forced, however, to accept a decaying, filthy world in which morality is realtive.  His greatest flaw is his inability to readily accept the world and humans as essentially flawed.

While it is true that Hamlet hesitates, Hamlet's flaw is not one single thing.  In addition to hesitation, Hamlet is fated to his own destruction.  When he says "O wicked spite that ever I was born to set it right," Hamlet is acknowledging that he is fated to the act and the tragic consequences of that act.

As many have said, one of Hamlet's tragic flaws is hesitation.  In the opening moments of a classic film version of Hamlet starring Laurence Olivier, the voice-over says, "This is the story of a man who could not make up his mind."  

His other flaw is hubris, the sin of thinking oneself godlike.  Consider Hamlet when he has the golden opportunity to kill Claudius in the chapel, shortly after Hamlet has the proof he sought of Claudius' guilt.  He can act, and, if this is the right thing to do, he should act.  But he does not.  Why?  

Hamlet wants to ensure that the soul of Claudius goes to hell.  At that moment Hamlet dooms himself.  Any human being could take the life of another, but taking the soul of another? That is God's province, and when Hamlet decides that he will act as God in this instance, he has completed the circle which will lead to his own destruction. 

His fatal flaw then is threefold: hesitation, fate, and hubris.

Another angle you might want to consider is that Hamlet is an anti-hero.  He tried to be the hero, but ultimately, he falls short.  This failing is not based upon a tragic flaw such as greed, pride or envy, it is a flaw of simply NOT being heroic.  He is intellectual; he is sensitive; he is philosophical.  None of these qualities mesh with the quick, violent action needed to aveng his father's murder.  We all have personality modes that lend us toward certain careers, activities, and goals.  A meek, non-competitive person would not survive on Wall Street or as an NBA player.  A competitive and aggressive person would not suffer committee planning very well.  Perhaps the tragedy here is simply that Hamlet is not the man for the job.  And that he is the only man for the job.

Hamlet's tragic flaw is his inability to believe the worst. He is not certain that Claudius has killed his father. It is often hard to believe that anyone could kill your father. This is an error on Hamlet's part. He does not want to believe something as terrible as the murdering of his father, especially not by his Uncle. Hamlet's delay to avenge his father's death causes his own downfall. His Uncle Claudius acts upon his instincts and banishes Hamlet, plotting to have Hamlet murdered. While Hamlet's inabililty to act and avenge his fathers death could be considered honorable, especially since he is not certain that Claudius has killed his father, his delay gives Claudius time to act and ultimately set up the murdering of Hamlet. Hamlet's honorable characteristic of not believing the worst leads to his own downfall.

Hamlet's tragic flaw is his decision to avenge his father's death.  For Hamlet, the tragic flaw is not a character flaw, such as too much pride, ambition, or jealousy.  Instead, it is the decision he makes to act in accordance with the ghost's request and murder Claudius.  This decision, however reluctantly made, is the beginning of Hamlet's downfall.  It begins a series of events that results in his alienation from Ophelia, the murder of Polonius, the murder of his childhood friends turned spies, and ultimately his own death.

More discussions on this same topic:

What is a tragic flaw and what is Hamlet's tragic flaw?

Does Hamlet realize his tragic flaw? 

What is Hamlet's tragic flaw? 

I actually feel that his tragic flaw was the opposite of idealism:  cynicism.  He takes the horrible events that have occurred, and extrapolates them over everyone and everything.  Because of his father's death, and his mother's hasty marriage, "how weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, seem to [Hamlet] all the uses of this world!" (II.ii.133-4). He has cast the entire world in shadow.  Because of his mother's fickleness, and  his uncle's evilness, Ophelia should "get thee to a nunnery"(III.ii.122), women make men "monsters" and men "are errant knaves, all" (III.ii.144,131). 

Hamlet ponders whether life is even worth living any more, then concludes that only cowardice alone-another cyncial label for humans-keeps us from death.  His cynicism and bitterness for what has happened poisons his entire perspective, and leads to the death and harm of almost anyone who cares about him.

