Hamlet

In research papers about Hamlet familial problems assume a catastrophic importance. For Shakepeare's Hamlet is a revenge tragedy and the object of revenge is Hamlet's uncle, Claudius. Hamlet is urged to carry out this revenge by the ghost of his father whom Claudius had murdered. Shakespeare essays also note that there is also another family in the play whose fate intersects with the fate of Hamlet's family; that is the family of Polonius. Both families are destroyed as the process of that intersection works itself out.

Many Hamlet research papers discuss "Hamlet's delay" in killing his uncle and Hamlet occasionally expresses a sense of unworthiness because he has not acted with more dispatch. Shortly before the play-within-a-play is enacted he exclaims against himself, "But I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gall/ To make oppression bitter, or ere this/ I should ha' fatted all the region kites/ With this slave's offal" (II:ii;605-8). Your Hamlet research paper should show that much of the play's force, its dramatic power, arises out of the emotional tensions created in the audience that finds itself waiting for Hamlet to act and wondering if he will act. You should also point out that your William Shakespeare research shows that in the process of waiting many things come out and one of the chief of these is how richly Claudius deserves what he will eventually receive.