Hamlet
Is Hamlet a coward for not taking action on his uncle?
Quotes to verify the answer
Quotes to verify the answer
Hamlet thinks he is a coward. He spends much of the play lamenting his inaction against his uncle. After the First Player recites the Hecuba speech and sheds tears, Hamlet berates himself in his soliloquy,
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!....Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause, 540
And can say nothing; no, not for a king,
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Basically Hamlet thinks of himself as a big scardy cat. He points out hat an actor can shed tears over a mere story and all he does is think about stuff. He claims that if some dude pulled his beard, he'd take it. So, is Hamlet a coward? Brooding, thinking, contemplating ...is why we love Hamlet. He's getting to the revenge, it just takes him a long time to plan a prolonged detailed revenge with full of holes in it. Sure, if Hamlet were like Fortinbras, he might have slit his uncle's throat in Act 1 in front of the entire court. But Hamlet isn't like that, and that is what makes him so interesting and guys like Fortinbras so flat. So no Hamlet isn't a coward, he is a thinking man's tough guy (sort of)!