The Foils of Hamlet - Essay Example

The Foils of Hamlet Summary The setting is in the Kingdom of Denmark, the William Shakesspeare, between 1599 and 1602.The play dramatises the revenge of Prince Hamlet on his uncle Claudius for murdering King Hamlet, apparently Claudius’s brother and Prince Hamlet’s father, and then taking over the throne and marrying Gertrude, Prince Hamlet’s mother. The play clearly portrays both feigned madness, clearly from overwhelming grief to seething rage, and most certainly explores the themes of revenge, incest, moral corruption and treachery. Thus the recently deceased King likes to chill out in ghost form especially during the night at his former castle’s basements. He has every reason to be mad, since the new King Claudius and now husband to Queen Gertrude happens to be his own brother. The new King Claudius has issues too: He has to contend with a potential war from Norway’s Prince Fortinbras and his nephew and new stepson is being a little bit of nuisance, mostly because he cannot get the fact over that his mother (Gertrude) could not wait even for the dust to settle before marrying the new King. Hamlet’s bud Horatio informs him about the ghost and thus arranges a meeting. The ghost spills it all; that it is his late father’s spirit, proving that it is Claudius who murdered his father by pouring poison in his ear while Hamlet Senior was sleeping in his garden and then orders his son to take revenge. The show is now on and Hamlet’s master plan involves acting like a madman or a clown and the next time we catch a glimpse of Prince Hamlet, his girlfriend, Ophelia claims that he has gone nuts. Polonius notifies the King of this new development and they decide to spy on the youngsters to ascertain if indeed Ophelia is the source of Hamlet’s “craziness”. At the same time a reprieve comes from Danish ambassadors from Norway with the news that there isn’t going to be any war, after all. Meanwhile, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have been summoned by the King and Queen to Elsinore to spy on Hamlet and find out the cause of his going nuts. The duo however fails to do this and meanwhile some players (actors) arrive in town. Hamlet in his wisdom commissions them to perform a play in which a king is murdered exactly the same way as King Hamlet was killed by Claudius. This is a plan of Hamlet to watch Claudius’s reaction to ascertain if really the ghost is telling the truth. Hamlet’s plan is rolling out very well and he delivers the big “to be or not to be” speech about suicide. Instead he gets all creepy and gross with Ophelia before watching Claudius get up and shout that he is guilty. Hamlet plots to murder him, but then he doesn’t, he instead ends up accidentally killing Polonius who is his girlfriend’s (Ophelia’s) dad. Claudius gets angry with Hamlet and sends him off to England in front of his mother. However on the way, Hamlet sees Prince Fortinbras of Norway marching across the land to reclaim some lost territories. This inspires him to head back to Denmark to murder his uncle Claudius. Back in Denmark and in the castle, Ophelia has cracked and her brother Laertes is meanwhile very bitter with Hamlet for killing their dad and the current state of his sister. So Claudius persuades him to stage a friendly duel and kill Hamlet by using a sharpened rather than a blunt sword, with of course some poison as backup. Before we realize it, Ophelia is dead, most probably by suicide which means that she doesn’t even get a decent send off. Big scene is created between Hamlet and Laertes when Hamlet randomly stumbles upon this burial and the Hamlet gets Horatio to hasten up on his return: on the boat to England, Hamlet however opened the letter that his companions Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were carrying and found the plot to have him killed. Obviously, Hamlet changed the letter to say “Please kill Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, thanks,” and escaped on a pirated ship back to his Kingdom. On the last scene, as Hamlet engage in a friendly duel with Laertes, everything is as planned by Claudius, until when Queen Gertrude drinks the poisoned wine. Meanwhile Laertes cuts Hamlet with the poisoned sword, but alas, Hamlet ends up with Laertes sword and stabs him back.Dying,Laertes says that it’s all Claudius’s fault and so Hamlet stabs Claudius with the poisoned sword and makes him drink the poisoned wine as well.Horatio is feeling left out and wants to commit suicide but Hamlet tells him it is his job to tell Hamlet’s story.Immediately,Fortinbras of Norway comes in, steps over the blood, guts and bodies strewn out all over the floor, and then takes over the Danish throne! Literary criticism In this section, we start with the criticism of the main characters. 1. Hamlet and Fortinbras/Laertes Hamlet is so different from Fortinbras and Laertes. The Ghost laments: ‘Why can’t you be more like Fortinbras, Hamlet? You are such a big disappointment.”Both Fortinbras and Laertes also have scores to settle, by avenging their fathers, and they both take care of this in a terrific way: Laertes runs home from Paris to wage war in his late father’s honour. Whereas Fortinbras attempts to wage war against Denmark. Even Hamlet regards Laertes and Fortinbras in high esteem and has a whole soliloquy in Act IV,Scene iv in which he makes a comparison of himself to Fortinbras and swears more like him, thus:”Witness this army of such mass and charge/Led by a delicate and tender prince/Whose spirit with divine ambition puff’d/Makes mouths at the invisible event….O,from this time forth/My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth”(4.4).Clearly everyone needs a goal and strategy. 