Life is one difficult road, and in this road, there will always be a decision to make on which way to go. Some decisions are easy to make while others prove to be difficult because each decision will change your life in some form. In The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by Shakespeare many characters face many difficult decisions to make. One of the characters, in particular, that seems conflicted on what is the right choice is Laertes.
In the play, Hamlet, Laertes’s need for revenge leads him to badly influenced decisions and reveals how one’s impulsiveness and endeavor for revenge can often lead to their demise. To fully comprehend Laertes, it is essential to see what type of character he was before he allows such impulsiveness in his actions which would later seal his deadly fate. Through the few moments, that Laertes comes out in the play it is easy to observe that he is a very family-oriented man.
An example is when Laertes tries to advise Ophelia to ‘[b]e wary’ of Hamlet and his attention towards her because he could just be toying with her (1.3.47). In addition, by being a strongly family-oriented man the audience an easily assume that Laertes will probably do anything for his family. Which is why it is not surprising when Laertes comes all the way “from France” to honor and avenge his father’s, Polonius, death (4.3.95). Knowing now what type of character Laertes’s contains, it is imperative now to see how he was led to commit actions with a murderous intent. When Laertes finds out about his father’s death, much like Hamlet, he becomes emotionally unstable.
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The only thing he is able to mentally get a grip on is when he chooses to take the road of revenge, in order, to honor Polonius’s death. When someone is in such an unstable mindset it easy for the conniving words of others to influence their actions, even if he or she contradict their morals. This is easily seen when King Claudius tells Laertes, ‘[w]ill you be ruled by me (4.7.66.). To this Laertes has no problem because he sees no possible way that Claudius could ever lead him in a wrong direction. In addition, Laertes in this mindset does not care what people suggest him to do as long as they do “not o’errule [him] to a peace” (4.7.68).
This statement is something he later contradicts in the play by when he states he would like “a precedent of peace” with Hamlet (5.2. 264). As a result, the audience can observe that in this play, Laertes’s shoulder devil is King Claudius. Claudius is the person who tells Laertes bad advice and kicks out the shoulder angel, which represents Laertes’s conscience morals. The reason being that Claudius could have chosen to dissuade Laertes from such murderous intent but instead, he does the opposite. Claudius only adds more fuel to the fire that already burns inside of Laertes, when he makes up a whole plan on how to successfully kill Hamlet.
As a result, of such encouragement from Claudius not only does Laertes accept to listen to Claudius’s plan, but Laertes also decides that he will poison his “sword” in order to really kill Hamlet (4.7.160). This decision allows Laertes to walk further into the dark and gruesome road of revenge and farther away from what would be considered his yellow brick road. Laertes is so keen on seeking revenge that he does not care what is morally correct or what consequences his actions make until it is too late. Laertes is fine with the plan that Claudius and he concoct until things start to go downhill beginning with the death of Gertrude.
At this moment, Laertes starts to wake up from his vexed state as Gertrude’s accidental death is “almost against [his] conscience” (5. 2. 324). However, his confliction with his vengeful agenda does not come until he realizes that he is going to die by his ‘own treachery’, and like a cold shock, he realizes how wrong he was by pursuing vengeance (5. 2. 337). At this point, his need for vengeance is nothing more than a passing thought as he realizes how that Claudius’s advice and influence lead him nowhere but to his death.
An eye for an eye is no longer what Laertes deems to be the right road to go, so he finally does what he deems he is the morally correct thing to do. As a result of no longer being under Claudius’s influence, he repents for his actions and tells Hamlet that the deaths of both Polonius and him “come not upon him” (5.2. 362). This shows just how influential Claudius really was towards Laertes. Once Laertes gets what he had been craving since learning about his father’s death, a peace of mind, he finally dies.
This leads to the final question, what exactly was Laertes’s purpose in this story? In the play, Hamlet, Laertes is a minor character who has a big role that affects the play as a whole. Furthermore, when it comes to the overall plot of Hamlet Laertes really helps portray what the play tries to convey to the audience. What Hamlet tries to convey, in other words, the theme, is that when someone pursues the road of revenge it leads them nowhere good, in the end, it will have more of a worse outcome for them, like their death.
Laertes contributes to the theme because he could have chosen some other way to make his mind come at peace with Hamlet without killing him. Laertes did not have to choose to commit such a murderous action to avenge the death of his family. This decision leads Laertes to unknowingly sign his death contract because int the end his character is only but a pawn in the grand scheme of things.
In the end, Laertes helps convey that seeking revenge will not lead you to good things but instead the way opposite. He is an honorable man that loved his family deeply, but when both were suddenly gone he could not help but feel vexed and a need for revenge. In this state of mind, Laertes easily agrees on becoming Claudius’s little pawn in killing Hamlet. In the end, Laertes realizes that searching to honor his father by impulsively trying to kill Hamlet is not the road to take, but his realization comes too late for him because his fate had already been sealed. This proves that it is better to not decide such conflicting matters by being deadly impulsive.
References
- CliffsNotes – Laertes Character Analysis
- Purdue OWL – MLA Works Cited: Electronic Sources
- Literature Essay Samples – Hamlet Category
- The New York Times Best Seller List (Hardcover Fiction)
- Magazine Awards – Judging a Brand New Category
- Journal of Nuclear Materials
- PubMed Central (PMC) – List of Journals
