In the play of Hamlet, the ghost of King Hamlet comes back to the kingdom to tell his son, Hamlet, how he did not suffer a natural death, but rather was sinfully murdered. His death occurred because his own brother and Hamlet’s uncle, Claudius, poured poison down King Hamlet’s ear while he was asleep, so that he could take over the Royal Throne of Denmark. King Hamlet’s ghost then commands Hamlet to fulfill his duty and seek revenge for him by killing Claudius. The ghost reappears later in the play, since Hamlet has still not managed to kill Claudius up to this point, and reminds him to stay focused on fulfilling the commandment he has given him. The ghost claims that he has come back to whet, or sharpen, his request for the death of Claudius, which seems to have been blunted, or dulled, by Hamlet’s actions. Hamlets purpose has been blunted throughout the play in many ways, and he fails to quickly take action for avenging the death of his father. Hamlet is not sure whether he believes the story of King Hamlet’s murder, one of the reasons for Hamlet’s inaction. Hamlet thinks that, “The spirit that [he] have seen may be a and the hath power T’ assume a pleasing shape…” (II. 627-629). Hamlet thinks that an evil spirit may have taken the ghostly form of his late King and father and this causes him to have second thoughts on what this ghost has commanded him to do to Claudius. He thinks that there is a chance that Claudius may not have murdered his father, and that the ghost may just be trying take advantage of the situation to have Claudius murdered. He believes that, “Out of [Hamlet’s] weakness and [Hamlet’s] melancholy, As [the ghost] is very potent with such spirits, abuses to damn me” (II. 630-632). In his mind, Hamlet is thinking that his may just be a trick by an evil spirit to damn him to hell when he dies. This all causes Hamlet to delay his purpose when he decides to rewrite “the play within a play” to test Claudius’ guilt in murdering King Hamlet. As we see in the book, the ghost is not lying to Hamlet, and Claudius did commit the murder of his Father.
Another conflict that causes Hamlet to delay his action in murdering Claudius is that he decides not to kill him while he is praying because this would cause Claudius to avoid going to hell after he dies. When Hamlet sees Claudius in the chapel praying after he leaves the play, he finds it to be the perfect opportunity to kill Claudius. However he realizes that if he does commit the murder now, “he goes to heaven… A villain kills [Hamlet’s] father, and for that, [Hamlet], his sole son, do this same villain send to Heaven” (III. 79-83). Hamlet does not want to kill Claudius while he is committing an act of good will. He wants to punish Claudius even after he murders him, so that his soul will be punished in hell. Hamlet wants to wait until his uncle is in “some act that has no relish of salvation in’t- Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven, and that his soul may be damned and black as hell, whereto it goes” (III. 96-100). Hamlet passes on the opportunity to kill Claudius while he is praying, but what he does not know is that Claudius is unable to pray. He has no regret in killing his own brother to take his wife and his throne. Therefore, if Hamlet had ended his uncle’s life in the chapel, Claudius soul still would be damned to hell, and Hamlet would not have lapsed the ghost’s request.
King Hamlet’s ghost comes back to visit Hamlet because he feels the need to criticize his son for not completing his assigned task. The ghost of the King feels that it is necessary to sharpen his commandment toward Hamlet, which seems to have been dulled and delayed. Hamlet does not exact swift revenge upon Claudius because there are many actions that Hamlet takes throughout the play which causes Hamlet to avoid taking revenge. A connection I have made from this to a real life incident is when one of my friends let someone we knew borrow one hundred dollars from him because he was in great need of it. He told my friend he would pay him back as soon as he made up the money, but he kept putting off repaying him and made it a blunted purpose. We would see him at school wearing new fits and new Jordan’s, which obviously had cost him more than $100. I told my friend to take action and to ask for his money back because it had been way to long since he should have been paid, but he told me that he did not want to seem rude by going up the guy and mentioning that he still hadn’t paid him back. My friend finally got the money back when we went the guy’s house to work on a project. He had received a lot of money from his relatives and parents because it had been his birthday recently, and since we saw the money in his room, he had no choice but to pay him back right then and there. I learned not to let that guy borrow a great sum of money from me, because even though he had the money to pay my friend back at many times, he purposely dulled the situation, which should have been sharpened a long time ago.