Science Leadership Academy

In one episode of "This American Life", Jack Hitt visits a prison, where incarerated men are putting on Hamlet. He interviews many of them, but I found one comment from "Big Hutch" quite controversial. He said that Shakespeare made a huge mistake when writing Hamlet: the entire point of the tragedy is unrealistic. If Hamlet's father was truely murdered, he argued, Hamlet would never have spent so long deciding to kill Claudius. It would have been automatic. He puts himself in a version of Hamlet's dilemma. "I couldn't see somebody raping my daughter, and just sitting around. No, I gotta do you; you're done."

thought his take was very interesting. However, I felt that he missed a central point in the play. Hamlet was never that close with his father. Old Hamlet was always away from home, fighting a war or gathering tribute. Unlike Big Hutch and his daughter, Hamlet did not have a strong connection to his father. That's why it took him so long to decide if he should actually kill King Claudius. He had to decide if aveging his father was worth the consequences that would follow. I don't think Shakespeare made an error when writing Hamlet. The story depicts a true human dilemma that anyone in Hamlet's situation whould have faced.