Hamlet the Passive Intellect

The actions and events in Shakespeares juncture revolve around crossroadss inactivity. Without junctures hesitation, constant thought, and internal deliberation, the plot would proceed directly from Hamlets meeting with the Ghost to his murder of Claudius. Hamlets philosophic strifeheightens the complexity of his life issues and intensifies the depth of his dilemma. Hamlets over-intellectualization coupled with his passive voice tendencies paralyzes his ability to act, locking him in an inescapable prison of his hold home(a) consciousness. Hamlets over-intellectualization begins with his questioning of the ghosts identity.When first told by Horatio that the ghost of his father haunts the battlements, Hamlet interrogates him obsessively to obtain every relevant detail to satisfy his intellectual curiosity. Hefiresa volley of questions at Horatio, ranging from whether his countenance is pale or wild to how long it fixed eyes upon Horatio (1. 2. 250). His desire to dispel uncertai nty and march on his knowledge escalates in the physical encounter with the ghost. Rather than accepting his peck for granted, Hamlet examines the validity of his perceptions by debating whether the ghost of a questionable fix is wicked or charitable (1. . 45-46). Hamlet initially pronounces to the ghost that he will wipe away all trivial, fond records, all adage of books, all forms, all pressures past, that youth and observation copied there, declaring his resolution to act (1. 4. 108). However, when he reconvenes with his friends, he entreats them never doctor known what you have seen tonight (1. 5. 160). sort of of seeking for an immediate collective action to punish his fathers unnatural murder, he chooses to prolong the process to devise an elaborate organization within his own mind.He forestalls actionbe it his friends or his ownto contemplate the implications of his experience. He concludes by cursing the fact that he was natural to set it right(1. 5. 211). The ghosts revelation places him in a position where he must be the agent of action, whose filial debt instrument is to affect justice and kill Claudius. Hamlets dilemma, then, stems from the need to live on an avenging son while being a naturally passive intellectual. Hamlet addresses his dilemma in greater depth by engaging in a rigorous, intellectual process, which ironically perpetuates the vicious cycle of inactivity.In his colloquy with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, he confesses, thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison (2. 2. 270). Hamlet finds himself imprisoned by his intellect, as he must like a whore remove his heart with words (2. 2. 614). He cannot act by heart because he is bound to unpack his actions with reason first. He berates himself as a jack and peasant slave and John-a-dream, unpregnant of my cause, and can say nothing (2. 2. 576-595). Hamlet recognizes that he is not taking any decisive action to dutifully avenge his fathers death in staying within his comfort r egulate of intellectualism.As he articulates and explores his conflict of conscience, he concludes, Thus conscience does make cowards of us all and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied oer with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pitch and moment tolerate the name of action (3. 1. 91-96). Hamlet reaffirms that his constant moralizing and philosophizing block up the very action he strives for. The inexorable clash between his sensibility for sedentary contemplations and the filial imperative to actively seek revenge results in such strong feelings of self-loathing that he considers shuffling score the mortal coil (3. . 75). Committing felo-de-se would proactively end his suffering, but he problematizes even that possibility as an unacceptable transgression against Godscanon gainst self-slaughter (1. 2. 136). Ironically, this very soliloquy devoted to meditating on his passivity epitomizes his inaction rather than coming up with pragmatic solutions to end his dilemma, he explores and wallows in self-pity, which in turn exacerbates the intensity of his conundrum. Hamlet is so control with the enormous intellectual activity in his head that he closes himself off from all action in the external world.