncle. “O, that this too solid flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fixed his canon ‘gainst self-slaughter!? (I, ii, 129-132) shows Hamlet is so distraught over those events that he questions whether he should …show more content…
He eventually decides not to end his life and that internal conflict subsides for almost the remainder of the play, although he still doesn’t value his life. The resolution of that conflict intensifies Hamlet’s craving for the king’s blood and leads him further into madness, although Hamlet still swears that he’s only “mad in craft”. “I must be cruel, only to be kind; thus bad begins and worse remains behind.” (III, iv, RECHECK) foreshadows what’s to come; Hamlet “catches the conscience of the king” and his eagerness to kill the king gets the best of him and he mistakenly kills Polonius instead. At the end of the act, the reader wonders when Hamlet will kill the king or if his internal conflicts will lead to his