William Shakespeare’s Hamlet was written around 1600, is one of the most problematic texts in all of literature. With the exception of certain biblical texts, no other work has produced such a continuing, lively, and contentious debate about how the readers are supposed to understand it. In fact, one could very easily construct a thorough and intriguing history of modern literary criticism based upon nothing other than various interpretative takes on Hamlet – a task which has already been carried out by at least one historian of ideas.
Hamlet was a noble soul, driven by circumstance to his demise. He has a strong sense of propriety, expressing his horror at mother’s wedding to his uncle within a month after his father’s death. He loved his father and tolerated his mother. He was his own person.
When he knew of his father’s foul murder and the murderer’s identity (Act 1. scene V), honor demanded that he extract revenge. But he hesitated from doing murder, even for honor. He was torn, as he revealed in his soliloquy:
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?... (Shakespeare, Act 3. scene I)
His brand of justice was not violent. He expressed extreme distaste for the act of murdering Claudius: “…O, this is hire and salary, not revenge”... (Shakespeare, Act 3. scene III) He, at first, does not consider taking another’s life as a form of justifiable revenge. He was at loss, not knowing what to do. When opportunity presented itself, in the form of the players, Hamlet grabbed at the chance to make his first move. He showed shrewdness in instructing the players to show a murder scene (Act 3. scene II), seeing it as a chance to ascertain Claudius’ guilt, and at the same time a challenge to Claudius.
Hamlet demonstrates considerable restraint. When attacked by Laertes, he entreated, “I prithee, take thy fingers from my throat; For, though I am not splenitive and rash, Yet have I something in me dangerous, Which let thy wiseness fear: hold off thy hand. (Shakespeare, Act 5. scene I)
By accident, he killed Polonius. His course was now decided. It moved him to say, “…O, from this time forth, my thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth”! (Shakespeare, Act 4. scene IV) Carried by the impetus of slaying Polonius, Hamlet by now has decided that to kill Claudius was inevitable, and was resigned to his fate. He was matter-of-fact in his brand of justice. About Rosencrantz and Guildenstern he reasoned “…they did make love to this employment; they are not near my conscience”. (Shakespeare, Act 5. scene II)
Hamlet flung well-thought snide, impertinent remarks when annoyed (Act 2. scene II). He views women as “--Frailty, thy name is woman!— “(Shakespeare, Act 1. scene II). Though not physically violent, he was cruel with his words. He was genuinely hurt when he raged at Ophelia (Act 3. scene I). Claudius death must have been due to Hamlet’s rage over everything Claudius has done – persons used and ruined in the process. Hamlet realizing that death was near, to clear his conscience, damned all consequences and stabbed Claudius with the poisoned tip.
The character of Hamlet dominates Shakespeare's tragedy of the same name, yet Hamlet at the start of the play is not a commanding figure. Indeed, when we first see the Prince, his posture is defensive, Hamlet taking a passive, if resentful, stance toward the events that have befallen him. Slow to the conviction that the ghost is his dead father and that Claudius is guilty of regicide, Hamlet does not go straight to the task at hand.
Hamlet is a play about the difficulty of the world. In Hamlet, Shakespeare focused chiefly on the state into which a thoughtful intellectual man is cast in face of life instead of the character. Hamlet is a depiction of the absence of clear sense of life, and the answers to his numerous queries are not forthcoming, wearied out with perplexities and contrarieties, yielded up with a moral question and initiative in despair.
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