What can you say about Hamlet, the main character of “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark»?

Hamlet is the main character of the Shakespeare’s play «Hamlet, Prince of Denmark». Analyzing the figure of Hamlet it is necessary to say a few words about the prototype of the character. It comes from the legend about half-legendary king Hamlet from Snorri Sturluson’s stories and it is also mentioned in «Gesta Danorum» – Medieval Latin book, written by Saxo Grammaticus. But Shakespeare had enriched the image of the main hero in his play, made a kind of flat and simple character looking more vivid, bright and emotional. It is interesting to notice, that Shakespeare uses indirect method of characterization in his play. We can judge about the character mostly by his speech. Main character – Hamlet is given by the author in dynamism, but this dynamism comes not from external activity of the personage, but from internal, deep emotional experience. The character of Hamlet is connected with motives of revenge, fratricide, power and the problem of choice which is expressed in the main question of the tragedy: «To be, or not to be…». Analyzing the figure of Hamlet we can say that from the one side he expresses typical Shakespeare’s tragic hero, from the other side we can see in Hamlet’s character strong sprouts of humanism in a tendency of Renaissance evaluation of a person. Hamlet character is a main point of contradiction in Shakespeare’s tragedy. Boundless possibilities of knowledge, inexhaustible forces of Hamlet’s personality as a new type of Renaissance mind person faces gloomy and dark environment of the royal court of people living in rough complacency and the ossified atmosphere of medieval traditions. The discrepancy of the Hamlet’s character and his environment finally brings the main hero to the fall of ideals and a tragedy as a consequence. This phenomenon of person’s internal disorder will be later named «hamletism».