Most everybody agrees that Hamlet's tragic flaw is procrastination - he has a hard time passing from thought to action. In a nutshell, he "puts off until tomorrow what he should do today."

Other critics defend Hamlet's indecision, saying that it was his rash stabbing of Polonius (thinking it was Claudius) which set off a chain of events he couldn't stop. If he had hesitated at this moment as he did at other times before taking action, the bloodbath which followed could have been avoided. 

It is also worth noting that Hamlet also has a conflict of loyalties. He feels the compulsion to vindicate his father, but at the same time he wants to salvage the vestiges of his mother's "honour." He even goes so far as to encourage her to renounce her marriage to Claudius. (She, of course, cannot bring herself to do this. For Gertrude "honour" is 'saving face'....)

The duplicity of Hamlet's nature makes him an elusive character to study. His indecision, his hesitation, but also his tempestuous nature all  lead to his downfall.

Hamlet is indecisive.  Because of this, he finds it difficult to move forward on anything.  For instance, he wants to believe the ghost, his father, but who's to say the ghost isn't lying?  So, he writes a scene in the play for the visiting players which is supposed to solidify everything for him and help him make his decision.  He watches Claudius, and gets the reaction Hamlet is hoping for, yet he still can't decide what to do.  Indecision, procrastination and stagnation...Hamlet is a hopeless case until it is way too late to do anything about it.  By that time, Claudius is on to him...Claudius is a man of action.  Hamlet is a thinker.  Hamlet spends too much time thinking of what to do or not to do, while Claudius makes a plan and works the plan.  As a result, nearly everyone Hamlet loves is dead by the end of Act V.

Hamlet's tragic flaw could also be his tendency to make rash decisions.  His spur-of-the-moment murder of Polonius shows this hamartia quite well.  On the other hand, he also has a hard times with other decisions.  This idea really emphasizes the person-versus-self conflict that encompasses Hamlet.

This question has had several interesting answers. Click the links below to see them:

What is a tragic flaw? What is the tragic flow of Hamlet and is Hamlet destroyed by his flaw?

Does Hamlet realize his tragic flaw?

It seems that Hamlet has had a slight change of heart at the end of Act II. Is he serious or is he merely expressing his tragic flaw?

You might want to also visit our free, online lessons on Hamlet which address your question. Just go to the Lit101 course on Hamlet. There you can view complete discussions of each scene, browse our questions and answers or contribute questions on your own and receive answers.

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A tragic flaw is the failing of a tragic hero, a character who suffers a downfall through the tragic flaw in mistaken choices or in personality.

Hamlet’s tragic flaw is his inability to act to avenge his father’s death, although it must be said that he has valid concerns that prevent him from knowing how to act as he makes clear when he discusses the nature of ghosts that can be sent to ensnare and entrap an innocent in actions leading to the punishment of Hell.

When the Ghost, his dead father, appears to him and charges him with the arduous task of taking revenge for his most foul murder, Hamlet is compelled to accept the challenge even though he fears to: As a Protestant educated at Wittenberg, the university of Martin Luther, he is forbidden to act in revenge because revenge is for God to take, not humankind.

As the play progresses Hamlet finds it difficult to execute his vengeful task. He is stymied from both sides: He needs proof that the Ghost is indeed that of his father and not some foul fiend of the spirit world, and he needs proof that Claudius is himself truly a foul, murdering fiend in the flesh.

In order to uncover the truth of Claudius's guilt before killing Claudius, Hamlet plans to act crazy hoping it will force Claudius to expose his guilt or innocence. Instead, Claudius chooses to send him to England in an assassination plot.

Hamlet also devises the “mouse-trap scene” in a play that is commissioned to be performed. He asks the troupe of actors to enact a scene similar to how Hamlet envisions Claudius's regicide murder his brother and Hamlet's father, Old King Hamlet.

