In Shakespeare's Hamlet, both Laertes and Hamlet grieve the sudden and unnatural death of their fathers. Someone close to each of them brings both the deaths. Hamlet learns his father's murder from the ghost to be King Claudius, while Laertes discovers that Hamlet is the one who murdered his father. Hamlet and Laertes grieve deeply for their fathers' death, and they both plan to revenge.
While Laertes acts upon his grief, hamlet carefully plots his mission to revenge and waits for the best moment to avenge. Hamlet is more thoughtful about his attack, and he always thinks about the details of his revenge and is ready to take time to make sure it goes off well. On the other hand, Laertes is not thoughtful and wants to act without a second thought.
After learning of his father's murderer through the ghost, the ghost revealed that Claudius murdered his father, inherited the throne, and married his queen. (Shakespeare, Act 5, Scene 2 pg. 3, line 68-69). Hamlet wanted to carry out the revenge plan regardless of its consequences. First, he decides to prove if his uncle, the King is guilty of the offense. He goes to execute his plan but finds the King praying and terminates his plans because he believes killing the King in the church would send his soul to heaven directly.
When hamlet went to confront his mother in her bedchamber, he thrusts his sword through the fabric, killing Polonius accidentally where he was hiding, thinking it was the King concealing himself. Then the King sends hamlet to England out of fear. However, hamlet manages to come back.
Laertes, Polonius's son, who had just returned from France, grieves for his father's death and demands for justice. The King informs him of his father's murderer, and they both unite in the effort to kill hamlet. Hamlet is slow to act even after he has enough evidence that the King killed his father, which causes his downfall because he dies at the end. Hamlet gets his only chance of revenge for his father's murderer when he kills Claudius only after realizing he is about to die.
Laertes organized for a fencing match with Hamlet to get a chance of killing him. His rush to get through with his revenge without a second thought of the King's intentions leads to his downfall because hamlet kills him during the match.
Hamlet and Laertes are both having the same goal, revenge for the murder of their father. However, how they go about their missions is different. Laertes is ablaze with motivation and action but very shallow and not thoughtful of his execution. Hamlet, on the other hand, is attentive and extremely sensitive, as evident from his reaction to the murder of his father. His mind was disturbed, and he decided to stick to his plan to take revenge, especially when he was sure of his father's murderer. His intelligence and tendency to overthink expose his weakness, which is indecisive.
Even though in anger, both hamlet and Laertes can be impulsive and rash and can bring problems to themselves, Laertes’s quick reaction to avenge his father's murder to bring the person responsible to justice and exposes Hamlet's weakness of indecisiveness. Hamlet goes through a variety of problems in his mission to get revenge.
