How do you view Hamlet?Do you see him as a tragic hero?Or just a dumb indecisive

Question:I see Hamlet as a symbolic representation of the human condition. It is about choice and how the lack thereof can lead to dire consequence. If we do not act upon the truth we sense in our hearts then we are doomed to wallow in the madness of confusion and left to suffer the melancholia of not believing in ourselves.

He is a human being, buggered by circumstance.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I see Hamlet as a symbolic representation of the human condition. It is about choice and how the lack thereof can lead to dire consequence. If we do not act upon the truth we sense in our hearts then we are doomed to wallow in the madness of confusion and left to suffer the melancholia of not believing in ourselves.

He is a human being, buggered by circumstance.

Interesting question.
If I had to choose then I would go for the "dumb indecisive avenger" and a bad one at that. Look at how much damage and death Hamlet caused just because he couldn't face what the King, his uncle did to his father. Hamlet was weak. He wanted to avenge his father, but couldn't bring himself to do it and, as a result, leads innocents to their deaths. I don't see how Hamlet can be considered a hero, tragic or otherwise.

I would have to say also that he was not to smart and he needed some strong meds but they didn't have them in those days and if you were related to a king or queen you could do no wrong' and do WTF you pleased...

Outside of his uncle and mother killing his father and being in a dysfunctional family, I find it hard to sympathize with him. I lean toward indecisive avenger.

He's mostly a spoiled brat raised in a permissive home.

And he was mean to Ophelia, playing mind games with her and helped drive her to suicide.

He also sold out his friends, Rosecrans and Gildenstern, when he simply could have burned the note saying to kill him, bailed on them and gone to France or some other place. But nooooooooooooooo! He let his friends die in his place. Some friend!

In fact, all the characters in Hamlet are screwed up and not too easy to sympathize with.

hm, i've read hamlet a few times, and recently we did Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. In Ros and Guil, they basically represented him as crazy. I feel for him, to have your father killed, and your mother marry your uncle, who usurps your throne, that kind of sucks, but then again, he did many things to people that didn't deserve it. Jumping to conclusion and killing Polonius, teasing Ophelia, leading Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to death. None of those characters were responsible for what happened, so it's ashame that they were the ones who suffered.

I could sympathize with him... He is a tragic hero...

Who wouldn't want revenge if your mother married just after a few months after your father died? Much worse, she married your father's brother/murderer...

As I said elsewhere. . . .
Hamlet is a classic Aristotelian tragic hero.
So he's essentially a good bloke with only one minor fault, the so-called 'tragic flaw'. This is what all tragic heroes have in common and it is always the thing that breaks their backs for example Othello, Romeo, Oedipus etc.
Hamlet's fault is his indecisiveness and his contemplating too much which leads him to not actually doing much, least of all what he's supposed to. He's a bit like Wallenstein (Schiller) in that.
So you can have it either way - good bloke who thinks too much or just an abominably lazy sod.
read the play and make up your own mind.
that's what old William would have liked you to do.
He elicits pity him not sympathy.

Could we watch all five acts if he were a dumb indecisive avenger? I think not.