In the final analysis, Hamlet’s tragic flaw, his inability to decide--about the Ghost and about vengeance--and then to actto take revenge for his father’s death, leads him and many others, including his mother, Polonius, Laertes and Ophelia, to their bloody graves.

When discussing the "tragic flaw" first taught by Aristotle, scholars love to fight about what Hamlet's tragic flaw might be. Perhaps the most common possible tragic flaw mentioned and easily proved through the text is the flaw of inaction, or Hamlet's inability to act. Scholars who point to this as Hamlet's flaw deem Hamlet to be the top procrastinator of his time. Scholars who don't agree that inaction is Hamlet's tragic flaw must admit that Hamlet's inability to act is at the very least an important theme of Shakespeare's work. The reader doesn't even get out of Act I before this theme is being presented. The ghost has just demanded revenge by way of Hamlet planning his uncle's murder, and Hamlet delays the action first by "testing" all of the characters by putting "an antic disposition on." Instead of taking action, Hamlet simply pretends to be crazy. Hamlet furthers the theme just a few lines later by saying, "The time is out of joint. O cursed spite, / That ever I was born to set it right." Here, Hamlet admits that he does not want to take revenge at all.

Aristotle uses the term hamartia in Poeticsto describe a character's error in judgment which brings about the character's downfall. Aristotle emphasizes that hamartia is not simply a failure to act, or a missed opportunity, or some sort of mischance or misfortune that befalls a character, but it is something that a character actually does that brings about their reversal of fortune (peripeteia) which ultimately and inexorably leads to their downfall. Along the way to their demise, the character might also experience anagnorisis, which is a revelation, recognition, or discovery about fate or the will of the gods.

Aristotle also emphasizes that hamartia isn't simply a character flaw. He insists that tragedy isn't about character, but about action.

For Tragedy is an imitation, not of men, but of an action and of life, and life consists in action, and its end is a mode of action, not a quality. Now character determines men's qualities, but it is by their actions that they are happy or the reverse. Dramatic action, therefore, is not with a view to the representation of character: character comes in as subsidiary to the actions. Hence the incidents and the plot are the end of a tragedy; and the end is the chief thing of all. Again, without action there cannot be a tragedy... Besides which, the most powerful elements of emotional interest in Tragedy- Peripeteia or Reversal of the Situation, and Recognition scenes [anagnorisis]- are parts of the plot. (Poetics, part 6)

Hamartia, then, is part of the plot, and as such, it's an action, not a character trait. For Aristotle, it's not enough that a character has a flaw of some sort, but the character must do something that represents, reveals, or embodies that flaw.

What does Hamlet actually do in the play? He acts surly toward Claudius and impertinently toward Gertrude. He mocks Polonius and accidentally kills him. He talks to himself. He behaves abusively toward Ophelia (which might contribute to her downfall, but not his). He rewrites Claudius's commission and—presumably, although there's no proof of it in the play—sends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their deaths in England (again, their downfall, not Hamlet's). He jumps into Ophelia's grave and acts aggressive. He mortally wounds Laertes, not realizing that the sword—which he takes from Laertes—has been poisoned. He kills Claudius in the last scene of the play, but Hamlet's killing of Claudius is purely opportunistic. Hamlet never explicitly establishes that he kills Claudius to avenge his father's murder.

Hamlet doesn't do anything that directly leads to his downfall. He doesn't even decide not to act, which is the conventional wisdom regarding Hamlet's "tragic flaw." He simply doesn't act. Hamlet suffers from "paralysis by analysis." He never seems to have enough information or any other impetus to act. Despite repeatedly vowing to do so, he doesn't avenge his father's murder, even when he has the perfect opportunity to do so (3.3.76–98).

Events seem to conspire against Hamlet, but he does little or nothing to precipitate those events. The only thing that Hamlet does intentionally that might conceivably be seen to provoke a response is to "put an antic disposition on" (1.5.192). This "antic disposition" causes Claudius some concern, which, along with the accidental killing of Polonius, prompts Claudius to want to be rid of Hamlet. Even this doesn't lead to Hamlet's downfall. Claudius sends Hamlet to England to be killed, but Hamlet returns to Elsinore unscathed and with a really good story to tell about being captured by pirates.