2. Hamlet-Claudius-Gertrude and Ophelia-Polonius-Laertes The plot of this tragedy revolves around two main families: Hamlet-Hamlet Sr/Claudius-Gertrude, and Ophelia-Laertes. Here we can see two sets of heads of families (Hamlet Sr/Claudius and Polonius), and pf course their children (Hamlet and Laertes/Ophelia). Thus it is evident that family one is a foil for family two. The relationship between parents and their children are characterized in two different ways: First and foremost Laertes’s relationship with his father(given lots of advice, the question of revenge)contrasts greatly with Hamlet’s relationship to his father’s ghost.Secondly,Polonius’s misunderstanding of his daughter Ophelia reflects Gertrude’s misunderstanding of her own son Hamlet. These two parallels are by no means perfect, but somehow they the mirroring structure can really raise questions about the universality of the kinds of relationships this play is trying to portray. Doesn’t every child have a parent who misunderstands them? Doesn’t everyone get some long-winded and occasionally embarrassing advice from his/her father? 3. Ophelia and Gertrude These are the only two women characters in this play. Gertrude is Hamlet’s mother and the only queen in the play whereas Ophelia is the daughter of Polonius and Hamlet’s love interest. How convenient that a “virgin-whore “dichotomy to establish the two women as foils to each other. Polonius’s daughter, Ophelia is a maiden and an obedient child to her father; Gertrude on the other hand (in the eyes of Hamlet anyway) has an insatiable sexual “appetite” and “hasty” remarriage that mark her as promiscuous and unfaithful. Many will question if this is fair, but probably not. We only get to learn of Hamlet’s perspective on Gertrude, and he is really biased. What really makes these ladies foils is the fact that they are both women who perish due to the power machinations and struggles of men in their lives and of course who control them. In the second part of our criticism we explore the following: Symbolism, Imagery,Allegory Hamlet’s constant brooding about humanity and death and lack of enthusiasm, eventually comes to an end in the infamous graveyard scene, where Hamlet holds up the unearthed skull of Yorick,a court jester that Hamlet knew and loved very much as a young boy. This skull is itself a physical reminder of the finality of death. After all of Hamlet’s brooding and philosophical contemplation of mortality, he (Hamlet) literally stares death directly in the face right in this scene. This is a true turning point for Hamlet as you could have probably guessed. He begins thinking about commonness of death and the vanity that life is. It is at this point that he not only remembers Yorick, which is a mere jester, but also considers what has become of the body that once belonged to Alexander the Great. Hamlet finally concludes that both men meet the same end and “returneth into dust”(5.1.30).Morbid? For sure it is. But it also seems like a new, more mature acceptance of a common human fate. Hamlet could be contemplative, but ideally he is not melodramatically contemplating suicide or anything of the sort. Another part that is also really weird is a scene whereby Hamlet suddenly appears to be a lot older than we thought of him. At the beginning of the play, Hamlet is supposedly a university student which implies that he is quite young. However by the time Hamlet dies in Act V, he has apparently turned thirty years of age(much, much older than the average university student).This is evidenced by the fact that the First Clown says he has been a gravedigger in Elsinore since” the very day that young Hamlet was born”(5.1.28) and a few lines later he reveals that he has been a “sexton” in Denmark for “thirty years”(that is working at the church and graveyard)(5.2.30) Most probably Shakespeare could have mixed things up and messed. This usually happens ,and it wouldn’t surprise us if Hamlet literally aged between Act 1 and Act V-perhaps it is a reflection of his new ,more mature approach and outlook of life and death. Hamlet’s Costume changes It is apparent that earlier on in the play, Hamlet’s all black get-up seems to throw his mother in mood swings. Well, the reason is simple, Hamlet wears an “inky cloak” because he is mourning for his deceased father-but the astonishing thing is that he is the only one in the court clad in black. Now that his uncle Claudius is king, the happy couple wants everyone to completely forget old Hamlet. This therefore infuriates both the King and the Queen since Hamlet’s black attire sets him apart from everyone else-just like his grief makes him a complete outsider in the cheerful court.