Hamlet's Self-destruction Hayley Ashburn

Alone in his childhood home, his father buried and his mother married to another man, Hamlet laments, "O that this too too sullied flesh would melt, thaw and resolve itself into dew" (1.2.129-30). Hamlet brings up suicide early in Act I and ponders it throughout the play. He not only considers the idea, but intentionally courts death as he executes his father's revenge. The prince allows himself to be killed because he cannot bear to live any longer, but also cannot in good conscience take his own life. Hamlet's suicidal intent is a simple explanation for his puzzling behavior and confusing speeches; his intelligence, sensitivity and religion however, cause him to seek a release from the sorrows of his world in an honorable manner. Hamlet's death was a suicide; the whole action of the play leads up to his carefully orchestrated and impeccably played out massacre.

At his first appearance Gertrude describes Hamlet as a man "of knighted colour" with "veiled lids," he claims himself to be even more grief stricken, as having "dejected haviour of the visage, fruitful river of the eye" (1.2.81-3). The melancholy and discontent in Hamlets own life determine the direction of all his...