" This is his duty to his father as a son, a duty that he hesitates on finalizing throughout the entire play. Although Hamlet himself desires to see Claudius pay for his crime, he realizes the evil in the deed of killing the king. The ghost has placed Hamlet in a most unnatural position by asking him to commit murder. Hamlet hates the king for his treachery, but he would not act on that hate if he were not prompted to do so by the ghost. But the relation with his father can be interpreted in a more chivalrous way like that of a King and his vassal, his knight. Even in this situation the knight must avenge his superior for it is in his duties: he must defend the king even at the cost of his life.
For a better understanding of the father-son relationship I will concentrate on his second and third soliloquy. Hamlet's soliloquy: "O what a rogue and peasant slave am I" we discover the essence of his true conflict. Even if he want, at all costs, to revenge his father he cannot act on behalf of the king due to his revulsion toward performing that cold and calculating revenge. Determined to convince himself to carry out the premeditated murder of his uncle, Hamlet pretends to have fallen into a complete madness hoping that he will then be strong enough to carry out with the plan. So he plays The Mousetrap to ensure Claudius's guilt: "Before mine uncle, I'll observe his looks,/I'll tent him to the quick, if a' do blench.". This proves that he does not believe the ghost's words and he has to have material proof before he takes Claudius's life (www.shakepeare-online.com). .
The "To be or not to be" soliloquy seems governed by reason. He now has to wait for the completion of his plan to " catch the conscience of the king". The monologue presents his philosophical debate on the advantages and disadvantages of existence and whether it is one's right to end his or her own life: "To die, to sleep- No more, and by a sleep to say we end/Devoutly to be wished to die to sleep!" He wonders if it is nobler to live miserably or to end one's sorrow whit one stroke.
