his own will for Claudius' fate and we learn there is a right wayand a wrong way to do things. Aristotle would have disagreed with theamplitude of the actions in this play. These characters have no amplitude,instead they are noble, but they are also pathetic. Aristotle had no roomfor noble characters with no amplitude and therefore he would have dislikedmost of the characters in Hamlet, except for Horatio and Fortinbras. Incontrasting Fortinbras , Hamlet and Laertes we have three men of noblebirth, all of whom have a legitimate reason to seek revenge. The maindifference is the way that each seeks his revenge. Laertes seeks revenge ina rash and illicit ways and he dies. Hamlet seeks revenge in an ignoble wayand he dies. Fortinbras seeks a Christian revenge and is successful. Inthis way Shakespeare's characters further the theme of Hamlet in anon-aristotelian way. The characters that Shakespeare has chosen for Hamlet are not the typeone would find in a typical Greek tragedy, the kind of tragedy thatAristotle was used to criticizing. Oedipus the King, includes a number ofelements that Shakespeare does not use in Hamlet. The chorus is used as acharacter in Oedipus the King to allow us a sympathetic view of Oedipus, inhis time of travail. Oedipus has accepted responsibility for his fate andblinded himself. The audience feels sympathy and therefore feels and pity.No such sympathy is given to Hamlet. It is not the fact that he does nothave some sympathetic qualities; rather he has too few sympatheticcharacteristics for us to wish to empathize. Hamlet wishes to do the rightthing, it is the way he does the right thing in a wrong way that makes usdislike him. Hamlet also spends much of his time deliberating rather thandoing. Hamlet is dour. Almost every character in the play is dour. The onlytwo characters with any sort of joie de vivre are the clowns who are alsograve diggers. The irony is that the characters who most enjoy life arethose who fa...
