Cozine 1

Danielle Cozine
AP Literature and Composition
Mr. Benson
April 19 2014
The Perils of Uncivilized Thinking
To be a truly uncivilized thinker, one must tinker with the inherited beliefs of his or her
society. These people are the abolitionists of the eighteen hundreds, the feminists of the early
twentieth century, and those who practiced civil disobedience in the 1960s to attain truly equal
rights for all. These people were not appreciated by their peersresented even. However they all
worked for something they knew was great, despite the social barriers of their time. Hamlet is
one of these free thinkers, one of those who questioned his society. Unfortunately for him, his
free and wild thinking resulted in tragedy, not a socially acceptable freedom.
In Hamlets time, suicide was most definitely not socially acceptable. Compounded with
the tragedy of an individual being sad and dissatisfied enough with their life to kill themselves
was the stigma of eternal torment. There was no question of whether or not suicide was a one
way ticket to Hell. It was, and there was no question about it. For Hamlet to even question this
well-established pillar of his society in his famous To be, or not to be speech indicates a high
level of intelligence and a tendency to think about accepted rituals more deeply than others. Very
few, of that time or this one, would question who would bear the whips and scorns of time, or
whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer/The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,/Or to take
arms against a sea of troubles,/ and by opposing end them. It takes a queer, special mind to
consider these questions, to reduce something as emotional and inevitable as death and life to
questions of worth. It questions the foundations of society, and the answers have the potential to
change society. That is what constitutes free and wild thinking, and these types of questions are
the ones Hamlet has in spades.
Because uncivilized free and wild thinking is based in questioning society, Hamlets
inaction and indecision in regard to his uncle also indicate a free and wild thinking. Not only

Cozine 2
did he have the right to kill the man who killed his father, he also had a duty as a prince to make
sure the proper man was on the throne. Rather than take immediate and decisive action against
the criminal Claudius, Hamlet instead hesitatesfirst to confirm the Ghosts claim, then to allow
Claudius time for repentance, until finally he kills Claudius out of anger. Hamlets indecisiveness
costs him thoughevery death from the church scene on could have been avoided if not for
Claudius still being alive. In many ways, when Hamlet had a conscience and spared Claudiuss
soul, he inadvertently killed everyone around him and himself, excepting Horatio. Had he
conformed, and thought less about his actions, he would have been alive to tell the tale, going on
to become king, and live a happy enough life. His indecision and intellect become his fatal flaw,
and Hamlet suffers for themthat is one of Shakespeares biggest points in the play, of course,
that being an exception to the rule only results in trouble.
Though Hamlet suffered, and eventually lost, he still expressed some incredible insight.
What does happen after death? Is life worth living? Hamlet asks these questions and more, but
the important part is not the answerthese are arbitrary, dependent on the individuals belief
systembut the fact that he asked in the face of social stigmas and prejudice. That is strength, at
least according to todays civilized thinking.