In Shakespeare's play, Hamlet, what is Shakespeare saying about the theme "action vs inaction?"

In Shakespeare's Hamlet, not only is
Shakespeare passing judgment on the value of taking action and the folly of not doing
so, but literary critics have long held the same opinion. In fact, Hamlet—as a tragic
hero—demonstrates his tragic flaw in his "indecision."

The
basis for the concept of "action vs inaction" is Hamlet's failure to avenge his father's
death quickly. The idea has been presented multiple times that had
Hamlet done so, he and Gertrude, and his household, would not have
died.

I struggle with this for several reasons. Hamlet is
written when the audience deeply believed in the supernatural. Elizabethans were sure
that the powers of darkness did all they could to win souls to their eternal damnation.
Killing a king was considered a mortal sin: it was believed that
God chose the monarch, and that man had no right to defy God's
choice. If Claudius has killed Old Hamlet, then Hamlet is justified
in killing him, but he needs proof that the Ghost is
"honest."

Hamlet spends time figuring this out. After the
"play-within-the-play," which acts out Old Hamlet's murder, Claudius' response is all
the proof Hamlet needs. Passing through the castle, Hamlet walks by the room where
Claudius is praying. With his proof of the King's guilt, Hamlet is ready to kill him
there. However, Hamlet recalls that his father's ghost was
suffering because he had been sent to his death without the opportunity to cleanse
himself of his sins. Old Hamlet's spirit must now wander in purgatory. Hamlet refuses to
kill Claudius at that moment, for with sins forgiven, Claudius
would go straight to heaven. (Ironically, Claudius is unable to form his prayers at that
moment, but Hamlet doesn't know this.)

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...am I then revenged,
To take him in
the purging of his soul,
When he is fit and seasoned for his passage?

No.
Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent. (90)

When he is drunk asleep; or in his rage;
Or in the incestuous
pleasure of his bed;
At game, a-swearing, or about some act
That
has no relish of salvation in't
Then trip him, that his heels may kick at
heaven,(95)
And that his soul may be as damn'd and black
As hell,
whereto it goes.
(III.iii.86-97)

Hamlet soon
at his mother's room. When he frightens Gertrude, she cries out. Polonius, behind a
curtain in the room, yells. Finally, Hamlet—thinking that Claudius has been with
Gertrude in the midst of an incestuous act—stabs the person behind the curtain.
(Elizabethans believed that to marry a spouse's sibling was committing incest.) The man
is not Claudius, but Polonius, and Hamlet has tried and failed to
kill his father's murderer.

Once Hamlet kills Polonius, and
does not kill Claudius, his fate—and that of the others—is sealed.
It is true that since Hamlet does not kill Claudius when he has the chance that the King
is able to turn Laertes against Hamlet. Once their plot is set in motion, those who are
still alive are doomed.

In light of these events,
Shakespeare believes that one must take action in a timely way or miss important
opportunities. With Hamlet, I cannot help but believe he is a loyal son who wishes it
was not his fate to avenge his father's death, but knows he must. Shakespeare writes his
play putting Hamlet in an impossible position, when the circumstances surrounding his
father's death and the limitations placed upon him, make it impossible for him to
respond any differently. It is because of these things that Hamlet is a tragic hero, and
the play is a tragedy.