We all have moments where we are stymied by an overwhelming series of events in which we, at first, must take time to process, to measure, to wrestle with.
Hamlet is presented by wildly extreme contradictions, the ghost in Renaissance England would have been seen as an evil figure, a danger, however, Shakespeare was most likely raised Catholic so that he walked a thin line between Catholic acceptance of Purgatory, and the Protestant (the enforced Religion of England) belief that all souls either go to Hell or Heaven.
The hesitation of Hamlet has always been the result of a tug of war, a tightly balanced pulling of several strings, each pulling equally and from all sides of Hamlet. Once he releases one string, Polonius’ murder, the machine begins to spin without control. It is only when he goes to England and comes back that he is able to process the problem presented to him. He, as many of us do, needs distance from the situation in order to see it more clearly. What happens on that trip though? We know that Hamlet kills Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, not with his own hand, but by switching the letters that were supposed to be the instruments of Hamlet’s death.
Before he leaves his last lines are “My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth” an odd way to depart from the location where he is to actually revenge his father. Up to that point he is casting in the wind. He does not possess the ability to become the dagger of his father’s ghost. Hamlet is too smart, too well rounded, too aware of the give and take of life, he is aware of all the arguments leaving him stuck in the middle. In the time that passes, something happens, something must settle him, he goes away a frustrated, “puzzled”, young man, but comes back a mature philosopher, accepting his fate and all that must happen.
Logically there are only so many things that can create that kind of shift in psyche, near death experience, religious enlightenment, or perhaps love. Some kind of inner awareness awakes in him, perhaps the death of Ophelia is the final release of his hold on the Earth. After she is gone there is no point in fighting anymore. What will be will be, as Hamlet says, “Since no one knows aught of when he leaves what is it to depart betimes? The readiness is all.”
It has to be Ophelia, he is certainly not remorseful for the death of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, as he say “They are outside of my conscious”, and though I think he is deeply sorry for the murder of Polonius, he manages to justify it and live with it. However, to lose the two people he loves most in the world, his Father and Ophelia, and understanding that he must in some way be partly guilty for Ophelia’s death, this culmination of cause and effect must be what subdues him finally.
In surrendering to Laertes and Claudius, Hamlet becomes the sacrifice that the society needs to purge away the corruption and regain balance. Hamlet knows his end is near, he knows that whatever may happen, he will not live to see the result. Hamlet has to die, he, in his frantic and mad behavior, has caused too much harm to go unpunished. His delay, his inner struggle, causes the deaths of far more people than was necessary, if he had just killed Claudius then all would be well. But, of course, he couldn’t, not in cold blood, not with awareness of the Divine law of Heaven forbidding murder of any kind, or the deep understanding of morality that he would have learned in his studies in Philosophy. There is no easy answer for what Hamlet must do.
Hamlet is a Renaissance version of Oedipus in many ways. He is a detective, searching for the answer to a murder, the murder of his father. And though he is not personally responsible for his father's murder, he is a part of the equation, he is an aspect of the imbalance, the corruption of the court at Elsinore.
It is only when he is willing to sacrifice himself that he can become the instrument of justice, and of course in the eyes of the court, when Claudius is finally revealed as the serpent in the grass, Hamlet is justified in his action. I do think that it is important to realize that Hamlet must die and that he is aware of this fact. He was always aware, self-aware, perhaps too aware of himself, that is both his weakness and his strength.