ramount to the reader's understanding of the effect that Hamlet's mental perspective has on his situation.In order to fully understand how Hamlet's perspective plays an important role in this play, the reader must attempt to answer the fundamental question: Why does Hamlet procrastinate in taking revenge on Claudius? Although the answer to this question is at best somewhat complicated, Mark W. Scott attempts to offer some possible explanations for Hamlet's delay in his book, Shakespeare for Students:Critics who find the cause of Hamlet's delay in his internal meditations typically view the prince as a man of great moral integrity who is forced to commit an act which goes against his deepest principles. On numerous occasions, the prince tries to make sense of his moral dilemma through personal meditations, which Shakespeare presents as soliloquies. Another perspective of Hamlet's internal struggle suggests that the prince has become so disenchanted with life since his father's death that he has neither the desire nor the will to exact revenge. (74)Mr. Scott points out morality and disenchantment, both of which belong solely to an individuals own conscious, as two potential causes of Hamlet's procrastination, and therefore he offers support to the idea that Shakespeare is placing important emphasis on the role of individual perspective in this play. The importance that Mr. Scott's comment places on Hamlet's use of personal meditations to "make sense of his moral dilemma" (74), also helps to support L.C. Knight's contention that Shakespeare is attempting to use these dilemmas to illustrate the inner workings of the human mind. In Hamlet, Shakespeare gives the reader an opportunity to evaluate the way the title character handles a very complicated dilemma and the problems that are generated because of it. These problems that face Hamlet are perhaps best viewed as overstatements of the very types of problems that all people must face as they...
