In Shakespeare's Hamlet, what is Hamlet's passionate force that leads his actions?It is said that Shakespearean tragedies have some distinct...

In Shakespeare's Hamlet, the
passionate force you mention, in my mind, is Hamlet's promise to Old Hamlet to avenge
his father's murder. In Act One, scene five, when the Ghost appears to Hamlet on the
battlements of the castle, the Prince of Denmark swears he will seek revenge, for not
only did Claudius kill Old Hamlet and take his wife and crown, but he sent him to his
death without the benefit of href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/absolution">absolution of his
sins, so he is now forced to wander between two worlds (Heaven and
hell).

I am
thy father's spirit,
Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,

And for the day confined to fast in fires,(15)
Till the foul
crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away.
(I.v.13-17)

In this segment,
Old Hamlet speaks of the punishment he must suffer each day. He is in purgatory,
suffering for the sins he died with. Then the Ghost remarks as to the story that was
released to the public regarding his death (death by snake-bite), but reveals that it
was murder instead, and that the murderer (Hamlet's uncle, Old Hamlet's brother) "now
wears his crown..."

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Now, Hamlet, hear.
'tis given out
that, sleeping in mine orchard,(40)
A serpent stung me. So the whole ear of
Denmark
Is by a forged process of my death
Rankly abused. But
know, thou noble youth,
The serpent that did sting thy father's life

Now wears his crown.
(I.v.39-45)

And
finally...

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Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand

Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatch'd;
Cut off even in
the blossoms of my sin,
Unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled,

No reckoning made, but sent to my account
With all my
imperfections on my head.
(I.v.79-84)

Here he speaks of
all that he lost why he innocently slept: life, wife, crown, without the benefit to
confess his sins before he died, with every "imperfection" resting on his soul. ("...his
account" means reckoning in Heaven.)

These are the words
that galvanize Hamlet forward. However, what dampens his passion is his doubt as to
whether the ghost that appears is really an "honest" ghost as he tells Horatio.
Elizabethans believed that evil spirits could manifest themselves to look like loved
ones to have mortals commit sins that would rob them of their eternal souls. Hamlet is
blamed in the play for indecision. (This is his tragic flaw.) However, in his defense,
he also does not want to go to hell, for the Elizabethans believed it a sin to murder a
king, who would have been ordained by God to rule. Once Hamlet receives proof, not only
will he know that Claudius is guilty of href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/regicide">regicide, but he
will know that the Ghost was telling the truth and he can
proceed.

In the meantime, Hamlet struggles with the task
and mentally beats himself up, thinking he is perhaps a coward who has failed to act.
His heart is passionate to avenge his father's death, but not if the ghost is false and
it costs him his soul.