Hamlet took a great deal of time when it came to getting revenge against his uncle, for killing his father, I will be covering a few reasons why Hamlet was unable to take action. These include his own personal doubts, excuses, physical boundaries, and what I believe caused his lengthy delay.
During the first act of the play Hamlet was told about the presence of a ghost that resembled his father and that it had been seen in the same place, at the time, consistently three days in a row. So of course Hamlet felt the need to go speak with it. After speaking with the ghost he learned that his uncle had killed his father and that his father wants him to get revenge by killing Claudius. Hamlet agreed but he doesn't really know if the ghost is a reliable source or not. so he has to find some proof. Otherwise he would be viewed as a traitor and might go to Hell, if Claudius was not actually guilty of killing the old king. The proof he needs has to be absolute, so he devised a plan to get the information he needed directly from his uncle. Hamlet had a group of traveling actors perform a play for Claudius, that display the events of Hamlet’s father's death, in a similar way that Claudius had carried out his murder. By pouring a lethal amount of poison into the king’s ear.
After witnessing the obvious reenactment of his crimes, he ordered that the play be shut down, then he hurried away. Because of this Hamlet obtained the evidence he needed so that he could continue with the still long process of enacting his revenge.
Although he has the “proof” that he needed to feel confident in killing his uncle, he withdraws from the first opportunity that he gets to murder Claudius. After the play Claudius left and went to pray for forgiveness, for killing his brother and that Hamlet wouldn't kill him. While Claudius was praying all by himself, Hamlet viewed this as the perfect opportunity to avenge his father, but he decided against killing his uncle at that time. Hamlet backed down from this opportunity because he believed that because Claudius was praying, if he were to die at this time he would be forgiven of his sins and go to Heaven. Hamlet thought that that would be too good for an “incestuous king killer,” especially because Hamlets father was not given the opportunity to be absolved of his sins before he was killed and must pay for his sins in the afterlife before he can move on to Heaven. So Hamlet decided to wait for the opportune time to kill Claudius while he is still sinful. He said that this was the reason for him to wait for a better moment, but prior to the play he gave his famous "To be, or not to be" speech, where he pondered what the afterlife would be like. He didn't know it would be a nightmare or a dream and how nobody really knows for sure. Because of this, it might be that Hamlet just was not yet ready to murder his uncle and that is why he walked away. It is strange that Hamlet would think that Claudius would go to Heaven, when earlier that day Hamlet had been talking about how he had no idea what would happen after death.
After leaving his uncle untouched he went to speak with his mother in her room because she was upset with the way he had been acting recently. During their heated discussion Hamlet could hear Polonius from behind the tapestry, so he blindly thrusted his sword through the curtain and killed him. He then asked if it was the king, even though he had just seen Claudius in the other room. It is more likely that he had acquired some pent up rage towards Gertrude and Claudius while talking to his mother, so he took out his frustration on Polonius. He then finished his discussion with his mother and went to hide Polonius's body.
After hearing about Polonius's murder Claudius decided to banish Hamlet to England until he was mentally stable, but mostly for his own protection. This banishment put a considerable delay on Hamlet’s plan for revenge, forcing him to take time to travel. On his way to England Hamlet came across young Fortinbra’s army, which was on it’s way to capture some part of Poland, that apparently wasn't worth the lives used to claim it, the captain of the army said that it wasn't even worth five ducats. This interaction gave Hamlet some much needed motivation, if Fortinbra felt it necessary to sacrifice so many resources on an almost useless piece of land, surely Hamlet could simply kill Claudius and stop waiting for the right moment.
While on the ship to England Hamlet did some snooping late at night and found a letter, written by his uncle for the king of England, that said for him to kill Hamlet as soon as they arrive, so of course he rewrote the letter to state that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern be killed instead and without trial or repentance of their sins, then swapped them out. Later on in the journey the ship was attacked by pirates and during the chaos Hamlet managed to sneak on to the pirate ship. Once discovered they allowed him passage back home, as they were most likely hired pirates that were supposed to rob foreign ships but not necessarily kill people.
After hearing that Hamlet was returning to Denmark, Claudius and Polonius’s son, Laertes, devised a plan to rig a fencing match so that Laertes would have a sharpened sword and Hamlet would have a dull one. If that wasn't enough they also planned to poison his wine glass and the sharpened sword. Hamlet agreed to the challenge because he felt like he had no other option. During the scrap Hamlet’s mother accidentally drank the poisoned wine and both Hamlet and Laertes managed to get struck with the poison blade and were dying. Given that Hamlet only had a few moments left to live he decided it was his last chance so he stabbed Claudius with the sword and forced him to drink what was left of the poisoned wine, which killed him almost instantly.
In the end Hamlet did kill Claudius but only after a great deal of time. First he wanted to be sure that his uncle did in fact kill his father before he did anything. Then Hamlet didn't want to kill Claudius in a way that would allow him to go to heaven, because of this he would have to wait a great deal of time before he would be presented with another opportunity. While Fortinbra helped encourage Hamlet to kill his uncle. I believe that it was because Hamlet knew that he had suffered a fatal wound during the fencing match and he now had nothing to lose in killing Claudius especially because his mother, Ophelia, and his father had all died so he had nothing to live for if he did think he would survive.
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