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Sightings of a ghost have been spotted around the castle by the two guards, Marcellus and Barnardo. Upon bringing Horatio, hesitant, he confirms it to be the ghost of King Hamlet of Denmark.

HORATIO: “What art thou usurp’st this time of night/Together with that fair and warlike form/In which the majesty of buried Denmark/Did sometimes march? By heaven, I charge thee, speak.” (Act 1, Scene 1, 44-47)

The introduction of the late King sparks the inciting incident of the story. After a failed attempt to speak with the King, they fetch the son of King Hamlet, likewise named Hamlet. The reunion of Hamlet and his father leads to the discovery of the cause of King Hamlet’s death, later choosing to render retribution on his executioner, King Claudius.

The son of the late King Fortinbras of Norway, of the same name, is in process of avenging his father by ruling and taking over Denmark, as he was murdered by King Hamlet.

HORATIO: “ Now, sir, young Fortinbras,/Of unimprovèd mettle hot and full,/Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there/Sharked up a list of lawless resolutes,/For food and diet, to some enterprise/That hath a stomach in ’t, which is no other—/As it doth well appear unto our state—And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands/So by his father lost.” (Act 1, Scene 1, 94-103)

This scene is pivotal in light of the fact that the play finishes off with finding the royalty to be killed off by the raging Fortinbras. So far, the story is viably integrated through further connections between the characters.

With the newly crowned uncle King Claudius marrying Gertrude, the mother of Hamlet, the incestuous couple jeopardizes the mother-son relationship of Hamlet and Gertrude

HAMLET: "Delicacy, thy name is lady!—/A little month, or ere those shoes were old/With which she followed my helpless dad's body,/Like Niobe, all tears. Why she, even she—/O God, a monster that needs talk of reason/Would have grieved longer!— wedded with my uncle,/My dad's sibling, yet not any more like my dad/Than I to Hercules. Inside a month,/Ere yet the salt of most indecent tears/Had left the flushing in her gallèd eyes,/She wedded. O most fiendish speed, to post/With such adroitness to forbidden sheets!" (Act 1, Scene 2, 146-157)

Hamlet views the wedded couple as a treachery to his late father, prompting the constant dispute with his mother. At this point, his relationship with his romantic interest Ophelia has been deteriorating as well, supporting the plotline as another inciting incident.

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Hamlet starts to become deranged yet is unaware of the causes, therefore King Claudius reaches out to Hamlet’s former friends Guildenstern and Rosencrantz.

CLAUDIUS: “Some little time so by your companies/To draw him on to pleasures and to gather,/So much as from occasion you may glean,/Whether aught, to us unknown, afflicts him thus/That, opened, lies within our remedy.” (Act 2, Scene 2, 11-18)

As Hamlet gradually loses his sanity, the plot thickens which is where the rising action occurs. This is accompanied with King Claudius’ having to deal with Hamlet, and Hamlet distrusting his friends.

A plan is later devised by the father of Ophelia, Polonius, in which his speculation of Hamlet’s madness revolves around his daughter. Part of the plan is making Hamlet lovesick by gathering the two together while the King inspects them in secrecy.

POLONIUS: “Be you and I behind an arras then,/Mark the encounter. If he love her not/And be not from his reason fall'n thereon,/Let me be no assistant for a state/But keep a farm and carters.” (Act 2, Scene 2, 155-159)

This scene prepares for the anticipation of the two reuniting, which can be regarded as a section of the climax.

Self doubt begins to plague Hamlet’s mind as he has yet to follow through with his plan of murdering King Claudius, thus he recreates his father’s death through adjustments to the play, then observing the reaction of the King whether or not it is favourable.

HAMLET: “I’ll have these players/Play something like the murder of my father/Before mine uncle. I’ll observe his looks./I’ll tent him to the quick. If he do blench,/I know my course. The spirit that I have seen/May be the devil, and the devil hath power/T' assume a pleasing shape. Yea, and perhaps/Out of my weakness and my melancholy,/As he is very potent with such spirits,/Abuses me to damn me. I’ll have grounds/More relative than this. The play’s the thing/Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.” (Act 2, Scene 2, 556-567)

This guides the story towards its tragedy through Hamlet’s inability to kill King Claudius immediately.

