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Melissa Ea

AP English 12-2

Mrs. Bradley

3 March 2017

Climax of Hamlet

The murderous acts of Claudius and staged insanity of Hamlet leads readers to

understand that Hamlet finally resolves his conflicts in Act III when mistakenly stabs Polonius in

his mothers room. Throughout the story Hamlet struggles with the conflict of killing his uncle

and finding reason to do so. Hamlet makes attempts over and over but only once followed

through with the act when he killed Polonius. He isnt sure that seeing his fathers ghost is

substantial evidence to prove Claudiuss actions and finds a problem taking revenge because

Claudius is both his king, father, and uncle.

Hamlets struggle begins when he returns home and is greeted by the ghost of King

Hamlet. He asks Hamlet to listen to him and avenge his death. So art thou to revenge, when

thou shalt hear. (I, v, 12) His ghost is trapped in this world as long as he has unfinished

business, and wants to cut his ties to the mortal world. The ghost explains that his death was

not an accident, but a plot. Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder (I, v, 31) Tis given

out that, sleeping in my orchard, a serpent stung me Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate

beast (I, v, 42-49) At this point we are sure that Claudius murdered King Hamlet (if you can

believe a ghost). The people understand the death to be caused by a snake bite, but that is

rather unlikely to happen naturally in Denmark. The King also implies that Claudius did these

things to get to Getrude. He believes that Claudius murdered him and married Gertrude with the

hidden cause that he and Gertrude were in love when telling others that it was for the countrys
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good. King Hamlet also warns Hamlet to leave his mother alone, as he still loves her and does

not believe she is involved with the crime.

After parting from the ghost, Hamlet contemplates the decision of killing Claudius many

times and tries to find evidence for the murder by putting on the play. During the

play-within-the-play, King Hamlet sleeps on a bench and in [comes] another man, takes off

his crown, kisses it, pours poison in the sleepers ears, and leaves him. (III, ii, 150). Hamlet

chooses to reenact what he believes to be the murder scene in order to find evidence that

Claudius killed his father. Later on when The King rises. (III, ii, 291) and leaves during the

play, Hamlet is assured that Claudius is guilty because he took offense from the play.

While harassing his mother, Hamlet stabs Polonius through a curtain. We can say that

this moment is the climax because Hamlet believed it was Claudius before he looked behind the

curtain. How now, a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead Is it the King? (III, iv, 29-32) He actually

thought hed taken Claudius, and that moment was when hed given in to commit murder.

Although he didnt accomplish what he intended, this is the moment everything changed

because he began the move to get revenge on Claudius. Hamlet eventually learns that Claudius

is plotting his murder by sending a letter[s] congruing to that effect, the present death of

Hamlet (IV, iv, 73-74) which requests for the King of England to get rid of Hamlet. Hamlet later

forges a new letter to the King of England and plans to kill Claudius and avenge his fathers

death.

In conclusion, the Climax of Hamlet is the moment when Hamlet kills Polonius. That

moment resolves Hamlets conflict of killing his uncle, or father, or king. Following Hamlets

indecisiveness, Poloniuss death marks the moment when Hamlet makes a decision to act and

choose to avenge his fathers death. Up until that point, Hamlet hadnt chosen revenge. After
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that, his actions fell into place that led to the mass royal slaughter in which Claudius and the rest

of the royal and noble family was lost.