he Murder of Gonzago, Claudius was beginning to feel the wrath of his offense. Claudius said, “O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven; it hath the primal eldest curse upon’t, a brother’s murder, pray can I not, though inclination be as sharp as will…” (1439). This is when Hamlet’s agonizing struggles became difficult. Hamlet could have taken his revenge while Claudius was praying, but Hamlet was confused and couldn’t avenge his father’s death while Claudius was purging his soul. Hamlet said, “why, this is hire and salary, not revenge…But in our circumstances and course of thought, ‘tis heavy with him: and I then reveng’d, to take him in the purging of his soul, when he is fit and seasoned for his passage” (1440)? The king knows his guilt and when he prays he states, “my words fly up, my thoughts remain below: words without thoughts never to heaven go” (1440). It is in Act III, Scene IV, that we see Hamlet approach his mother Gertrude and question the way she had offended his father in which she married Hamlet’s uncle soon after her husband’s death. The sneaky and witty Polonius was behind the curtain but Hamlet did not know it. While questioning his mother about the death of his father, he heard a voice coming from behind the curtain: Hamlet turned with sword in hand and stabbed the person behind the curtain. He said, “How now! A rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead” (1441)! At first, Hamlet thought he killed the king, but instead he killed Polonius in which he felt was better, “thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell! I took thee for thy better: take thy fortune…(1441) Hamlet struggled throughout the play. Although he is an intelligent man, the madness that descended upon him with his supernatural observation of the ghost of his father leads to his death. Furthermore, toward the end of the play, I get a clear ...
