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Kassidy Murchison

English 220

Professor Bobrow

March 22nd, 2021

The Distortion of Morality at the Expense of Revenge in Hamlet

In Act 4, Scene 7 of Hamlet, we’re able to see the full effect of the brewing war between

Claudius and Hamlet. It begins with Laertes, overcome with grief and rage over the murder of

his father, being encouraged to enact his plan of revenge on Hamlet by Claudius, who has an

agenda of his own. In this essay, I will argue that this scene is just one of many where

Shakespeare emphasizes that revenge easily clouds the minds of people, robbing them of their

morality. The evidence of this is found throughout the play, ranging from interactions between

characters to the tragic deaths of innocent people.

In this scene, Laertes plans to kill him in a church to avenge his father’s death and

Claudius agrees that church is no place for a murderer to be (4.7.126), which in itself is ironic

because it was him who prayed for forgiveness after killing the former king (3.3.52). He

encourages him to show his love and loyalty to his father by taking Hamlet’s life as vengeance

(4.7.125-126). This shows that Claudius, from the beginning, doesn’t have a concrete set of

morals. They seemingly change when it benefits him, so his eagerness to manipulate Laertes is

no surprise at all. His warped sense of justice only holds Hamlet accountable for his misguided

killing of Polonius, when he is guiding Laertes down the same path. Claudius may not want

revenge specifically, but his way of manipulation to get him killed is seemingly worse than

Hamlet’s. Hamlet’s way of manipulation involves getting the people around him to unknowingly
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take part in his conspiracy against the King, and while he may not be putting these people

directly onto the same destructive path as Claudius, they both have the same result. While both

Hamlet’s and Claudius’ ways of manipulation may be different, both have the same goal in

mind, and their lack of morality is the fact that they don’t care about the lasting effects of their

manipulation on the people around them.

The diminishing morals in most of the main characters of Hamlet have a collective

influence on their mental stability, leading to another big theme of the play, madness. In Act 3,

Scene 4, when Polonius is killed Hamlet is driven by a momentary spark of insanity due to his

frustrations and anger at his mother, and without thinking of consequences, drives his sword into

Polonius. It is after that we see the full extent of Hamlet’s shattered morality when he says,

“Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell! / I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune. /

Thou find’st to be too busy is some danger” (3.4.32-34). This shows that Hamlet’s mind has

become so clouded by his goal of revenge that his sense of justice and integrity has shifted as

well. His first thought after stabbing Polonius is whether or not it was the King. Furthermore, we

see the longstanding outcomes of the unplanned murder of Polonius, when Ophelia starts to

spiral into insanity as well, as a result of both her father’s death and Hamlet’s rejection of her.

Deception is another central issue as a result of the crumbling ethics of the characters. In

their plan to kill Hamlet, Laertes and Claudius decide that they would either stab him with the

poisoned tip of a sword or a poisoned drink Hamlet. The only way for this to work would be to

lie to Hamlet in order for him to trust them enough to fence Laertes, and possibly even drink

from the poisoned cup if the sword isn’t enough. The deception doesn’t end there though,

because if they were to succeed in their goal, they would also have to lie about the cause of his
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death to the people of Denmark and the Queen. Laertes and Claudius both know that this way of

acquiring justice is nothing less than criminal and would be treated as such because earlier in the

scene Claudius says to Laertes, “The Queen his mother / Lives almost by his looks, and for

myself- / My virtue or my plague, be it either which / She is so conjunctive to my life and soul, /

That, as the star moves not but in his sphere, / I could not but by her. The other motive / Lie to a

public count I might not go / Is the great love the general gender bear him,” (4.7.11-18), meaning

that Claudius is only worried about his status. Knowing that Hamlet is favored by the people of

Denmark means that if he were to come forward about Hamlet’s crime he would have to do so

alone, because the love the Queen has for her son wouldn’t allow her to come forward about her

seeing Hamlet’s crime herself. As a result of this, Claudius is more than willing to put Laertes on

the line with this plan rather than himself, which is why he was so eager to encourage Laertes to

punish Hamlet for his crimes.

The deception in Hamlet is not just restricted to between characters. We also can see a

large number of it within a single character’s denial and eagerness to believe they’re doing the

right thing even when they have their doubts. This is easy to see in Laertes as the plan he and

Claudius orchestrated comes to a head, after Gertrude drinks from the cup of poison. Laertes,

now feeling guilty over the extra causality says, “And yet I almost feel guilty” (5.2.298). Though

this is most likely the result of Gertrude’s guaranteed death from the poison she drank, he is

beginning to understand the full extent of his actions and is starting to see through his clouded

judgment that his revenge plot wasn’t worth the causalities or being responsible for the deaths of

several people. We can also see when he reverts back to his older self with stricter morals when

he tries to make things right with Hamlet (5.2.330-331) and incriminates the King so he wouldn’t

get away with his part in their treachery (5.2.320). These all tie back to the claim that revenge
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clouds the mind and causes people to sacrifice their morals for their sense of justice because we

have seen Laertes go from someone broken from their grief being used as a puppet for

someone’s agenda, to then turning around on Claudius when he wants to make things right after

recognizing his own fatal mistakes and flaws.

Some may argue that revenge didn’t cloud Laertes’ mind and that everything he did, he

did willingly and eagerly. Some may also say that the only reason that he asks Hamlet for

forgiveness for his treachery is because he, like Claudius, didn’t want to end up like the ghost of

Hamlet’s father; trapped in his own purgatory, unable to fix his mistakes and go to Heaven. On

the other hand, while his intentions may not have been completely innocent when trying to

redeem himself, he woke up and understood once again that revenge wasn’t worth the eternal

suffering of purgatory or even Hell. This helps Hamlet wake up from his own revenge driven

state and allows him to give Laertes the forgiveness he asks for, knowing firsthand how it feels

to be held accountable for something he did without meaning to. His implication of the King

does plenty of good for Hamlet because it allows him to finally kill Claudius for the hand he

played in the murder of his mother and father, causing Hamlet to finally reach his goal and to

find peace after asking Horatio to spread his story. We can see Hamlet wake up from his lack of

empathy and morals again when he endorses Fortinbras as the next ruler, so the people of

Denmark aren’t left without guidance and in chaos, finally starting to see the bigger picture

again.

Finally, it is important to note that though these characters in Hamlet attempt to redeem

themselves towards the end of the play, they shouldn’t be without criticism. Although the

argument of Shakespeare highlighting revenge easily shifting a person’s morals and therefore,

their whole being, applies mainly to Hamlet’s character, it applies to Laertes as well, as seen
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throughout Acts 4 and 5. These two characters attempted to earn their redemption only after they

both had a hand in the deaths of most of the main characters of the play, especially Hamlet.

Ultimately, Shakespeare is saying that although Hamlet is seen as a tragic hero by the end of the

play, he earned that title at the expense of others, his flaws even causing him to lose himself

along the way to getting his revenge.

WORKS CITED:

Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Edited by Sylvan Barnet, Penguin Books, 1998.