Are you you?- Hamlet Blog

Who are you?

This is an extremely simple question with an extremely complex answer. How are you supposed to define a person's entire existence in one short response? You may not even fully know who you are, that makes explaining it to another person that much more difficult. If you're not sure who you are here's a little tip.

You are not you. Yes, you read that right. You are not you. Well, you are partly you. Actually, maybe you are even mostly you. But not really. Never really you. This may seem like a depressing Dr. Seuss poem but it really does have a point.

You must be wondering by now, 'If i'm not me, then who am I?'.  Your personality is a patchwork quilt of all the people you are close to, care about, and look up too. If you see them do something admirable, you want to do that too. And if they tell you to do something differently, you obey, because you want to please them.

Sometimes the things that others tell you to think conflict with what you would otherwise think. These ideas create a contrast in your personality. Sometimes these conflicts are small. Other times they are more consequential.

Like in the famous play Hamlet by Shakespeare. It is in (Extremely) short, about a boy (Hamlet) trying to find and kill the man who murdered his father.

Hamlet faces plenty of struggles but many of them stem from the fact that he has so many people telling him what to do and think. Hamlet conflicts with his mother. He is still grieving for his father, but his mom wants him to stop wearing black clothes and get on with his life. He is also suspicious of his uncle, the new king. His mother disagrees and marries the uncle.

The ghost of Hamlet's father visits him and tells him to get revenge. Hamlet must kill his father's killer. This is the source of lots of the internal conflict Hamlet has.

The problem is, Hamlet thinks too much. Or he thinks too much to kill a person without reason. He likes to really think things through before proceeding. That's a problem because it's hard for him to think through killing someone and end up with the impression that it's a good idea. He is disappointed with himself because he wants to do this for his father, but he is having trouble.

"Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murdered,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words
And fall a-cursing like a very drab,
A scullion! Fie upon 't, foh!"
(2.2. 560-65).

Hamlet starts to interpret this indecision as cowardice. He thinks that the reason he is having a hard time killing is because he is afraid. He begins to dislike his thoughtfulness. I think that he starts to think that his emotions and thought are more of a barrier than a helpful thing.

"Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee"
(3.2. 64-67).

He also compares himself to a prince from another city, Fortinbras. Fortinbras is Hamlet's same age but is seemingly much more successful and more of what you would expect a price to be. He is recklessly brave, the opposite of Hamlet, and what Hamlet wishes to be. Hamlet wishes he were braver so that he could kill the murderer and not end up feeling guilty or afraid.

"Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honor's at the stake"
(4.4. 52-55)


Indecision comes from others more than yourself. It's too easy to doubt yourself when someone else questions you. Conflicting elements in your personality are often between your own opinion, and what others are pressuring you to think. Hamlet dealt with this pressure from others badly, and he ultimately became someone he was not.