g might happen to them. In this passage, the same lines that describe Hamlets virtues also convey his tragic flaw; his excessive morality becomes morbidity. His innate tragic flaw is excessive disgust for Gertrudes adultery and obsessive pursuit of honesty. His excessive loathing is indicated in other lines as well; rank sweat of an enseamed bed, stewd in corruption, honeying and making love over the nasty sty- (III, iv, 93) a murderer and a villainand put it in his pocket. (III, iv, 96) He is so enraged and concentrated on Gertrudes immorality that the ghost has to step in to remind him of his ultimate goal of killing Claudius; Do not forget. This visitation is but to whet thy almost blunted purposestep between her and her fighting soul!..Speak to her Hamlet. (III, iv, 111) This shows that Hamlet has gone off track because of his excessive disgust of Gertrudes sin.Surprisingly, in the middle of his tragic flaw lies Hamlets another virtue. Hamlet says at the end of the confrontation I must be cruel only to be kind. (III, iv, 179) This is an evidence that Hamlet, although extremely disappointed and enraged, still wants to help Gertrude. His manner might be too cruel and violent, but his intention is to help her to escape from immorality. It is contradictory that his obsession of morality, which is the tragic flaw that causes his death, can be another virtue. Yet because of this, the audience feels even stronger fear. When a virtue can be a flaw and a flaw can be a virtue, the confusion produces more fear. And in reality there are many people who are too moral to do anything and after all miss the point of their life, like Hamlet. Those moral people are so concerned with living morally that they cannot do anything in the real life. This fact arouses fear among the audience who may be one of those morality-obsessed people. Both Hamlets virtue and tragic flaw are well revealed in this passage, and it is obvious that this is o...
