5TH COMMANDMENT: Thou shalt not kill
Interpretation: To safeguard life and respect the life of all others.
Forbids: murder, suicide, abortion, euthanasia and the use of dangerous drugs that will result in death.
The fifth commandment is broken many times throughout the play as almost every character ends up dead. The play starts off with the murder of the King, Hamlet’s father, and is quickly followed by Hamlet’s desire to kill himself. Both of these break the commandment. Hamlet then continues to break this commandment by killing Polonius and arranging Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s death. Later on, Ophelia’s death, although she drowned, is inferred as a suicide because she does not try to swim. This forbidden act is then followed up with Hamlet’s and Laertes's sword fight where both Hamlet and Laertes stab each other with a poisoned sword. The Queen then drinks from the poisoned goblet that Claudius had intended Hamlet to drink, ultimately killing the Queen. And finally Hamlet gets his revenge by killing the King with poison. All these fatal actions break different sections of the fifth commandment. As all of the characters in Hamlet rush to murder before trying to find another way to solve their problems, it is clear that the societal code for avenging a loved one’s death overpowers the religious virtue of do not kill.
Examples of transgressions of the Fifth Commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," are numerous, yet
Hamlet hardly speaks of them. When Hamlet stabs Polonius in Gertrude's closet, he is hardly cognizant of the deed while the Queen believes it was a “rash and bloody deed” (3.4.27).
“A bloody deed-almost as bad, good mother, As kill a and marry with his brother” (3.4.28-29). Hamlet takes no responsibility for his actions. For him, his own "bloody deed" is justified by the murder of his father. Later, the murder of Claudius is a vindication for Hamlet, rather than a sin, and he takes no responsibility for the action.
