The Nature of the Ghost in the Play Hamlet by William Shakespeare - Book Report/Review Example

Hamlet The nature of the ghost in the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare has always been a question of debate among the Shakespearean critics and thetextual evidences on the reality concerning the ghost enhance the bewilderment about the true nature of the ghost. There are ongoing debates on whether Hamlet ever encountered the ghost of his father and the Shakespearean scholars are not united on the question if the ghost was all a figment in the imagination of the protagonist's troubled mind. In the play, Hamlet is not the only character to note that the ghost of his father "com'st in ... a questionable shape" (Shakespeare, I: ii) and the nature of the ghost has always been questioned. In other words, the variations of interpretations and criticisms regarding the play have dealt also with the nature of the ghost who takes the form of the protagonist's dead father. In a careful reading of the text which looks deeper into the realities and evidences in the text, one comes to identify several instances that question the acceptance of the ghost as Hamlet's dead father. Therefore, one of the most illumining discussions on the various major themes of the play would focus on an investigation of the nature of the ghost and to answer what is the ghost in the play. "On one point all critics have agreed. It is not a mere folk ghost: a graveyard spook of popular imagination, returned from the charnel house, wandering among tombs, guarding treasure, haunting its earthly abodes. It is not a mere pagan ghost: a forlorn soul seeking proper burial, an errant soul still stained with the lusts of the world, hovering over the grave, the spirit of a murdered man pursuing his murderer or wandering until the day when he would have died naturally. The first scene of Hamlet puts the Ghost into Christian perspective. The possibility that the Ghost is a hallucination is eliminated immediately." (Prosser, 101) Therefore, this paper make a profound analysis of the nature of the ghost in the play Hamlet by Shakespeare and it undertakes an investigation of the varied opinions and realities about the nature of the ghost whether it is a figment in the imagination of a troubled mind or a real thing, an angelic ghost or devilish ghost etc. There is a general agreement among the Shakespearean critics that Hamlet is the most problematic play ever written and the complexities concerning the nature of the ghost substantiate the view. The nature of the ghost in the play Hamlet by Shakespeare is thrown into question and debate as in no other play of the Elizabethan or Jacobean period and the opening question of such controversies is whether the ghost is a real thing or a figment in the imagination of the troubled mind of the protagonist Hamlet. When the character Hamlet himself questions the genuineness of the ghost who appears to be his dead father, the question becomes all the more complex, and one of the major reasons for the revenge on the murderer of his father being delayed by the protagonist has been his uncertainty regarding the ghost. Hamlet is not convinced about the realities of the ghost and he has several questions before the ghost of his father who 'com'st in...a questionable shape'. "Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd, / Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell, / Be thy intents wicked or charitable, / Thou comest in such a questionable shape / That I will speak to thee: I'll call thee Hamlet, / King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me! / Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell / Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death, / Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre, / Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd, / Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws, / To cast thee up again'" (Shakespeare, I: ii) Therefore, the protagonist does not believe in the realities of the ghost and there is a strong opinion among the Shakespearean critics that the ghost is a figment in the imagination of the troubled mind of Hamlet. In fact, it is not the hero in the play alone who questions the authenticity of the ghost and the burden on the protagonist imposed by the ghost has a great impact on the development of the whole story. "Although these first words on seeing the Ghost highlight his "questionable shape," the Prince, impulsively, without further ado, calls him '... Hamlet, / King, father, royal Dane" (I, iv, 44-45). Yet the question of who or what the Ghost is cannot be permanently ignored, given the burden he imposes on his son Hamlet." (Croxford, 93) Therefore, the protagonist is deeply trouble by the identity of the ghost and he questions the truths concerning the ghost. There is a strong opinion among the scholars that as the hero has a weak nature and character the ghost is an imaginary thing in his illusion. Even Hamlet is not convinced about his power and he considers the ghost as some devilish spirit that has come to destroy him. "The spirit that I have seen / May be the devil: and the devil hath power / To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps / Out of my weakness and my melancholy, / As he is very potent with such spirits, / Abuses me to damn me'" (Shakespeare, II, ii, 594-99) Therefore, there are several critics who believe that the ghost is a figment in the imagination of the troubled mind of the protagonist. While there is the possibility that Hamlet never encountered the ghost of his father and that the ghost was all an imagined thing, there are important evidences that prove the authenticity of the ghost. In the first scenes of the play, the ghost is presented in Christian perspective and there are evidences which suggest that it is not an imaginary thing in the troubled mind of the protagonist. Hamlet is able to identify the spirit as his father and he obeys the commands by the ghost in the course of the play. The theme of revenge which is the most important concern of the play is the contribution of the ghost and Hamlet develops a complete faith in the words of the ghost. Apart from the protagonist, the major characters who visualize the ghost also suggest