Let me tell you everything you need to know about Hamlet: he is an immature baby who cannot accept other peoples' happiness. Sure, he's being spied on and manipulated, but he's also hung up on his mother's marriage in some kind of Freudian holdover from a childhood that he never grew out of, and he takes that out on poor Ophelia who is the real victim here.
And I mean, what is the big deal about him anyway? So maybe he's crazy and maybe he's not. Who cares? He ruins peoples' lives either way. And also, as my Shakespeare professor pointed out last week, he's not even a smart cookie. His awesome plan to get Claudius to reveal his own guilt when watching a play reenacting his supposed murder of Hamlet's father? Guess who, in the play, kills the king. That's right, the king's nephew. So Hamlet is watching this to convince himself that Claudius has a guilty conscience, but Claudius sees a secret message that his nephew (i.e. Hamlet) is going to kill the king (i.e. him, Claudius!). Cue Claudius' freak-out over not what Hamlet thinks he's freaking out about. So, not only is Hamlet a self-involved child, but he's also a dumbass.
But maybe I'm missing something. After all, with Hamlet being somehow both boring and a douche, I've never made it past the third act. Even in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which I love, I cannot wait for Hamlet to shut the hell up and let Ros and Guil take the stage. If you have a really compelling reason why I should finish Hamlet, please, by all means let me know.
