(Don't) Be Hamlet

To clutch one’s honor from others, or to prevent plaguing one’s family with dishonor; these are justifications of suicide dating back to the time of Dynasties and the Samurai.  Others may be the absence of Will and the failure of achieving anything.  In all of these examples, Hamlet grasps onto none. He has failed at nothing; in fact, his life has barely begun, since he is just desiring to attend college.  Hamlet has caused no dishonor to his royal family and he is in no position in which his honor may be lost.  When held up in this light, Hamlet has absolutely no rationale to carry out suicide, and, thus, must he “suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”

A marionette, melancholic and broken, manipulated by his own volatile, puppeteering emotions, wishing to kill himself for no other reason than, “life, is so cruel.”      This portrait of Hamlet portrays him much in the likeness of Holden Caulfield, or, more ecumenically, in the likeness of an adolescent, a youth, a young adult, who still immaturely and unwisely considers suicide at all.  Hamlet, to overwrite the wrongs of Claudius, must seek life, not death.  Diving off the ice burg will not equilibrate the two sides; Wrong and Right.  It will only give way to Wrong, tipping it further into the depths.  Only through remaining on the ice burg, only through life, could one set the balance.  In this position, Hamlet finds himself, and yet, through the veil of immaturity, he looks to suicide, and fancies it.  After all, he sees no reason not to end his life other than the uncertainty of what will be lying in wait for him in Death.  However, this reason bears minute magnetism when held against the more compelling reason to live; revenge.

Retribution must be strictly equal to the original violation.  Under this philosophy of revenge, Hamlet must inflict upon Claudius equal pain and suffering.  Hamlet cannot kill Claudius, for then Claudius would not know what pain Hamlet has felt.  In truth, Claudius would be freed of all suffering.  To avenge a murder does not mean to commit one.  Hamlet, in addition, has no right to kill Claudius.  The only person who would posses that right would be King Hamlet, who, as of two months passed, is dead, and thus incapable of executing such an action.  All Hamlet can do is make Claudius suffer as he has suffered.  

“So excellent a king, that was to this Hyperion to a satyr, so loving to my mother that he might not beteem the winds of heaven visit her face too roughly.” Having such a glorious view of his father, one would think, would torment and infuriate Hamlet more, leading him to conceiving his revenge on Claudius rather than indecisively pondering suicide.  Hamlet would not solve anything, he would not bring justice to his father if he killed himself.  Thus, Hamlet should live and bear his burdens, it is the only way to set things right, to correct, and atone.