A Play Within the Play: The Narratives of Conflict in Hamlet - Essay Example

A Play Within the Play: The Narratives of Conflict in Hamlet The narrative conflict in Hamlet begins with a complex series of injunctions of prescribed actions and their related codes of honor. The self-imposed silence that tortures the bereaved hero and his constitutional inability to articulate his true intent, through action or words, to either his friends or his lover, are the primary sources of conflict, confusion and the battle of conscience that pervades the entire play. The active mediator in this conflict is, of course, the ghost of Hamlet’s father – the dead king of Denmark –betrayed and murdered in life by his own brother and forsaken after death by the woman he had loved. He passes on the hierarchical and patriarchal injunction of blood revenge on his sensitive, weak-willed, philosophical son, Hamlet, whose sensitive, gentle nature and strong sense of justice begin to clash fiercely following the horrific disclosure of treachery, thus pulling him apart from within. These psychological conflicts are expressed in Hamlet’s constant vacillations and procrastinations. The major focal point of this tragic ambivalence and doom is, of course, the tortured and guilt-ridden mind of the prince. An analysis of Hamlet’s characterization is, therefore, an immensely complex and difficult exercise. Moreover, it must be noted that, the issue of self-characterization also plays a particularly important role in the narrative construction of the play. Hamlet’s self-characterization as a mad man mediates much of the central action and creates a complicated masquerade in which most of the characters are taken in, save Horatio. Interestingly, the active process of narrative and plot construction is handed over to Hamlet at a certain crucial, climactic juncture in the play through the device of ‘play within a play’, where Hamlet extends his exercise in characterization be creating an elaborate narrative plot to trap Claudius and expose his guilt. Hamlet, like all other plays of Shakespeare, is a study of the human weaknesses, which manifest themselves in so many different forms and so many different ways within the span of a lifetime, with a hero whose guilt-ridden mind is relentlessly torn between duty and conscience, love and justice, madness and reason. Hamlet can be critically examined for a reflection on human frailty, fallibility, treachery and insanity - that has come to be regarded as one the greatest tragedies penned in the Elizabethan era. The unmatched poetic grace and tragic nuances of the play find their most striking expressions in the famous soliloquies of the titular character, expressing with unmitigated agony the rambling musings of a grieving son, an indecisive heir to the throne and a soul tortured by its own inactions. However, the most interesting and perfectly structured narrative construction of the play is the clever incorporation of an alternate dramatic strategy of a “play within a play” that Shakespeare employs as a climactic tool in the plot as well as an effective opportunity of exposure and self-revelation for both Claudius and Hamlet. In context of this inventive dramatic strategy, however, it is particularly important to note that the issue of narrative construction is not merely confined to Hamlet’s creation and directorial venture – The Mousetrap – a play presented by a group of players in front of Claudius and the court wherein Hamlet had intended to “catch the conscience of the king”. [Act 2, scene 2, line 601] (Shakespeare 273) A significant portion of the play is, in fact, Hamlet’s own mental negotiation, an attempt to execute vengeance that would satisfy both his duty as a son and his conscience. Yet, this proves to be virtually impossible. Thus, the issues of tragic conflict and deliberately exuberant rhetoric of self-negation are primarily dominant elements of psychological interest to the readers of Hamlet. Act 3, scene 2 of the play begins with Hamlet delivering a chain of comprehensive, rambling and, at times, extremely generalized and, therefore, confusing instructions to the three players who were recruited to enact The Mousetrap. The latent desire within Hamlet to temper and control the violence raging in his mind is expressed in his significant choice of words – “in the very torrent, tempest, (…) whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness.” [Lines 5-8] (Shakespeare 287) However, Hamlet’s own action falls short of his words. While he aptly recommends that the players should not give reign to their instinctive passions but rather to control their inner conflicts and impulses and let their “own discretion be [their] tutor” [line 16], he fails to “suit the action to the word”. His self is divided between ‘being’ and ‘non-being’. He is forever in between, a willing prey to the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” (Shakespeare 278). Should he remain a passive victim to the multitude of evils that surround him? Or, should he rise up in arms against the tide of misfortune, exact revenge on his father’s killer and go boldly to the end? Again, the split nature of this immensely complex character does not offer an easy answer. Hamlet, therefore, must “die” in the end. The failure to appropriately bridge the gap between the self and the narrative, the character of the mad man that he plays and the character that truly inhabits him become the primary causes behind Hamlet’s recurrent failures in his attempts to achieve his goal and, ultimately, seal his tragic fate. The action of the play within the play marks both the triumph and the tragedy of Hamlet’s self-characterization, self-narration and narrative creation. While it does ensure Claudius’ guilt in Hamlet’s eyes, his stubborn conscience could not be lulled. He still couldn’t rise up in mutinous anger and inflict self-righteous vengeance on the king for his act of treachery, thus delivering the justice his father hungers for. Hamlet’s deepest tragedy lies in the fact that having “caught” that “conscience of the king” as he had intende, he stills falters and stumbles in executing his “duty”. He can only ‘playact’. Ophelia had flirtatiously commented during her exchange with Hamlet at the opening of ‘The Mousetrap’, “You are naught, you are naught.” [line 143] Nothingness, in every sense of the word, pervades Hamlet’s actions and his self-characterizations, and ‘nothingness’, therefore, must be his ultimate end. References Shakespeare, William. The Arden Shakespeare: Hamlet. Surrey: Thomas Nelson & Sons. 1997. Print. Read More