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Text:​ Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Character Arc: ​The character undergoes a mental growth that changes them, the growth can be

positive or negative. ​https://narrativefirst.com/vault/what-character-arc-really-means/

Paragraph:​ In ‘Hamlet’ Shakespeare utilizes a character arc in the scene of Hamlet’s wavering

doubt to kill his uncle. While Claudius is praying for his guilt to be washed away, Hamlet sneaks

up on him and takes out his sword, “ Now might I do it pat, now’a is a-praying. And now I’ll

do’t. And so’a goes to heaven.” (pg 91)A venerable Claudius means an easy kill for Hamlet

especially an angry Hamlet because Claudius just confessed his sins of killing Hamlet’s father

through his prayers of guilt. Hamlet will then finish his father’s vengeance by sending Claudius

to his death similar to how Claudius sent his unsuspecting father to Purgatory. But in Hamlet’s

thoughts he questions if he could send someone to the afterlife, “And am I reveng’d, To take him

in the purging of his soul, When he is fit and season’d for his passage?” (pg 91) When Hamlet

begins to question the ghost’s vengeance and if it is moral to kill someone, he begins to waver in

killing his uncle. Hamlet lets the chance go for an easy death and begins to continue his elaborate

plot to expose and kill his uncle on his terms instead of the ghost. Hamlet grows mentally by

realizing that he can stay loyal to his family and avenge his father but he will do it his own way

by exposing his uncle to the public instead of keeping the affair quiet. Hamlet also realizes that

the decisions to kill his uncle is in his own hands and that gives Hamlet power and motivates

Hamlet to trap his uncle.