Hamlet doesn't suffer a tragic downfall, at least in the Aristotelian sense, because of hamartia or anything else. Hamlet experiences emotional highs and lows, certainly, but his essential character remains constant throughout the play. Hamlet hasn't gone on a journey from a high station to a low station. Hamlet doesn't suffer a reversal of fortune. Hamlet doesn't experience any significant revelation, even about himself. At the end of the play, Hamlet doesn't suffer an unavoidable, inescapable downfall. Hamlet simply dies.

In the conventional sense, Hamlet's hamartia—what is generally termed his "tragic flaw"—is his indecisiveness. In the Aristotelian sense, Hamlet might exhibit some kind of character flaw, but he doesn't experience hamartia.

I concur with the other educators’ responses that Hamlet’s hamartia is most likely his inability to act. He spends far too long pondering whether he should kill his uncle, using various methods including pretending to be mad—although it is debatable whether Hamlet is really pretending—and a play just to catch Claudius and confirm what Hamlet’s father’s ghost revealed.

There is another possibility for Hamlet’s hamartia, though. One could argue that Hamlet’s narcissism is his true downfall. He is most concerned with how his actions will affect chiefly himself. He uses people like Ophelia as pawns in his revenge plot without regard for their feelings. In each of his soliloquies, Hamlet is focused on himself.

So, while I agree that his hamartia is his indecisiveness, it is also his self-centeredness.

Hamlet's hamartia or flaw is most often understood as his indecisiveness or inability to get himself to act to avenge his father's death. This could also be framed as overthinking a problem or avoidance of responsibility.

To some extent, Hamlet is acting reasonably in not rushing off to kill his uncle on the word of a ghost. He is prudent to verify his information, especially as a person's life is at stake. However, once he does verify that Claudius is the murderer, he still hesitates to act, and when he does act, he acts rashly and kills the wrong person.

Even Hamlet chides himself as the play goes on for his paralysis by saying that the pale cast of thought destroys his resolve to do what he needs to do. He simply does not want to murder, and he is filled with anger, which he turns inward to depression and suicidal ideation. We can understand not wanting a responsibility thrust upon us, but Hamlet's hesitation leads to more deaths, including his own.

Hamartia, also referred to as a tragic flaw, is a personal error in a protagonist's personality which results in their unfortunate downfall. One could consider Hamlet's indecisiveness and inability to act upon his instincts to be his hamartia. Following Hamlet's interaction with his father's ghost, he begins to contemplate his revenge. However, Hamlet is a sensitive, insightful, perceptive individual, who struggles to act violently. Despite the fact that Hamlet utterly detests Claudius—and his mother's decision to marry his father's killer—he cannot bring himself to murder Claudius. Unlike his foil Fortinbras, Hamlet delays taking action until he can prove that Claudius murdered his father. Even after witnessing Claudius' reaction to the play, Hamlet does not murder him while he is praying. Hamlet talks himself out of killing Claudius by saying,

"Now he is a-praying. And now I’ll do ’t. And so he goes to heaven. And so am I revenged.—That would be scanned. A villain kills my father, and, for that, I, his sole son, do this same villain send To heaven" (Shakespeare, 3.3.69-80).

Hamlet also contemplates committing suicide several times but decides against it out of fear that his soul would be doomed. Hamlet's indecisiveness—directly and indirectly—leads to the deaths of Ophelia, Laertes, Gertrude, and Claudius. In the end, Hamlet's revenge does not go as planned, and nearly all the important characters in the play tragically die. The audience can sympathize with Hamlet's hamartia, which makes him one of the most well-rounded, enigmatic, and complex characters in all of literature.

