This American Life Act V: Kill Or Not To Kill?

To kill or not to kill is a dilemma, which all the prisoners of the Missouri Eastern Correctional Institute have felt in certain moment in life, specifically in the action that made them end up in this high security jail. In the moment of the action, when each person made up their mind and found no rest until killing, there were such intense emotions of revenge and of thirst of blood, that not even the consequences would stop these individuals. After they have successfully done their act, these criminals had a lot of after thoughts and many say they feel bad, bad because they didn't really think thoroughly their decision. They felt so bad about their actions, even to the point where one of the criminals calls himself and includes all the inmates in this statement, cowards because they killed with an unfair advantage. Drawing out a gun or weapon and assaulting a person without this gives them an unfair advantage, one that according to him only cowards use. The motivations for these acts of violence are many, but that doesn't mean that it justifies the action, and there is the case where one inmate became a criminal because where he came from, that was the way to be famous in the neighborhood and be the best.

In Hamlet, the situation is not as different as the situation each criminal must have faced before committing the crime, in fact I think it is the most similar example that can be found in life. Hamlet's father asks him, through his appearance as a ghost, that he must avenge his murder by becoming a killer slaying his uncle. His father is asking him to become a killer by slaying a killer. I don't think that the motivation, regardless of whatever it is, is enough to end in a murder, but I say this because I haven't been faced with the situation where the incident provokes me so much, that I would be motivated to kill. I hope that in that moment I would be able to choose wisely, but there must be a special bond that the criminals must feel while interpreting Hamlet, which most people can't feel. As described by Mellow Johnson, who plays Hamlet, says "that he draws upon the idea of wanting to hurt someone, which has been experienced by him when he shot two people" (This American Life ACT V 08:05). Wanting to hurt someone is a feeling that Hamlet feels when he discovered that his father was killed by his uncle, similar to the feeling Johnson felt when he wanted to hurt someone, even to the death of the person. My experience when reading Hamlet wouldn't be as real as the one felt by the criminals. I haven't really felt the anger to the extent where I will only be satisfied when a person id killed, but I have been angry and felt the need to hurt someone. I have pondered long hours about what I am going to do, looking at the consequences if I do it or not, but I don't end up killing a person. I understand Hamlet's position while I read the book, but not to that extent as it is done by the inmates of the Missouri Eastern Correctional Institute, which in the end did what Hamlet's father is asking him to do, kill.