Pain And Suffering In Shakespeare's Hamlet

In Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, the tragic hero clearly functions as the reason for the pain and suffering of others as well as himself. Hamlet never intended to have so many people suffer because of him, he only wants Claudius to suffer because he murdered his father. Hamlet’s indecisiveness whether to take action to avenge his father resulted in his personal suffering to expand to those around him, ultimately killing those individuals.
Hamlet starts to become an instrument of pain and suffering in the play when he discovers his father has been murdered. In order to get revenge, Hamlet works out a plan to kill Claudius in the first act, but ends up killing others indirectly in the result of his passive aggressive personality throughout the rest of the play. Hamlet, being a man of thought can be seen as his fatal flaw which contributes to his downfall in the play which eventually kills everyone around him. This …show more content…
According to Hamlet’s plan, he pretends to act insane to distract others from his plot to kill Claudius. After Hamlet decides to take action for his father and ends up killing Polonius, he spreads his pain to Laertes and Ophelia, eventually reaching the rest of the kingdom. The disastrous event between Polonius and Hamlet, resembles the forest fire spreading throughout the the woods, imitating the kingdom of Denmark, that burns Ophelia and Laertes. Just like Hamlet, Laertes learns that his father has been killed and enters a state of agony. The only difference between these two characters lies within their personality, Laertes garners the qualities that pertain to a man of action and does not hesitate at the opportunity to avenge his own father. Demonstrating villain like qualities since the artificial madness has become a reality, Hamlet becomes an antagonist within a subplot between Laertes and