I think above all, although clearly the situation was obviously suspicious and Hamlet should have been asking questions, we see Hamlet's biggest character failure is the way he is obsessed by existential questions regarding whether it is worth living, whether he should commit suicide, can he believe the ghost, should he kill his uncle now etc etc etc. There are so many questions that he debates at great length, and he promises to be resolved to action, yet fails to do so. He is a character who is more in love with philosophical internal debates than just getting on with the job.

We cannot judge Hamlet on the basis of modern conventionality. In today's world, it would seem suspicious that a woman married so soon after her husbands death. This would not have been unusual in Hamlet's time. Hamlet struggles with irrational thoughts and behaviors, so he is enraged at the marriage of his mother and Claudius, even before the appearance of King Hamlet. Hamlet, however, is the only one who imagines a great and passionate affair between Gertrude and Claudius. In fact, Claudius puts Gertrude third on his list of importance: 1)My country, my crown, my queen.

Hamlet's character flaw, in my opinion, is his lack of decisiveness.  You can see this in how long it takes him to decide what to do about the fact that his uncle has killed his father.  He doesn't act like Fortinbras and others who are much more able to act on their feelings.

There can be many approaches to identifying Hamlet's tragic flaw.  I would say that indecision is a critical one.  Hamlet is a thinking man's hero, one whose immersion in thought proves to be the representation of hamartia, or tragic flaw.  Hamlet's propensity to let function be smothered by surmise causes internal agony and complete pain, which is something that is externalized to others.  One can see that his relationship with Ophelia is the result of this agony, as he treats her as the byproduct of torment and internal suffering.  His lack of ability to commit to a course of action, constantly engaging in intellectual analysis and thought as opposed to pragmatic action, ends up creating doom for both he and those who happen to be cursed enough to be around him.

Any question about Hamlet's flaw is a loaded question.

Some of the possibilities that have been suggested are:

• He's really mad, not just pretending; he sets out to act mad while he is already suffering from melancholy, and he truly becomes mad
• His inability to make a decision:  indecision, as you suggest
• He is too rational; too intent on studying every possible angle of such a major decision
• He is a coward
• He is too much of a thinker, rather than a doer
• He is just too brilliant and beautiful a person to do something like kill a king when he has time to think about it first;  he is an ideal human in a despicable and corrupt world.

The list could be much longer. 

The problem with the above answers is that they don't really fit a Shakespearean tragedy, and that none really offer a full explanation.  I'll suggest one that does fit and detail it for you.

I suggest it is, for the most part, a mistake to see Hamlet as procrastinating or unnecessarily delaying or failing in any way.  Notice that even in Hamlet's soliloquies when he accuses himself, he always follows his questioning with a resolution.  He rejects his self-accusations and promises solutions, and he delivers (after he berates himself as a coward, etc., in Act 2.2, for instance, he plots to determine with certainty the king's guilt or innocence with the play-within-the-play, and he does it).   

Hamlet simply follows rational steps to determine whether or not the Ghost is really what it says it is, and, therefore, whether or not Claudius is really guilty.  This takes the reader to Act 3.  Hamlet has not yet killed Claudius simply because he needs corroboration for the Ghost's statements.  There is nothing wrong with that.  Who wouldn't want to be sure before killing a king?

Once Hamlet knows with certainty that Claudius is guilty, only one instance of Hamlet not acting when he has an opportunity to do so must be accounted for--and one act of failing to get revenge does not a mad prince or a procrastinating prince or a delaying prince or an indecisive prince or a cowardly prince make.  And if waiting until he has corroboration is the rational thing to do, then something besides all of those suggestions listed above must be at work.

And that something is hubris.  What is Hamlet's tragic flaw?  It is hubris.  The only time Hamlet does not kill Claudius when he has the opportunity to do it, is when Claudius is praying.  Why doesn't he?  Because he thinks Claudius is confessing, and he thinks by killing Claudius at that moment he will send Claudius to heaven, and he doesn't want to do that.

