One cannot pass judgment on a character based on one single act that the character has done. One act alone can make any character seem as if he is evil for example one could have a single slip of morals or be put in a desperate situation that requires them to do what is necessary. Basing an assumption on one single act alone is not enough to make a decision on whether or not a character is evil, one must fully understand the character and then they will understand why he did what he did. This can be proven by using William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” as an example.
In Act III scene iv of “Hamlet”, Hamlet enters the Queen’s chamber to talk to his mother, however the Queen was not alone. Polonius remained hidden behind the curtains in the room to eavesdrop on Hamlet so he would be able to determine the cause of Hamlet’s “insanity”. Hamlet, realizing that someone was eavesdropping but not knowing who it was, stabbed the hidden character who was revealed to be Polonius. If one was only aware of what had occurred in only in this scene, one can make the assumption that Hamlet is an evil and immoral character. However, that assumption would be false. From the beginning of the play, Hamlet has been portrayed as mentally unstable due to his knowledge that Claudius, the current king, killed his father, the former king. In a fit of rage, Hamlet plots to expose Claudius’s actions. When he entered the Queen’s room, he suspected that it was Claudius behind the curtains not Polonius, thus causing Hamlet to stab through the curtains.
Granted, Hamlet should not have been trying to seek revenge in such a violent way, but that does not mean he is evil and immoral. He was seeking revenge because Claudius killed his father to take the throne and no one realized it. He wanted to seek justice for his fallen father. With the knowledge of this, a sense of sympathy is created towards the character Hamlet and his actions of killing Polonius is seen as wrong but not as evil. To understand a character’s actions one must first understand a character’s situation.
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