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From the previous act, they follow their plan of the meeting between Hamlet and Ophelia. However, the gathering turns hostile as Hamlet takes out his anger upon her about his situation with his mother, while she refuses and returns gifts that were given by Hamlet.

HAMLET: “I have heard of your paintings too, well enough. God has given you one face and you make yourselves another. You jig and amble, and you lisp, you nickname God’s creatures and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I’ll no more on ’t.” (Act 3, Scene 1, 139)

In spite of the fact that he is conversing with Ophelia, he continues to involve the conflict between his mother into the discussion. Hamlet’s perception of women has altered after his mother’s wedding, believing that they are all two-faced. Eventually this all leads to the separation between the two characters.

The story begins to climax as the play begins, and Claudius is later caught guilty. As he fumes in regret, Hamlet pulls the sword intending to kill him right there and then, but assumes that Claudius is praying, which he then would go to heaven, disregarding the injustice of King Hamlet. Thus, he refrains from impaling him in that moment.

HAMLET: “No./Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent./When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,/Or in th' incestuous pleasure of his bed,/At game a-swearing, or about some act/That has no relish of salvation in ’t—/Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,/And that his soul may be as damned and black/As hell, whereto it goes.” (Act 3, Scene 3, 88-96)

Hamlet’s thought process that Claudius would no longer be a sinner as he was praying to God was valid. Although, being the one chance to kill his uncle is a regret that Hamlet will carry on. The aftermath of the climax concludes with the argument with his mother, Gertrude and following with Hamlet stabbing a tapestry for mistaking Polonius for Claudius.

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The King of England is instructed by Claudius to send Hamlet to England after the death of Polonius. The fact that Hamlet loudly speaks the truth behind his father’s death, it is likely that it is the reason for Claudius' action of transferring Hamlet.

CLAUDIUS: “And, England, if my love thou hold’st at aught—/As my great power thereof may give thee sense,/Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red/After the Danish sword and thy free awe Pays homage to us—thou mayst not coldly set/Our sovereign process, which imports at full,/By letters congruing to that effect,/The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England,” (Act 4, Scene 3, 60-77)

Hamlet’s execution is planned by Claudius as he is the sole cause of most of his problems. After all, the consequences to Hamlet’s actions were the death of Polonius, breaking up with Ophelia, and corrupting the play - at this point, we see that his actions have only caused havoc.

Eventually we lead up to Ophelia drowning, while beforehand she went insane with the circumstances of breaking the relationship with Hamlet and the death of her father.

GERTRUDE: “Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke,/When down her weedy trophies and herself/Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,/And mermaid-like a while they bore her up,/Which time she chanted snatches of old lauds/As one incapable of her own distress,/Or like a creature native and indued/Unto that element. But long it could not be/Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,/Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay/To muddy death.” (Act 4, Scene 7, 169-179)

The cause of death was not explicit, but we can infer that the state of danger she was in was blinded by her loss of sanity and perception.

Laertes returns to Denmark upon the news of his father Polonius’ death, assuming that Claudius killed him.

LAERTES: “How came he dead? I’ll not be juggled with./To hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devil!/Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!/I dare damnation. To this point I stand/That both the worlds I give to negligence./Let come what comes, only I’ll be revenged/Most thoroughly for my father.” (Act 4, Scene 5, 104-110)

As he figures out that Hamlet was the cause of the murder, he swears to kill him. We can distinguish the action versus inaction of Laertes and Fortinbras in contrast to Hamlet’s reluctance to take revenge for his father.

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Gravediggers contemplate about the cause of Ophelia’s death as they dig her own grave. Hamlet later converses with them, causing him to wonder about the concept of death.