What is hubris?  An excessive pride that leads to the downfall of a tragic hero.  One way a character can be guilty of hubris is by attempting to reach above his station.  When Hamlet chooses not to kill Claudius he is attempting to determine another human being's eternal salvation.  That's God's business, not Hamlet's.  His station in life and in existence has nothing to do with determining salvation.  He oversteps his position, and thereby causes the blood bath at the conclusion of the play. 

Hubris causes Hamlet's downfall, and that's why his decision to not kill Claudius while Claudius is praying, is the climax of the drama.  That's when Hamlet's fate is determined, as are the fates of so many innocent people. 

Concerning your question about Hamlet's tragic flaw in Shakespeare's Hamlet, I'll just elaborate or add another dimension to the excellent answer above. 

Teachers and critics have had fun for centuries arguing about "why" Hamlet waits, or procrastinates.  Everyone pretty much agrees he waits too long, and this leads to the blood bath at the end of the play, but disagreement exists as to why he waits.  For instance, in the speech quoted above, the quote given seems pretty absolute.  Yet, by the end of the speech Hamlet concludes by mentioning the issue of the ghost's identity.  He indicates that he is not sure if the ghost is really the ghost of his dead father, or if the ghost is a demon in disguise who intends to mislead him.  (Remember that the witches do that to Macbeth in the play of the same name.)  Thus, Hamlet will use the traveling "players" to determine with certainty if the king is guilty or not. 

Once the king's guilt is certain--after he overreacts to the death scene that depicts a murder being committed in the same way the ghost says Hamlet's father was killed--Hamlet has a perfect opportunity to kill Claudius, but he refuses to do it.  He refuses because he thinks Claudius is in the process of confessing his sin and he doesn't want to send Claudius to heaven.       

So does Hamlet wait because he is unsure of the ghost's identity, or because he "plays God" and wants to send Claudius to hell, or both?  Is there an underlying facet of Hamlet's personality that is responsible for the thoughts and decisions that lead to his delay?  Is he depressed?  Is he afraid?  Does he think too much?  Is he basically nonviolent, and capable of attacking only as a gut reaction, as when he kills Polonius and eventually the king?

This is just the beginning.  There are more issues than I've mentioned.  But the answer to why he waits may be more essential to understanding the character of Hamlet, than is just the fact that he procrastinates.

Hamlet's fatal flaw, his indecision, stems from his conflicted personality. On the one hand, he wants to avenge the death of his father by killing Claudius. On the other hand, however, he's reluctant to do so on account of both his innate thoughtfulness and his religious beliefs. It's Hamlet's religious beliefs, for example, that prevent him from taking an opportunity to kill Claudius while he's at prayer. In this particular scene, Hamlet's genuinely concerned that Claudius—praying for forgiveness for murdering his brother—will go to heaven if he's struck down there and then.

So Hamlet is torn, torn between his visceral desire for revenge and his commitment to being a true Christian prince. In his complex personality he embodies the contradictions of an age which combined intense religious faith with the beginnings of scientific investigation. Hamlet is unable to reconcile those contradictions in himself, and so his ensuing indecision leads directly to his ultimate downfall.

Hamlet's most resonant flaw is his reluctance to take action.  Though his father's ghost visits him and exhorts him to avenge his death, Hamlet's indecisiveness ultimately enables Claudius to get the upper hand; as a result, Hamlet and his mother die (as does his corrupt uncle, Claudius, and Laertes, Ophelia's brother).  It can also be said that Hamlet's inability to act leads to Ophelia's suicide.

Hamlet fails to act in several situations which ultimately results in a cascade of tragedies.  He could decide to take Ophelia into his confidence instead of acting mad and rejecting her.  He could tell his mother explicitly that he knows the circumstances of his father's death. He could confront Claudius directly and win back the throne of Denmark, since it is rightfully his.  He could kill Claudius when he finds him defenseless and at prayer.  However, because Hamlet is crippled by indecision and an inability to recognize whom he can trust, he and others die, and the throne of Denmark passes outside Hamlet's family.

