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is engagement with Ophelia, kills the wary old counselor Polonius, and is sent off to England under the escort of the treacherous courtiers Rosencrantz and Guildenstein, to be put to death. On the way, he rises in the night, unseals their murderous commission, rewrites it and seals it with his father’s ring, having worded it so that they themselves shall be the victims when they reach England. In a fight with pirates Hamlet boards their ship, and is conveyed by them back to Denmark, where he tells his adventures to his friend Horatio. At Ophelia’s grave he encounters Laertes, her brother; and presently, in a fencing bout with him, is killed by Laerte’s poisoned sword, but not before he has stabbed his treacherous uncle and forced the fatal cup of poison down his throat. His mother Gertrude has just died from accidentally drinking the same poison, prepared by the King for Hamlet. It is a revenge play, like Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy, and like Tourneur’s Revenger’s Tradey and so on. The Renaissance was a violent time and their theatre’s obsession with things like revenge proves it. But whereas most of Shakespeare’s contemporaries take, and created revenge-heroes who behave accordingly, Shakespeare creates a humane and sensitive hero who is appalled by the task appointed to him. Hamlet is a clear representation of Shakespeare’s tragic hero. As the play’s tragic hero, Hamlet exhibits a combination of good and bad points. A complex character, he displays a variety of characteristics throughout the play’s development. Sometimes he is a human and sensitive hero, at other times he is melodramatically violent, cold-bloodedly callous, or even gleefully blood thirsty, both in word and deed. At first everyone sees Hamlet as a sensitive young prince who is mourning the death of his father, the King. In addition, his mother’s immediate marriage to his uncle has left him in even greater despair. The combination of these emotions leaves one feeling sympathetic to Hamlet. Then he becomes a very “human” character. One sees from the very beginning that he is a very complex and conflicted man, and that his tragedy has already begun. Hamlet’s anger and grief- primarily stemming from his mother’s marriage to Claudius- brings him to thoughts of suicide, which only subsides as a result of it being a mortal and religious sin. The fact that he wants to take his own life demonstrates a weakness in his character. His decision not to kill himself because of religious beliefs shows that this weakness is balanced with some sense of morality. Such an obvious paradox is only one example of the inner conflict and turmoil that will eventually lead to Hamlet’s downfall. This internal struggle is obvious from his best-known soliloquy. To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous foutune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And by opposing end them. To die-to sleep, No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heartache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to: ‘tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep; To sleep, perchance to dream-ay, there’s the rub… (From Act III Scene ⅰ) “To be, or not to be,” shows Hamlet contemplating the idea of loyalty, acting upon one’s morals and their relation to fighting against the challenges