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The movement towards Hamlets regeneration begins with his reflection on the players speech about Hecuba; it advances further in the closet scene, and it reaches culmination in the gravediggers scene. Prior to the players speech about Hecuba, Hamlet lacked the focus to avenge his fathers murder. Upon witnessing the passion the player portrayed, Hamlet has somebody to emulate. Hamlet continues on after hearing this speech with a new drive. He has become so aggressive that he accidentally kills Polonius in his mothers closet. This act fortifies his conviction by assuaging his fears concerning murder; He now knows he is capable of committing the deed so he continues on with his quest.
Total surrender to revenge is finally reached in the gravediggers scene when Hamlet comes face to face with deaths that are personal to him and he realizes its inevitability. After completing this regeneration, Hamlet is finally prepared to avenge his fathers murder. In Act 1 Scene 2, Hamlet is introduced as a distraught young man, devastated by his fathers death and [his mothers] oer hasty marriage (2. 2: 57). The grief he feels is so consuming that [he] has within which passes show (1. 2: 85), a sadness that brings him to wish that this too too sullied flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew, or that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon gains self-slaughter (1. 2: 129). When the ghost of the late King Hamlet speaks to his son in Act 1 Scene 5, he lets the fragile young Hamlet know that he wishes him to revenge his foul and most unnatural murder (1. 5: 25).
Excited at the sight of his dead father, Hamlet answers, Haste me to know, that I, with wings as swift as meditation or the thoughts of love, may sweep to my revenge (1. 5: 29). The eager Hamlet decides to fulfill his fathers wish by feigning madness in order to kill Claudius. While Hamlet does manage to present a convincing facade of lunacy, he fails to take the initiative to end the life that ended his fathers. It is not until the players speech about Hecuba in Act 2 Scene 2 that Hamlet finds a catalyst to shake him from his stagnant state and initiate his plan for revenge. While the actor laments with passion and sheds tears the the fictional Hecuba, Hamlet comes to the realization that he is a rogue and peasant slave (2. 2: 560), unable to channel his emotions into something productive. He makes his revelation aloud in a soliloquy, disgusted that this player here, but in a fiction, in a dream of passion, could force his soul so to his own conceit that from her working all his visage wanted...
and all for nothing... for Hecuba (2. 2: 561), while he, a man with the motive and the cue for passion (2. 2: 571) does not take action. The compelling performance given by the player motivates Hamlet to take the next step in his plan to avenge his father. Hamlet, aspiring to be as ambitious as the actor, plots to have these players play something like the murder of [his] father before [his] uncle (2. 2: 606). The plays the thing wherein [hell] catch the conscience of the King (2. 2: 616), giving him the assurance of Claudius guilt he needs to kill him. Hamlet gains amazing conviction when he becomes certain that Claudius did indeed murder the late king.
The knowledge that it was not a david ghost that [he] had seen (3. 2: 84) frees his conscience from restraining him any further from completing the task the ghost had given him. Hamlet, with a new fire raging within, enters his mothers closet alert and ready to avenge his father in his new found freedom. He is carrying on a ruthless battle of wits with his mother when he hears a voice behind the curtain. His consuming fixation on murdering Claudius drives him to immediately attack the body behind the curtain, which happens to be the body of Polonius. Not hindered by this blunder, Hamlet manages to keep his rage blazing. This accidental murder adds fuel to his fire, pushing him to continue to chastise his mother while Polonius lies dying.
His death removes doubts and fears from Hamlets mind, proving to him that he is capable of taking the life of another human being. Hamlet uses his new confidence to have Rosencrantz and Guildenstern killed, allowing him to return back to Denmark to seek justice for his father. Hamlet returns to the graveyard, where two gravediggers are working and making jokes. It is in this graveyard that Hamlet will fully regenerate, finding the clarity and drive to take action and finally set it right (1. 5: 189). Hamlet watches the two knaves as they sing and toss up bones. At the sight of a skull, Hamlet makes another revelation.
He proclaims to Horatio that the skull had a tongue in it and could sing once. (5. 1: 76). [It] might be the pate of a politician... or of a courtier... or of a lawyer (5. 1: 79). One of the gravediggers then reveals to Hamlet the skull that was once Yorricks. [Hamlet] knew him... [and] hath [been] borne on his back a thousand times (5. 1: 186) as a child. Shortly after seeing the remnants of the old jester, Hamlet is faced with the body of the fair Ophelia, whom he loved more than forty thousand brothers (5. 1: 271) could have loved. The graveyard presents Hamlet with a personal view of death.
He is faced with its inevitability and mighty leveling power in the faceless piles of skulls. The line between appearance and reality becomes clearer in this place and allows Hamlet to focus on his own reality. This powerful discovery is the final push Hamlet needs towards revenge. Hamlet makes amazing progress throughout the course of the play. He begins as an emotional wreck but is gradually rebuilt and able to avenge his father.
The players speech on Hecuba motivated him to stop brooding and take action. The incident in the closet gave him the confidence he needed to overcome his obstacles. Finally, the graveyard provided him with the focus to avenge his father by putting an end to Claudius life.
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Research essay sample on Avenge His Father Act 1 Scene