In Shakespeare's Hamlet, the main character's tragic flaw is his over-analysis or over-thinking of everything. One of the most telling events is when Hamlet has the opportunity to kill Claudius in Act III while he is praying. One of the reasons for Hamlet's hesitation up to this point was that he wanted to make sure that the ghost that commanded him to revenge his father's death was not a demon sent to damn his soul. "The spirit that I have seen may be a devil" (II, 2, 579-580). Hamlet's manipulation of the play, "The Mousetrap," was intended to confirm or deny Claudius' guilt. "I'll have grounds more relative than this. The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king" (II, 2, 584-586). In the moments after the play, he tells us he could "drink hot blood," as testament of his newly realized ability to commit murder (III, 2, 365).

However, when he comes upon Claudius, apparently praying (he is actually struggling to pray, as Claudius' soliloquy informs us), Hamlet hesitates because he over thinks the consequences. He convinces himself that instead of revenging his father's death he will be sending Claudius directly to heaven. "O, this is hire and salary, not revenge" (III, iii, 82).

This over-thinking hesitation is made abundantly clear when compared with the actions of Laertes. Laertes, the obvious character foil for Hamlet, has also had a father killed and experiences no such reservations to action. He is so eager and willing to act that he allows himself to be manipulated by Claudius.

I agree with the other two posters that one of Hamlet's main flaws is his intellect, over-thinking, and general skepticism of people. His lack of trust further isolates him and only adds to his outlook that it is himagainst the world. Compounding his general distrust (even with Ophelia) and his tendency to choose philosophical isolation over open and honest discussion, is Hamlet's penchant for the dramatic. He is essentially, plotting the entire play. He delays the action because he is always rethinking (i.e. he doesn't kill Claudius while he's praying). He delays action because he's waiting for the perfect climactic moment when he can reveal his study of Claudius' crime. In this sense, his flaws are distrust, dramatization, and his self-isolation. He is like a scientist studying and manipulating the other characters' behavior in order to reveal the reasons for their behavior at the play's end.  

Seeing that we are dealing with one of the most complex characters in all of literature, any answer received here must be ruminated upon, examined, and internally debated.  There will not be "a right answer" here because of the complex nature of the hero.  In my mind, I cannot help but feel that Hamlet's reflective and intellectual nature provides the basis for his tragic condition.  Hamlet thinks, reflects, analyzes, ponders, but this also represents the source of his pain, his melancholy, and his inaction.  While he is extremely intelligent and more perceptive than most in the play, it is this cerebral nature that precludes him from acting, from engagement.  Given his pain ridden composition, this becomes the source of his tragedy, as he can only give articulation to his pain and is unable to do much about it.  When he does engage in action, it is futile, as it does nothing to alleviate his burden and exacerbates it.  The essence of this would be that few could avoid this condition.  Hamlet's thought and analysis is what helps to define his positive traits, qualities that end up becoming the basis for the conditions of tragedy that best him.

Hamlet's tragic flaw is that he is indecisive. He thinks too much. He is too introspective. Perhaps his problem is that he is too intelligent. He has been going to school at Wittenberg for many years, and though he is thirty years old he still wants to go back for more study. He seems to want to escape from reality by burying himself in books. He must know at least six languages and is deeply read in all of them. He would have to know German to go to Wittenberg. He would have to know Latin to qualify for admission and possibly ancient Greek. He knows Danish, of course. He must know English if he is being sent to England as an ambassador. He shows that he is a connoisseur of Italian when discussing the play "The Murder of Gonzago." And he probably knows some Norwegian and Swedish. No doubt he knows French, the language of culture in Europe. He prefers thinking to acting. He only acts on impulse when he has no time to think about the outcome, as when he murders Polonius or when he leaps aboard the pirate ship or jumps into Ophelia's grave with Laertes. Otherwise, he is always thinking. Shakespeare shows this characteristic by giving him six soliloquies, including the famous "To be or not to be."