Hamlet/Raskolnikov Similarities

Samuel Taylor Coleridge: The great British Romantic poetbelieves Hamlet’s delay is caused by “the effect of asuperfluous activity of thought.” He thinks too much because heis too elevated for this world…has too fine a character.Cindy Lou Camp: AP paean who trembles at the feet of MountOlympus believes that Hamlet is a character created byShakespeare who isn’t real. BUT she also thinks that as aperpetual student (Hamlet isn’t a young buck) might over-thinkthings a bit and would rather study the ramifications of murderbefore jumping into a life of crime. Plus—a ghost? Not reliable.OR: Maybe Hamlet doesn’t have a flaw. He is merely waiting forthe ghost to be proven honest or not. A sort 21 st centuryexistentialist hero He is faced with a problem whose answermay lie beyond the limits of human reason or in fact may nothave an answer. His uncertainty makes him “unstable.”16