(During staging of the play,Hamlets’s black clothing really stands out, especially when the director positions him off to the side of stage while the rest of the court is at the middle.) But do not even think of telling Hamlet that his clothes reflect his grief-he might as well as jump down your throat. Notice how he reacts when his mother asks him why he “seems” so sad: ‘Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black, Nor windy suspiration of forced breath, No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, Northe dejected ‘havior of the visage, Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, That can denote me truly (1.2.4) Thus Hamlet simply objects to the idea that any outward signs (dress, behavior,etc) can truly “denote” what he is feeling inside(which is aching, full of malice and certainly rotten).Hamlet’s “suits of solemn black,” he says cannot even begin to express his grief and anguish. Afterwards, however Hamlet changes his tune about what it is that clothing or costume can “denote.”After he decides to play the role of an “antic” or madman, he does a costume change. This is how Ophelia describes Hamlet: My lord, as I was sewing in my closet, Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced; No hat upon his head; his stockings foul’d, Ungarter’d and down-gyyed to his ancle; Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other; And with a look so pitreous in purpot As if he had been loosed out of hell To speak of horrors,-he comes before me.(2.1.1) Assuming that Hamlet makes himself appear disheveled so as to convince Ophelia that he has lost his mind, then we can also safely assume that Hamlet is banking on the belief that one’s physical attire is a reflection of one’s state of mind. This actually works since Ophelia and Polonius are actually convinced that Hamlet is mad. At the same time we are aware that Hamlet (at least, we assume we know) that Hamlet isn’t really mad. Thus he is right after all, that clothes do not really indicate anything about one’s state of mind. I f he is ok-and we highly suspect that he is-then this is a pretty mind-blowing statement for the writer to make: there can be a difference between the outside and the inside. Flowers This comes about in Act IV, Scene v, when Ophelia loses her mind. She starts dishing out flowers to each and everyone around her. She actually talks about the symbolic meaning of those flowers to everyone around her, but whats important is who might be getting these flowers. There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, Love, remember, and there is pansies.Thats for thoughts […] There’s fennel for you, and columbines: there’s rue for you; and here’s some for me: we may call it herb-grace o’Sundays: O you must wear your rue with a difference. There’s a daisy: I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died.(4.5) Fennel symbolised strength and praiseworthiness, columbine symbolised folly, daisies symbolised innocence, and violets symbolised faithfulness and modesty. Tragedy Dramatic-Hamlet is without any doubt a play. It portrays such a serious and somber theme. Hamlet is distressed due to his father’s death and his mother’s quick or rather “hasty” remarriage to his uncle Claudius. This is actually the main reason why Hamlet runs around giving all those lengthy speeches about grief, death, and suicide. To make matters worse, a ghost appears and tells Hamlet to kill Claudius, who it turns out, is responsible for killing Hamlet senior. This actually sounds “serious and somber” to us. Hamlet Writing Style Hamlet, just like all other plays of Shakespeare is written in a mixture of verse (poetry) and prose (how we talk every day).There is a lot of usage of verse, like in several other of Shakespeare’s plays –the nobles typically speak in unrhymed “iambic pentameter”(also called “blank verse”).The fancy names usually may intimidate someone, but the moment you get the hang of them, they become quite simple. Blank verse is a pretty formal way to speak, its usually reserved for nobles and formal situations, like in the address which Claudius makes to the court in Act I, scene ii.Hamlet’s soliloquies are in verse too, however he also speaks a lot of prose-which has something to do with how much role-playing he does. In terms of prose usage, we encounter this mostly with writers who are not so high class-like the gravediggers. They mostly do not get to speak in verse; they just talk.However, Hamlet, sometimes speaks in prose, even when he is being awfully poetic, for example: How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? (2.2.250) The Ending? What’s up with it? As noted earlier on, Hamlet is a classic revenge tragedy, which means we are in for a killing spree. We see at the last scene that almost every character with a name has been killed in one gruesome way or another.However; all is not lost, though the royal court has been completely wiped out. Prince Fortinbras eventually comes and helps himself to the Danish throne, finally restoring order and continuity to the court. Horatio also survived the mass killing and he has promised to tell Hamlet’s tragic story. He makes good on his vow as Hamlet dies:”Good night sweet prince, “he says,”And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!”(5.2.17) Horatio, whose name recalls the Latin term “orator”, interprets Hamlet’s death and salvation in the most elegant of terms. The voices of angels, Horatio seems to suggest, will carry Hamlet to his heavenly “rest”. Shakespeare seems to be making a direct connection between Hamlet’s eternal afterlife, the angelic voices that “sing,” and the storytelling that Horatio undertakes at this moment. Because of this, Hamlet’s story will be told and thus he will live for eternity. And judging by William Shakespeare’s popularity today, he got it right in his plays, Hamlet being one of them. Work Cited All references are from Hamlet, by Shakespeare. Read More