that it is not an imaginary thing in the doubting mind of Hamlet. "The educated, rational, doubting Horatio learns by the witness of his own eyes that this 'thing' is no 'fantasy.' Moreover, his response, as well as that of the sentries, makes it clear that this is no mere conventional ghost of the popular theater. It is addressed in the name of Heaven; it is an ambiguous 'illusion' that may 'blast' or be the instrument of 'grace.'" (Prosser, 101) Therefore, it is indubitable that the ghost is perceived by the protagonist and the other major characters of the play as a real thing and now the uncertainty remains about the possibility of the ghost being angelic or devilish. It is important to realize that the ghost is perceived in the play as a real spirit and not a figment in the imagination of the troubled mind of the protagonist Hamlet. The various textual evidences also suggest that the ghost is real and there are other questions regarding the nature of the ghost. Thus, it is often uncertain among the scholars whether the ghost is angelic or devilish and the protagonist imagines, at a point, that it is devilish spirit which has come to destroy him. However, the evidences from the opening scenes of the play suggest that the ghost is truly Christian and it is clear that Shakespeare presented the ghost as a Catholic spirit. The ghost itself presents it in Catholic ideas and it says it belongs to Purgatory. "I am thy father's spirit, / Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night, / And for the day confined to fast in fires, / Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature Are burnt and purged away." (Shakespeare, I, v) These lines clearly define the ghost as purgatorial, and thus Catholic. Significantly, almost the entire controversy of the ghost can be attributed to these five lines when the ghost tells Hamlet of his origins, and the view that the ghost truly existed in the play suggests that the ghost must be considered a Catholic Christian, not a Protestant one. Therefore, the critics who recognize the existence of the ghost acknowledge that it is clearly placed in a Christian context and there is a controversy regarding the Catholic origin of the ghost. In the play, Shakespeare also raises questions regarding the nature of the ghost, whether it is angelic or devilish, Catholic or Protestant, etc and about the very existence of Purgatory. The ghost claims that he is in Purgatory since he was denied the Church's last rites when he was murdered and Hamlet almost believes the ghost. "It is a claim accepted by the Prince, at least at first: "Touching this vision here,/It is an honest ghost" (I, v. 143-44). Hamlet swears it "by Saint Patrick" (I, v, 142). This is appropriate since Saint Patrick's Purgatory was a cave in Ireland where pilgrims went to be purged of their sins and receive visions of the afterlife. In other words the Ghost alleges, and Hamlet initially accepts, that he is in purgatory." (Croxford, 93) However, the questions concerning the nature of the ghost also lead inevitably to uncertainties about whether Purgatory exists, what is the basis on which one can know the realities about Purgatory etc. It is clear that Purgatory is a Catholic, not Protestant doctrine. Therefore, Shakespeare not only creates doubt about whether the Ghost is an angel or devil, but he almost deliberately adds on to the confusion about the possibility of purgatory. It is reasonable to consider that, Shakespeare's social milieu encouraged a sustained belief in purgatory, notwithstanding the official Protestantism of Elizabethan England. "What is at issue' is not whether the author might have been a crypto-Catholic believer in purgatory. It is, rather, by what means his protagonist can determine whether the Ghost is in such a place or not' Shakespeare'not only creates doubt about whether the Ghost is "a spirit of health or goblin damn'd," namely an angel or devil. He quite deliberately complicates the issue by adding the further possibility of purgatory. He does so, moreover, in an ideological context lacking the traditionally authoritative means of validating its existence and thus of ghosts claiming to hail from it." (Croxford, 93) Therefore, there is inconsistency with regard to the Catholic ghost from the Purgatory which raises inconsistency with the beliefs in the period of the reign of Protestant Queen Elizabeth which comes after the Protestant reformation in England. However, if Shakespeare had written Hamlet a century or two earlier, his purgatorial Catholic ghost would have been rather normal. Stephen Greenblatt's argues that all of the other characters in Hamlet, including the Prince himself, are Protestant whereas the ghost himself represents a Catholic vision. In his work Hamlet in Purgatory, Greenblatt goes to great lengths to show why Hamlet and the others can be considered Protestant and comes to the conclusion that, "a young man from Wittenberg, with a distinctly Protestant temperament, is haunted by a distinctly Catholic ghost." (Greenblatt, 240) This purgatorial ghost in a Protestant context is problematic as it raises inconsistencies in the play. In conclusion, the nature of the ghost in the play Hamlet by Shakespeare has contributed to the ongoing debates and interpretative issues among the Shakespearean critics who have been questioning the nature of the ghost since their profession began. According to them, there is the possibility that Hamlet never encountered the ghost of his father and that the ghost was all a figment in the imagination of a troubled mind. However, the textual evidences suggest that the ghost is a real thing and not an imaginary thing and the question now turns to whether it is angelic or devilish. The Catholic representation of the ghost also raises issues concerning the nature of the ghost as well as the textual inconsistencies about the play. Works Cited Croxford, Leslie. "The Uses of Interpretation in Hamlet." Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics. Iss. 24. 2004. P 93. Greenblatt, Stephen. Hamlet in purgatory. Princeton University Press. 2001. P 240. Prosser, Eleanor. Hamlet and revenge. New York: Stanford University Press. 1971. P 101. Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. 30 April, 2009. . Read More