Why does Hamlet delay his revenge?

Answer 1

Well, from the previous answers you've received, I should think it's becoming clear that there are SEVERAL answers to your question. You see, from the moment that the Ghost tells Hamlet how Claudius killed him, Hamlet swears to have his revenge...but, there always seems to be SOMETHING to make him wait.

Yes, he mistrusts the Ghost. Yes, he's reluctant to kill Claudius while Claudius is at prayer...true, true, all true.

Hamlet's problem, as he says himself, is that he's given to thinking "too precisely on the event." He is sort of pathologically devoted to examining every possible action in the minutest detail...and he finds reasons to talk himself out of the very thing he has vowed to do.

The irony, of course, is that, in certain circumstances, he's capable of extremely rash and hasty actions (Polonius' murder, e.g.)

Answer 2

Homework? Cheating on your homework? Is that what the internet is for, hmm? lol just kidding! Nobody truly knows because Shakespeare uses vague descriptive dialogue. I would hazzard a guess that despite the Ghost's warnings, Hamlet cannot be certain that it isn't truly a "goblin damned" and trying to lie to set him up. He may also simply not wish to take a life-he is a prince and a scholar, not a soldier and may have pangs of guilt. After the mouse-trap scene, I really think that he won't kill Claudius at prayer as he wants his uncle to die with all his sins upon his head-to kill him while at prayer would send his soul directly to Heaven, and Hamlet believes that Claudius does not deserve that kind of mercy. This highlights a mean and malicious streak in Hamlet too, as the Ghost merely said to kill him, not the manner in which it should be carried out. Well, that's what I think anyway! Hope that this helped!
Shane

Answer 3

via fact he had many doubts. He hectic that the ghost became no longer fairly his father yet a demon posing as his father. He had to be certain. Secondly, he became no longer constructive of Claudius' guilt. this is why he devised a play to seize the king. He additionally became hectic that his soul could be damned if he killed Claudius, although revenge became a justifiable mode of having even in is day. Hamlet suffered from procrastination. as nicely, he became a student and a logician, no longer a guy or woman who might rapidly turn to violence to remedy a topic or to get revenge. to declare he became a complicqated character is understating the certainty. Chow!!

Answer 4

I also think Hamlet wants to take revenge in the meanest way he can, and it takes him a while to think of how best to accomplish that. After all, he has many opportunities to kill Claudius in private. Instead, he repeatedly chooses public humiliations--the play-within-a-play he asks the travelling players to enact to embarrass his uncle, his refusal to kill Claudius while he's praying, and duel at the play's end, with all the court watching.

Answer 5

Hamlet had never killed before and he was scared. But he was also furious. At one point he was ready to kill his uncle but found he was praying. He believed that since his uncle was praying he would go to heaven after being killed. So he waited...as we know he apparently waited too long because his dead father came back to tell him to hurry up with it.