Shakespeares Tragedies: The Violence Comes Too Soon - Essay Example

 Shakespeare’s Tragedies: The Violence Comes Too Soon Shakespeare has long been known as a master of tragedy and his plays King Lear, Macbeth and Hamlet are no exception. King Lear chronicles the story of a king in advanced age who chooses to divide his kingdom among his three daughters based upon how well each one expresses her love for him in speech. When his youngest and favorite daughter refuses to participate because she feels such practice would cheapen her feelings for him, she is banished and disinherited. However, the two older daughters prove unfaithful to their father and he slowly sinks further and further into madness. Cordelia returns with an army while other friends return to the kingdom in disguise in attempts to help the insane king, but all falls to pieces in the end with most of the principle characters dead. Similarly, Macbeth discovers the tale of a man possessed by desire to be king. Having been told he will be ‘king hereafter’, Macbeth becomes mad with ambition and immediately writes to his wife of his prophecy. The reigning king is betrayed by his friends and is easily murdered. As a result, his sons flee the country in an effort to save themselves. However, the sons return to the kingdom in order to restore the rightful king to the throne, also assisted by friends, eventually fulfilling each of the witches’ pronouncements. Like King Lear, though, there is little to no promise of a return of peace as the prophecy that Banquo will father a line of kings remains the only prophecy yet to be fulfilled. In Hamlet, Bernardo starts off the action by demanding to know “Who’s there?” (I, i, 1). As the action unfolds, Shakespeare tells the story of the young prince of Denmark who is informed by the ghost of his father that his Uncle Claudius, now married to Hamlet’s mother, murdered his father with poison. As the ghost demands vengeance, Hamlet seeks a way to both prove what the ghost has said and bring about the revenge that is demanded if the ghost is correct. Hamlet feigns insanity to discover the truth, but his failure to act in time leads to the deaths of king, queen, beloved and prince, leaving the kingdom squarely in the hands of a neighboring prince. While these plays focus on the deposition of a king and feature similar characteristics in the many withdrawals and returns of principle characters, in each of these plays Shakespeare’s brilliance at the psychological elements of these stories far outweighs any zest for bloodletting. In each play, women generally play the role of the evil temptress or the seducer. King Lear’s older two daughters are artful at this, each flattering their father without end until they have achieved their own ambitions and then abandoning him to his madness with little care or concern. Almost immediately they begin plotting against him as a means of saving their very recently acquired wealth: “The best and soundest of his time hath been but rash; then must we look from his age to receive not alone the imperfections of long-ingraffed condition, but therewithal the unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with them” (I, i, 294-298). In other words, he has become senile and the sisters must isolate him from others so as to avoid the kind of sudden change of heart that dispossessed Cordelia that the sisters realize they deserve and she didn’t. Likewise, it isn’t until Macbeth meets the witches on the heath that he begins to seriously consider that he might someday become king. That this might be the case is suggested in Banquo’s warning to Macbeth: “Oftentimes, to win us to our harm, / The instruments of darkness tell us truths, / Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s / In deepest consequence” (I, iii, 123-126). This is indeed what happens, as the counsel of the witches encourages Lady Macbeth to plot murder and deceit in killing the true king and placing her husband on his rightful throne, just as Macbeth himself refuses to consider he might also be deposed based upon his interpretation of the witches prophecy that he cannot be killed by “man of woman born.” The female characters in Hamlet’s play are not as blatantly evil as in these others as Ophelia is clearly innocent yet the motives of the Queen seem suspect. The knowledge the Queen has as to the specific nature of Ophelia’s death calls into question her sincerity in her lament. It is noted earlier that the Queen blames Ophelia for Hamlet’s sudden madness and therefore there isn’t much love lost between the two women. The Queen’s resentment is perhaps best illustrated when she attempts to refuse to receive Ophelia in Act IV, scene iv, “I will not speak with her” (1), until after her guard has pleaded with the Queen to assess Ophelia’s altered state for herself. Because of her anger toward the girl, the Queen becomes alarmed at Ophelia’s behavior, but is perhaps more jaded to it than she is to the feigned madness of her own son. She much prefers to leave the matter in the hands of the king and the guards rather than deal with Ophelia herself. The Queen includes many details in her description of Ophelia’s death that indicate first hand knowledge difficult to obtain through other sources: “Her clothes spread wide, / And mermaid-like awhile they bore her up, / Which time she chanted snatches of old lauds, / As one incapable of her own distress” (IV, vii, 174-177). That the supposition comes at the end of this description suggests an observer who watched as Ophelia fell into the water and then continued to watch as she drowned. In each play as well, the title character can be seen to make a large transition from an apparently sane man at the beginning of the play, through the darkest depths of madness during the course of the play, only to ‘wake up’ when it is almost too late to recognize the part they have played in the destruction of what they have worked their lives to protect. King Lear, as can be judged from the loyalty and love of the good people around him, has been a good