Why did Hamlet delay his revenge? An analysis of Shakespeare's play

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,7, University of Frankfurt (Main) (Anglistik), course: Hamlet: Nature, Reason & Murder, language: English, abstract: Is Hamlet even delaying his revenge or does it merely take him some time to plot and execute it? Critic G.B. Harrison stands by this assumption and says ¿In the play which Shakespeare wrote, there was no delay¿. But there are other critics finding the answer to the delayed revenge in the main character himself.

But for sure there is some sort of delay all through the play, a delay that somehow is based on the behavior of the main character, Prince Hamlet. If there was no delay, Hamlet would have acted in a whole different way. As soon as he was told that his father had been killed by his uncle, he would have taken out his sword and simply killed the new king of Denmark. There would not have been much delay and self-doubt then.

Hamlet¿s act of revenge is fulfilled a couple hundred pages and thousands of lines later. The question comes to mind: Why did Hamlet delay so long in taking his revenge for his father¿s murder?