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The Truth about Idealisms in Hamlet
Lindsey Purves
Mr. Kabachia Humanities 30-1
January 17, 2012

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The ideal human, perfection at its finest; the ideal family, held together by the ultimate
perfection of love; the ideal opportunity, presented only in a fleeting moment that must be
captured or forever lost; a seemingly too perfect reason for revenge.Hamlet presents some of our
most idyllic ideals in a universally understood manner that can either dash our hopes for a happy
ending, or give us a false sense of happiness that will leave us stunned and bewildered,
questioning our own ideals and how it impacts those around us.
Through Hamlet's conversation with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern we are shown
Hamlet's ideal human. “What a piece of work is a / man! how noble in reason! how infinite in
faculty! in / form and moving how express and admirable! in / action how like a / god! the beauty
of the world! the paragon of animals! / And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? / man
delights not me…” [2, 2, 303-309]Hamlet sees the potential in the human creature and also
realizes that humans are imperfect and always will be. This knowledge does not prevent Hamlet
from seeing humans as lower beings than what they should be; a disappointment in his eyes.
What Hamlet fails to accept is that man can only strive for perfection but the truth of it all is that
humans are not ideal and we should not expect our own kind to be perfect, nor become
disappointed when we never reach our ideal state of being.
Hamlet holds love and marriage in the highest regard, being an attainable ideal that is
never perfect but that we wish was. He perceived the loving marriage between his father, Hamlet
Sir, and his mother Gertrude to be unbreakable and ever-lasting before Sir Hamlet's death and
the remarriage of the queen. “(Sir Hamlet) so loving to my mother, / That he might not beteem
the winds of Heaven / Visit her face too roughly… and yet, within a month… married with mine
uncle, / My father’s brother, but no more like my father / Than I to Hercules” [1, 2, 140-
142/145/151-153] Hamlet sees Claudius as just the man that cleaved his perfect life in two, the

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killing of Sir Hamlet aside. Hamlet’s ideal family is similar to what most humans would desire to
attainbut tragedies like the death of a father would prevent this ideal from coming to fruition.
Hamlet shows us that life and love are and always will be, imperfect in one way or another, no
matter how hard we try to perfect them.
“Now I might do it pat, now he is praying; / And now I’ll do’t: and so he goes to
Heaven…No / Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent: / When he is drunk asleep, or in
his rage, / Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed, / At gaming, swearing, or about some act /
That has no relish of salvation in’t: / Then trip him, that his heels may kick at Heaven / And that
his soul may be as damn’d and black / As hell, whereto it goes.” [3, 3, 74-75/88-96]Inaction and
procrastination: Hamlet's two tragic flaws. The ideal opportunity to kill his uncle Claudius in
hamlet's eyes is when the king is committing one of his various misconducts. This way his spirit
will not be accepted into Heaven, a just punishment for murdering his brother. Little does
Hamlet know, as Claudius kneels praying, that this was in fact a perfect opportunity to avenge
his father, for Claudius knows he cannot pray and so his prayers are only a pretense.Through a
lack of knowledge and will, we may miss out on a perfect opportunity to accomplish something
life-altering, just like Hamlet hesitating to avenge his father because of that possibility of
Claudius going to Heaven in his after-life.
We find out in the beginning of the play that Hamlet is unhappy with having his uncle
married to his mother and is itching for a reason to be rid of the new king. The ghost of Sir
Hamlet provides a reason that sounds too good to be true:“The serpent that did sting thy father’s
life / Now wears his crown.” [1, 5, 39-40]This is one of the rare instances where something too
good to be true actually turns out to be correct. Be this as it may, Hamlet is still cautious enough
not to jump at the chance to be rid of Claudius, putting off the murder until he is absolutely sure

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Claudius did in fact kill Hamlet Sir. Waiting turns out to be a bad move on Hamlet’s part but it
shows how frightened humans are of the unknown that we will go to great lengths to be certain
of a truth before acting on it, for better or for worse.
The truth about ideals according to Hamlet is that they are unattainable if you do not have
the motivation to pursue them when opportunities present themselves, nothing and no one is
perfect, and sometimes chances need to be taken in order to come closer to living out an ideal.