William Shakespeare's Hamlet (1600-01), considered by many scholars and critics to be his best work, is based on the story of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, which appeared for the first time in the Historia Danica, a Latin text by the 12th-century historian Saxo Grammaticus. The main protagonist, being Hamlet, the so-called "Dark Prince" of Shakespearean tragedy, is an extremely complex man with great depth of personality who "suffers from insecurity and a sense of the absurd... and as a man and as an avenger, he passes from an external struggle for revenge to an internal struggle" (McConnell, Internet). Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay As a person, Hamlet experiences a wide range of emotions related to specific events, such as being betrayed by his friends and family, which causes him much pain and despair that ultimately leads to a state of total melancholy. As an emotional young man, Hamlet becomes greatly disillusioned by his mother Gertrude's incestuous marriage to Claudius, the current king of Denmark, and grieves over his father's early death. He also views his own life with much disgust and disappointment and compares it to a "weedless garden" full of pitfalls and weariness. After realizing that his father was murdered by Claudius, Hamlet's anguish multiplies and becomes quite unnerving, especially after Claudius' ghost asks Hamlet to seek revenge against those who killed him. However, at the time of this revelation, Hamlet's grief is so overwhelming that he finds it difficult to obey his dead father's command and wishes he had never been born to bear the consequences. Furthermore, critics have often attempted to explain or interpret Hamlet's actions in this play; the great Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) considered the character of Hamlet to be full of wickedness, cruelty, violence and cynicism. In contrast, the famous British essayist William Hazlitt sees Hamlet very differently, as he states that the prince of Denmark "is characterized not by strength of will, nor even by passion, but by refinement of thought and feeling" (AbsoluteShakespeare, Internet) . Furthermore, Hamlet's sanity has been questioned over the years and has led to many comments as to whether he was truly mad or pretending to be mad; in any case, the man Hamlet reinforces his psychological reality through his thoughts and actions. In essence, Hamlet displays two of the main traits associated with characters of his kind, as exemplified in many of Shakespeare's great plays. Thus, Hamlet is a paradox: he is a noble and sensitive hero but also a tragic hero and a victim of his "fatal flaw", a deficiency of character that drives much of the play's plot. As an ideal Renaissance gentleman/nobleman, the refinement of Hamlet's spirit is best represented when he criticizes Claudius, the murderous king, for his drunkenness; his great mental sensitivity is exemplified in his astonishment at his mother's rapid remarriage to Claudius following the death of Hamlet's father, and his humility is evident in his deep love for Ophelia, the daughter of the chamberlain Polonius and a socially below his stature as King of Denmark. As a hero and tragic victim, Hamlet goes through a series of events that test his strengths and weaknesses. At the beginning of the play, it is clear to the reader that Claudius has violated the natural order of the kingdom with the murder of the former king and his accession to the throne, which deeply disturbs Hamlet despite his ignorance of the evil that has been done by his new stepfather. Although Hamlet shows many signs of weakness, his.