HAMLET: “No, faith, not a jot. But to follow him thither with modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it, as thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth to dust, the dust is earth, of earth we make loam—and why of that loam, whereto he was converted, might they not stop a beer barrel?/Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,/Might stop a hole to keep the wind away./Oh, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,/Should patch a wall t' expel the winter’s flaw!” (Act 5, Scene 1, 181-191)

Hamlet essentially has an existential crisis and contemplates about the aftermath of one’s death, and if he would be forgotten like Alexander the Great. Ironically, he dies before seeking closure of these thoughts.

Hamlet and Laertes both die after a duel as both are poisoned by the sword. Like most Shakespearean stories, eventually all or most characters result in death. Claudius and Gertrude die from the poisoned cups, and finally Hamlet. Those that are left to tell this story, who is Horatio at this point.

HORATIO: “You from the Polack wars, and you from England,/Are here arrived, give order that these bodies/High on a stage be placèd to the view,/And let me speak to th' yet-unknowing world/How these things came about. So shall you hear/Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,/Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,/Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,/And, in this upshot, purposes mistook/Fall'n on th' inventors' heads. All this can I/Truly deliver.” (Act 5, Scene 2, 377-387)

Tragedy invokes as the play concludes with no resolved issues and most of the characters dead. Horatio remains to tell the tragic story of King and Prince Hamlet.

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Claudius is rather his own villain, as he does not solely exist as a character that affects the protagonist’s progression through the story. He is first shown as a charming, newly crowned king, and signs of flaws are not apparent at the moment. It is then later on when the readings develop a resentment as he marries through incest with Gertrude and murders his own brother, in which is what invokes most of Hamlet’s problems.

GHOST:“ Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,/With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts—/O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power/So to seduce!—won to his shameful lust/The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen.” (Act 1, Scene 5. 41-47)

On the surface, he seems moral until the truth of him murdering his brother for the crown is disclosed, now considered the antagonist. However, he still displays emotions of regret and self awareness through the guilt that seeps during the play, but does no further action as King Hamlet’s murder was, of course, to his own advantage.

CLAUDIUS: “My fault is past. But O, what form of prayer/Can serve my turn? Forgive me my foul murder?/That cannot be, since I am still possess'd/Of those effects for which I did the murder,/My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.” (Act 3, Scene 3, 51-56)

Even the presence of his empathy and self awareness cannot make up for his wrongdoings because he refuses to act upon them. His own joy and benefit are at the expense of others, which shows his selfishness. Observing the behaviour between him and Hamlet, Claudius seems rather impulsive as opposed to the hesitancy that takes over Hamlet as evident in his inaction throughout the play.

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How the story advances is through the consequence of each character's action and inaction, leading one thing to another. Hamlet is a key example to inaction, as his prime moment of reluctance is clear during the deferment of killing his uncle, King Claudius.

HAMLET: “But I am pigeon-livered and lack gall/To make oppression bitter, or ere this/I should have fatted all the region kites/With this slave’s offal.” (Act 2, Scene 2. 537-540)
Hamlet stands out from the other male characters as they, in turn, make impulsive decisions and are quick to take action.

Action and inaction in Hamlet is vital to the story progression, as each event of action or inaction leads to another, eventually clashing into the tragedy that Hamlet is, for which it concludes with the death of most characters. Hamlet’s inaction essentially drove him towards death, as others had the action to protect themselves and follow through with their intentions.

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The protagonist Prince Hamlet has a range of characteristics and emotions throughout the play.

HAMLET: “Yet I,/A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak/Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,/And can say nothing—no, not for a king,/Upon whose property and most dear life/A damned defeat was made. Am I a coward?” (Act 2, Scene 2, 525-530)

His consistent inaction and indecisiveness follows him, yet also has an impulsive side when overwhelmed with emotions, like mistaking Polonius for Claudius, leading to his death. This leaves him open and vulnerable to his enemies even though he has the power to prevent it, indicating his downfall as a protagonist character.