Hamlet's Goals

In the scene where Hamlet spoke to his mother alone as a way to try to convince her that her hasty marriage was a mistake, his specific goal is to make her realize what an oversight she had made by marrying his uncle. This goal is crucial to the play for many reasons. The first was that it made Hamlet confront his mother, which lead him to murder Polonius and the second, most important reason was that by the end of this scene, Hamlet was no longer able to tell who is being genuine with him and who is lying to him. When Hamlet arrived at his mother’s room to try to make her aware that her marriage was a mistake, Hamlet’s stakes are very high. It is clear that because Hamlet was trying to make his mother understand how corrupt his uncle was, he had mass amounts of pressure put upon himself. With that much stress on him, it is no surprise that this scene very quickly went awry. Additionally, it is obvious that another goal Hamlet had set for himself was that he wanted an explanation for her actions. Despite his father informing Hamlet that his mother was unaware of what she was doing, Hamlet still decided to create the goal that he would make her explain to him why she did what she did. In more of a wide scale view, I believe this relates to Hamlet’s overarching goal of avenging his father’s death. I think that Hamlet needed to have an explanation for her actions so that he could determine for himself whether or not he could have forgiven her. Because of how much he respects and cares for his father, it is evident that Hamlet has an extreme amount of pressure on himself. However, it is important to note that this may be one of Hamlet’s vulnerabilities, as well as one of his strengths.

Originally, Hamlet’s father tells him to pardon his mother. He explains that she was unaware of the mistake she had made by marrying Hamlet’s uncle. In addition to wanting to decide whether or not her could forgive her, I think Hamlet also believed that if he had his mother to realize how awful her choices had been, he would have been one step closer to achieving his main goal of the play: to exact revenge for his father’s death, and to restore the old order of his life. However, it does not go in the direction he had hoped. This scene only hurt Hamlet further because once he killed Ophelia’s father, something he had no intention of doing, his mother truly views him as insane. Before Hamlet killed him, he was able to confront his mother to some degree, but once he mistakenly stabbed Polonius, his mother was in complete distress and could not comprehend Hamlet’s rash actions.

Hamlet approached this scene longing for honesty from his mother, but once he became aware that he was being watched Polonius, he became paranoid and broke down.  At this very moment in the play, Hamlet came to the conclusion that everyone surrounding him wasn’t treating him normally. Because of this, Hamlet then created a new goal for himself: to only trust himself, and to not confide in anyone surrounding him. In a sense, this new goal was able to help Hamlet revenge his father’s death and to complete his main goal. If Polonius had not been hiding, there is a strong chance that Hamlet would not have been able to form this new goal and to murder his uncle.