Should Hamlet Kill Claudius Or Spare His Life

In this soliloquy Hamlet starts speaking about how he is contemplating on if he should Kill claudius or spare his life. He does this by making an alliteration to the witching time of night which is a belief in elizabethan times that at 10:00 at night witches would come out and kill babies by drinking their blood so they could stay young. It was an extremely unholy and evil practice but the point is that it was done for a reason, a selfish reason. So when hamlet says it is now the witching time of night he is referring to two things: The state of Denmark and his own personal conflict. It is the witching time of night for Denmark as a whole due to the death of the king which hamlet believes is Claudius’ doing, Claudius killed king Hamlet because of his selfish intent to steal the throne from Hamlet Jr and Senior. He acknowledges that the state of Denmark has entered the witching time of night in the first and second line because of Claudius’ doing and now that it is here Hamlet begins to contemplate if he should disregard his christian morals and kill claudius and he says this contemplation aloud by stating “now could …show more content…
But just as Hamlet is about to make a decision, he starts to overthink things again causing him to hesitate again. Hamlet says “do such bitter business as the day would quake to look on”. The use of the word day is a juxtaposition to the previous statement that now is the witching time of night. The day in this statement is a symbol of benevolence and brightness which is also a symbol of holiness, by saying the day would quake Hamlet is essentially saying god himself would be shocked and appalled at Hamlet’s evil deed which coincides with Hamlet’s skepticism about his ghost