Question

What conclusion does Hamlet reach, or what does he realize, over the course of this speech?

Hamlet: How all occasions do inform against me
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.
Sure he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason
To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on th' event—
A thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom
And ever three parts coward—I do not know
Why yet I live to say, “This thing's to do,”
Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means
To do 't. Examples gross as earth exhort me.
Witness this army of such mass and charge,
Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Whose spirit, with divine ambition puffed,
Makes mouths at the invisible event,
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,
Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honor's at the stake. How stand I then,
That have a father killed, a mother stained,
Excitements of my reason and my blood,
And let all sleep, while to my shame I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men
That for a fantasy and trick of fame
Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!

Answer 1

@Isry

Answer 2

How long does this response have to be?

Answer 3

It doesn't tell me how long it must be, I'm assuming it doesn't have to be that long.

Answer 4

Okay so from the text and our last question what have we already established?

Answer 5

That hamlet has managed to dehumanize Claudius.

Answer 6

And hamlet no longer views his opponents as human.

Answer 7

And crucially he also dehumanized himself.

Answer 8

One of the conclusions Hamlet comes to is that in order to achieve his goal of revenge he must become entirely consumed by it. We can see this with the quote "My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!"

Answer 9

See how he literally says that either he thinks of revenge or his thoughts are literally pointless in his mind.

Answer 10

Ah yes I was looking at that line as well

Answer 11

So my answer would be something like Hamlet reduced all his thoughts to revenge, and none other than that, all his thoughts are worthless against the revenge that he feels.

Answer 12

Something like that. Hammer home that the conclusion he reached was that he could only think of revenge.

Answer 13

Got it, thank you!

Answer 14

Yeah no problem! I love analyzing Shakespeare.

Answer 15

I can see that lol (: