Hamlet: An Review and Summary One of the most famous tragedies of Shakespeare’s time was his very own Hamlet. The definition of a tragedy, given by James Thomas in Script Analysis for Actors, Directors, and Designers, Second Edition, is “any deeply serious play with a profoundly unhappy or disastrous ending brought about by the leading character who is compelled by fate, moral weakness, or more recently by psychological maladjustment or social pressures.” Thomas also says that in tragedies “the plots are usually complex in the technical sense, containing a psychological realization on the part of the leading character