William Shakespeare's Hamlet - Literature review Example

HAMLET Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a play about revenge and indecision; ultimately, Hamlet’s revenge backfires, because instead of taking direct and immediate action, he waits and broods. Thus, he winds up hurting more people than he would have if not for the indecision and the preoccupation with revenge. Hamlet’s adherence to the patriarchal ideals is supported throughout the play by the appearance of his father’s ghost. The prince is plagued by indecision about the way in which to be sure about how his father was wronged and how to go about his plans of vengeance. At times it seems that Hamlet does not even want to avenge his father, who is wronged by his murder by Claudius, who usurps the kingdom and marries his (Hamlet’s father’s) wife; he wants to get on with his life and forget about vengeance. Hamlet might have carried out his vengeance better without being indecisive and passing up opportunities, or by bringing Claudius before a jury instead of plotting violent vengeance, which, as the reader sees by the end of the play, results in vengeance being carried out (Claudius’ death) as well as tragedy (there is also a blood-bath). Although Laertes also is involved in avenging his father’s death in the play, it is more of a treacherous reaction to an accidental death than Hamlet’s vengeance, which informs most of the play’s emotional content, and makes Laertes’ vengeance seem misinformed and superficial in contrast. Throughout the play, Hamlet makes his own choices regarding his plan for avenging his father, and these choices are effected by his own personal ideas about fate and what he sees himself as being chosen for (vengeance). It is interesting to think of Hamlet’s indecision as one of his main characteristics that makes the play a tragedy. Even with supernatural intervention and supposed resolve, Hamlet continually delays his plans of vengeance. He pretends to be insane to get proof that Claudius did indeed kill his father, but even when he finds irrefutable evidence that the deed was committed, he still pretends to be insane, and wastes his time at a number of activities that are designed to provoke Claudius. But none of these activities do anything but raise suspicion and make the other characters take him less seriously, and hurt Ophelia. “This is mere madness,/” the queen states, “And thus a while the fit will work on him” (Shakespeare, 1987, V,i,287-8). Hamlet is struggling against his indecision and delay to do what he knows to be right, and this struggle is tragic because the reader or viewer can see that Hamlet seems to want to get on with his life at points, but keeps being pulled back to this sense of duty. Indecision is not the only tragic characteristic of Hamlet, however. Hamlet’s ideas of right and wrong also drive him to states of disgust with Claudius and his mother’s behavior. He cannot stand that he has to be a witness to Claudius’s wanton behavior and his mother’s sexuality and apparent shallowness disturbs him. The reader or viewer can see that “in Hamlet’s moral sensibility there undoubtedly lay a danger” (Bradley, 1987, p. 204). The danger is that his steadfast version of right and wrong drives him to consider vengeance and then helps him to go through with this vengeance. Hamlet’s morality leads him to a sense of outrage at Claudius for being drunk and his mother for being superficial. His moral compass gives him an unalterable sense of what is right and wrong, and he sees the world in these terms. The audience is likely to agree with him morally, or at least empathize with his moral situation and his apparent unbalance. Hamlet starts on his quest for revenge upon making Horatio and Marcellus swear to help him make things right. Hamlet is not just following the orders of his father’s ghost; he is struggling with his own goals and ideas about what is right and wrong. He is also tragic, because he passes up many opportunities to escape his fate or assure it. As mentioned, he could have called Claudius before a jury, but he chose not to do this. Instead, he made his vendetta intensely personal. Hamlet even provokes Claudius by putting on the play that echoes his own actions. When Claudius is disturbed by this, Hamlet tells him, “Your majesty, and we that have free/ souls, it touches us not. Let the galled jade winch” (Shakespeare, 1987, III,ii,247-8). This is a pun on the freeness of the souls of both Claudius, who has gained the throne by murder and is imprisoned by his knowledge of this, and Hamlet, who is imprisoned by his vow to make things right. Hamlet finally does kill Claudius and rid the throne of this usurper, and it is tragic that he dies in the process of doing this by getting nicked by a poison blade. Hamlet’s most prized qualities are his loyalty to his father and his cleverness, even though this cleverness tends to delay his actions, and he is preoccupied with revenge. His tragic flaw wasn’t necessarily pride, but instead was not being able to do anything because he thought about it too much, and being too bent on avenging his father, so that he hurt many others. He rebukes Polonious for being a worthless philosopher, but Hamlet is also the victim of too much deliberation. Whatever the case, the ghost represents Hamlet’s fate: when he delays too much or starts to move on with his life, the ghost appears to remind him of the injustice that has occurred and that it is his duty to set things right. It is not only Hamlet’s own conscience that is related through his soliloquies to the audience, but also the representation of his father’s ghost that actually takes part in the play, and, when it speaks in the presence of others, it is only Hamlet who appears to actually hear the ghost. By using the supernatural to further what could be called natural aspects of the play, Shakespeare highlights the possible presence of things that are out of the characters’ control, such as fate. The ghost also represents the hero’s internal situation. In looking for revenge, Hamlet even provokes Claudius by putting on the play that echoes his own actions. When Claudius is disturbed by this, Hamlet tells him, “Your majesty, and we that have free/ souls, it touches us not. Let the galled jade winch” (Shakespeare, III,ii,247-8). This is a pun on the freeness of the souls of both Claudius, who has gained the throne by murder and is imprisoned by is knowledge of this, and Hamlet, who is imprisoned by his vow to avenge the ghost of his father. His revenge blinds him to all other things. In any case, and in summary, one can see how vengeance could have been carried out with less of a tragic risk to Hamlet’s own personal safety if it had been less personalized. Hamlet’s thirst for vengeance on Claudius throughout the play is fueled by his loyalty to his father and compromised by his cleverness, which as mentioned above, tends to delay his actions. Even when he has talked at length about a course of action, Hamlet is often portrayed as not being able to do anything because he has thought about it too much. He does not want to commit to Ophelia. He does not want to commit to vengeance. But he remains preoccupied with the latter, and it leads him down a road of destruction of others. His tragic circumstances, with his father dead of murder and his mother freshly remarried to his father’s murderer, demand that he do something, but he does nothing for a long time, and winds up hurting even more people. REFERENCE Bradley, A.C. “From Shakespearean Tragedy.” Hamlet. Edward Hubler, ed. New York: Signet Classics, 2000. Freud, Sigmund. Some Characters Met with in Psycho-analytical Work. Created 2001, http://web.singnet.com.sg/~yisheng/notes/shakespeare/mbeth_f.htm. Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Edward Hubler, ed. New York: Signet Classics, 1987. “Hamlet: Revenge.” Accessed 2009, http://www.studyworld.com/newsite/ReportEssay/literature/Shakespeare%5CHamlet_Revenge.htm Read More