and just king throughout much of his reign. While it may not be initially conceived of as madness to hand an entire kingdom into the hands of one’s daughters, King Lear’s decision to base his rewards upon the quick words of false flattery provides an early hint of his encroaching madness. As his madness increases, so does his physical condition deteriorate eventually reaching a point at which madness supercedes all else and he begins to rail at a fierce storm on the heath in impotent rage over what his daughters have done: “Rumble thy bellyfull! Spit, fire! Spout, rain! \ Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire are my daughters. \ I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness. \ I never gave you kingdom, called you children” (III, ii,14-17). However, he regains his reason with his return to people who truly care about him, recognizing both Cordelia and Kent for true daughter and loyal subject. Likewise, Shakespeare illustrates the theme of madness in the thoughts and actions of Macbeth. While he goes mad with ambition at the word of the witches that he will be king, he is further driven to madness by his treacherous actions in murdering the king and those who might prove further threat to Macbeth’s reign. The height of this madness can be seen when he becomes the only individual capable of seeing Banquo’s ghost in Act III as a result of the weight of guilt that lies upon his soul: “Avaunt! And quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee! \ Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold; \ Thou hast no speculation in those eyes \ Which thou dost glare with” (III, iv, 93-97). Hamlet demonstrates an almost suicidal depression following his father’s death and his mother’s betrayal, only kept from killing himself by his religious upbringing: “O that this too too sullied flesh would melt, / Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew, / Or that the Everlasting had not fixed / His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter” (I, ii). Throughout the play, Hamlet displays lapses in reality, wishing he were dead or participating in wild antics designed to convince others of his instability while allowing him greater freedom, revealing not that he is insane, but that he is greatly conflicted. “One part of him says that he must take revenge, another part finds it horrible; he attempts to reconcile these conflicting feelings by saying that he fears the Ghost may be a devil” (Westlund, 1978: 252). In the end, he acts on his duty, but too late to save himself and those he loves. Finally, each play can be understood somewhat better if one understands part of the myths that lie behind them. For example, when Shakespeare wrote Macbeth, King James was the monarch and had a preference for stories about witches. To please him, it is said, Shakespeare made witches the driving force of Macbeth’s actions. In addition, it could not be the descendents of King Duncan that regained the throne for long-term, as King James was thought to have been descended from Banquo (Friedlander, 2005). This was the reason Banquo was hailed as the father of kings and provides the necessary hint that further discord is to follow within the kingdom following Macbeth’s beheading. Understanding that King Lear is a legend that began with the old Celtic myths, in which Lear was god of the oceans may help to explain why the old king goes out and attempts to command the storms that are raging across the countryside, just as an understanding of the old Roman gods will reveal the importance of Lear’s calling on Jupiter to help him and Edmund’s cynical appeal to Jupiter’s wife Juno (Friedlander, 2003). Hamlet is also based on the historic story of Amleth, a real-life Danish prince of Jutland who also discovered his uncle had killed his father to marry his mother and who was sent to England with escorts with a letter ordering his death (Taylor, 1968). In the historic tale, though, Amleth changed the letter to get himself married to the English king’s daughter before returning to Jutland to avenge his father before living to escape another attempt on his life by the English king, take a second wife and die in battle against a pretender to the Jutland throne. While the plays each present an audience with a vastly different tale in terms of its particulars, a closer look reveals many of the same schemes, plots, archetypal characters and actions as Shakespeare tells of the downfall of a kingdom. While each play seems to come to a natural conclusion, none provide a sense that all will be well for these nations in the morning. In King Lear, all the natural descendents of King Lear and the king himself are dead. In Macbeth, the natural sons of Duncan are restored to their rightful place, yet the suggestion that Banquo’s descendants will carry the throne suggests yet more unrest will soon follow. Hamlet’s kingdom falls to Norway upon the death of the royal family yet the audience would have known that hostilities between these countries would continue. As Shakespeare explored all these motivations and psychological elements, the audience became entranced with the deeper elements of the play well before the fighting actually appeared. Works Cited Friedlander, Ed. (2003). “Enjoying King Lear, by William Shakespeare.” Pathguy. Retrieved May 9, 2010 from Friedlander, Ed. (2005). “Enjoying Macbeth, by William Shakespeare.” Pathguy. Retrieved May 9, 2010 from Shakespeare, William. (1969). “Hamlet.” The Complete Pelican Shakespeare. New York: Viking: 930-976. Shakespeare. (1969). “King Lear.” William Shakespeare: The Complete Works. Alfred Harbage (Ed.). New York: Viking Books: 1060-1106. Shakespeare. (1969). “Macbeth.” William Shakespeare: The Complete Works. Alfred Harbage (Ed.). New York: Viking Books: 1107-1135. Taylor, Marion A. (1968). A New Look at the Old Sources of Hamlet. The Hague: Mouton. Westlund, Joseph. (Spring, 1978). “Ambivalence in the Player’s Speech in Hamlet.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900. Vol. 18, N. 2: 245-256. Read More