How does dramatic irony strengthen our relationship with Hamlet, while at the same time alienating us from the Elizabethan conventions and customs?

Shakespeare is the most accomplished user of irony, according to the philosopher Kierkegaard. In Hamlet, Shakespeare uses irony as a device to make the reader confront Hamlet's hesitation in becoming strong enough to follow his destiny, that is, to avenge his father's death, or fall into madness. Irony is then a resource that Shakespeare presents to make the reader confront one's own consciousness, allowing one to understand that the mind is not an entity that is structured from the onset (from birth, for example), but rather, it is a construct which, in the end, reveals the conflicting nature of identity and the formation of one's own self. Finally, this is a marked deviation from Elizabethan conventions and customs, where the reign of Queen Elizabeth was all powerful, and where social stability did not encourage self-doubt, which, most decidedly, could lead to revolts or social unrest.