Taking revenge against his enemy can be a difficult task for young Hamlet, especially when the circumstances and conditions in which he finds himself require him to reevaluate his morals of life and soul . The delay in Hamlet's revenge for his father's death is caused by three main reasons: he is under strict and almost impossible guidelines set by the ghost of his father, King Hamlet, he is afraid of death either by suffering it or by inflicting it on someone else, and his lack of reasoning in committing a murder that he did not witness himself. When King Hamlet's ghost first appears to young Hamlet, he imposes three requirements upon which he needs Hamlet to act. To avenge his father's death, not to emotionally affect his mother, Gertrude, by killing her new husband, Claudius, and not to drive himself mad trying to complete these vital tasks. Hamlet is bewildered, overwhelmed, and shocked by what his father's ghost has told him, and responds with "hasten me to know, that I, with wings as swift as mediation or thoughts of love, may sweep to my vengeance." (1.5.29-31). This response from young Hamlet makes the audience believe that the plot against Claudius will be very quick. Yet, on the other hand, we grasp this sensitive side of the response because Hamlet compares the speed of revenge to the pace at which two people fall in love with each other. Revenge for his father's death eventually occurs, but not until the end of the play, and the way Hamlet gets revenge on Claudius is not the way he planned to do it. Hamlet wanted Claudius' revenge to be a very quick and secret task, however his own emotions and conscience caused the murder to be a complete massacre and tragedy. The injection... middle of paper... us, to be sent to England, and to be known as a madman throughout Denmark. These causes are all the effects of Hamlet's delay. Works Cited Shakespeare, William. The tragedy of the Prince of Denmark village. The new Folger Library. New York, New York: Washington Square Press, 1992. 57-58. Print.Haigh, Christopher. "Anticlericalism and the English Reformation". The English Reformation revised. Ed. Cambridge GB: Cambridge University Press, 1987. 56-74The works of William Shakespeare, ed. Samuel Johnson, 8 vols. (London, 1765).Gibinska, Marta. “‘The play is the thing’: the stage scene in Hamlet.” Shakespeare and His Contemporaries: Central and Eastern European Studies. Newark: U of Delaware P, 1993. 175-88.Shakespeare, William. "Hamlet." The Norton Shakespeare. Stephen Greenblatt, ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996. 1668-1756