ime. An act of injusticeon behalf of justice, it deconstructs the antithesis which fixes the meanings of good and evil, right and wrong. Hamlet invokes the conventional polarities in addressing the ghost, only to abandon them as inadequate or irrelevant. As a philosopher, maybe he feels that he will be committing the very same act he wants to punish Claudius for. Claudius murdered a king. Now, Hamlet wants to murder the king. If the act is carried out then Hamlet would be just as villainous as Claudius. Killing a king is a very serious offense in that era. In the last act, Hamlet, poisoned and awaiting death, is given the perfect opportunity to kill the king. Since Hamlet had a half-hour left to live, morale and philosophy did not matter anymore. He was not going to die knowing that Claudius would be alive after Hamlet’s death and reign again. Claudius was force-fed poison and died.To conclude, the answer to the question of why Hamlet delayed the vengeance of his father is made obvious: himself. “Were it not for the self-lacerating soliliquies in which he accuses himself of the grossness and insensitivity which he despises in his mother, the though that he delays would not occur to us” (Ornstein 4). It is his own character that prevents him from completing the task. What lied between Hamlet and Claudius was Hamlet’s morality, depression, his nature, values, and his philosophies. Unless presented with perfect opportunity, as was the case, Hamlet would have continued to delay his father’s wishes. Fortunately, Hamlet had the pleasure of seeing Claudius die first. “To be or not to be?” --Not to be......
