Hamlet Essay

Hamlet's character altogether is thought to be a diverse, strange character which doesn't abide by the rules and ethics of the epic heroes. He is even doubted at times of being an epic hero at all. Contrary to the other heroes seen in epics such as Beowulf he uses a different language when referring to anyone or anything. His intentions backing up his words were more of an honest, hurt man not proud like Beowulf.

Any normal epic hero speaks with great confidence of oneself and seeks props from others. They never think of doubting themselves and are usually proud, somewhat self-centered, men. Hamlet however is the opposite when dealing with his problems and feelings. He uses self-utterance and freely doubts his future actions, making them seem like an even more conflicting problem. In his soliloquy "To Be or Not to Be" Hamlet outwardly expresses his remedies for his problems: murder or suicide. Hamlet states, "by a sleep to say we end the heartache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to," by this he contemplates death. He quickly contradicts himself because of his character's indecisiveness,"to take arms against the sea of troubles and by opposing end them." Hamlet is not the type that is sure of his decisions, instead he double thinks on what he will say or act on next.

Beowulf's character was a cocky person with too many words to influence his actions. He'd constantly make himself seem greater and more powerful than he truly was. He mentioned plenty of times, of his battles in which he had defeated  others. He was not shy, he was only a typical, proud epic hero. He never wanted to show his weakness unlike Hamlet who allowed all the pressure to interfere with his thought process. Such was the time when he went off on Ophelia because of her love. His  language of love, especially towards Ophelia is of pure forbidden love. He knew that he couldn't be with her because everything in his world was a sin. Instead he would push her away to stop the suffering, but would pull her back in when he realized how much he needed her.

According to Hamlet revenge was what he wanted most because he allowed the anger to build up in himself. Every epic hero has a tragic flaw but it's rarely involved with the concept of revenge. He had decided to follow others' actions and started to think seriously of avenging his father's death when he saw Fortinbras attempting to settle disputes in regards to his own father's death. He is more of a follower than a leader, which opposes an epic hero in every possible way. Unlike him Beowulf led all his explorations taking his men along and only allowing them to enter first if they offered. Instead, Hamlet would probably use one of his men as a shield to protect his own skin.

Hamlet was all but an average epic hero and demonstrated it with his language of self-doubt and untrustworthy love as well as a difference in tragic flaw with epic heroes usually contain. He is differed and contrasted to Beowulf because of his more cowardice character and his lack of confidence. He isn't proud like many others are expected to be.