Maya Efrat

Period 2, AP Literature

March 6, 2017

The Climax of Hamlet

The primary conflict in Hamlet is Hamlet coming to terms with the death of his

father. Hamlet learns that his father was murdered by King Claudius and wants to

avenge his murder. Hamlet struggles with his whether he can trust the ghost and

whether killing Claudius is the appropriate thing to do.Hamlets internal conflicts

eventually lead to the climax of the play in Act IV when Hamlet makes the decision to

follow through with his thoughts of revenge and stabs the curtain that he thinks Claudius

is hiding behind but ends up stabbing Polonius, Ophelias father instead.

The primary conflict is set up in Act 1 where Hamlet is visited by his fathers

ghost. The ghost tells him to revenge his foul and most unnatural murder (Act 1,

Scene 5). Hamlet does not have proof if what the ghost is saying was true and so he

spends a large portion of the play being indecisive over if he should kill Claudius or not.

He ends up coming up with a plan to see if despite the lack of evidence, his uncle really

did kill his father and he can justify hi revenge on him. He decides to have the players

put on a play that completely mimics how his father was murdered and he will watch

Claudiuss actions during this to see if he looks guilty and then be able to prove he did

indeed murder King Hamlet. Hamlet notices Claudius angry reactions towards the play,
he abruptly gets up and demands for the lights to be turned on, which leads him to take

action and finally murder him.

Hamlet overcomes his conflicts of indecision and lack of evidence after this

scene and has what he needs to give him the motive to kill Claudius. This leads to the

climax where Hamlet stabs the curtain in his mothers room and stabs Polonius, which

he thinks is Claudius. This moment is the climax because it is the point of highest

dramatic tension or a major turning point in the action of the play. It is the main action

Hamlet takes to solve the initial conflict and the rest of the play deals with the actions

that follow.