Was Hamlet an Heroic Gent?

The question Hamlet answers with his life tells us, in the end, he was an Heroic Gent:

“Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? To die …”

But, like Henry Fleming in The Red Badge of Courage, Hamlet at first runs away. He is frightened and distraught. He is unsure of himself and young. He is not Robin Hood or Captain Blood. He does not know what to do when he finds out from his father’s ghost that his mother, the queen, has married not just his uncle, but also his father’s murderer.

He also tells the girl he loves, Ophelia, to join a nunnery. He dismisses his love for her as it is too much for him to bear as he tries to find his manhood, and thereby his courage to answer that question.

In the play, William Shakespear, via the character Polonius (Ophelia’s father and an adviser to the king) answers the question for Hamlet by saying:

“This above all: to thine ownself be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

Still, Hamlet is searching. He is—to give his tragedy a modern parallel—much like a young man in Ukraine who must decide whether it is better to run to some other corner of Europe, and then to perhaps live, or to stay and fight and then, perhaps, to die in battle.

This, in perhaps a much less dramatic sense, is something every man must ask of himself. Should he stand up for what is right, and then to perhaps pay with a loss of a job or social position, or is it better to look the other way or to run? All of us, after all, make such decisions in life. How we answer such questions defines us. The stands we take can embolden us or they can rot us away from the inside.

Hamlet speaks of his inner-turmoil over this question by saying:

“My fate cries out,

And makes each petty artery in this body

As hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve.

Still am I call’d… .”

When the king, his uncle and father’s murderer, notices Hamlet’s mad indecision, he says:

“Something have you heard

Of Hamlet's transformation; so call it,

Sith nor the exterior nor the inward man

Resembles that it was. What it should be,

More than his father's death, that thus hath put him

So much from the understanding of himself,

I cannot dream of… .”

And Hamlet continues to think aloud by saying things like:

“Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.”

And:

“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 an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of theworld! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me: no, nor woman neither… .”

Hamlet’s “to be or not to be” speech is his wrestling with this question. He then begins to find an answer with lines like:

“Give me that man

That is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him

In my heart’s core, ay, in my heart of heart… .”

Hamlet even becomes darkly and humorously derisive as he comes to his conclusion:

HAMLET: A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.

KING CLAUDIUS: What dost you mean by this?

HAMLET: Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.

In the end, Hamlet answers with his life. He stands and he fights. He wins, but deception on the part of his enemies poisons him nevertheless. He dies a man—what we call here an Heroic Gent—but this is not to say a man always must put his life on the line. Context does matter. There are often more intelligent ways through a dilemma that, though would be less heroically moving, will result in better outcomes for all involved. Wisdom is critical. This makes Hamlet’s search for the solution all the more important. He did not just react heedlessly; he wrestled with the problem and came to terms with what must be done.