The Characterization of Hamlet

In the tragic play Hamlet, the character Hamlet was undoubtedly one of William Shakespeare's greatest characterizations. The overall appeal Hamlet has to an audience or reader almost definitely stems from his many human weaknesses. The best known is indecisiveness, but his inconsistency is a more outstanding characteristic.
T.S. Eliot argued that Hamlet was an artistic failure, due to a basic weakness in the play. It was his contention that a playwright owes a duty to the audience to write a dialogue appropriate to characters as the have been developed in the drama. Eliot made the point in the "Closet Scene" (Act 3, Scene 4), when Hamlet confronts his mother, Queen Gertrude, in her bedchamber; his words demonstrate a bitter hostility and a vindictiveness for which the audience is totally unprepared. …