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googlex3
googlex3
Student
High School - 12th Grade

Discuss the presence of Fortinbras in Act4, scene iv. What does he seem to represent to Hamlet?

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Posted by googlex3 on Tuesday August 25, 2009 at 1:23 PM and tagged with hamlet.

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  1. jagtig

    This scene provides the audience with an excellent allegory, as well as builds the theme which was first explored in Act I, Scene I, concerning the ongoing conflict with the Poles.

    Hamlet's father smote, and presumably vanquished the Polish King, the Polack, Hamlet killed Polonius, a name which quite obviously means "the Pole," and now Fortinbras heads for Poland quite intent on making his name against the Catholic opponent in the East.

    As this was the time of the Reformation, the Protestant "rebellion" against Roman Catholocism, the English audience might be up to this battle, and welcome allusions to the undoing of the Polish King and his forces. However, Catholicism remained strong, though underground, in England, and to the present the Anglican Church mirrors many of its beliefs and practices.

    In this scene, Fortinbras is given to represent glory by Hamlet, even though his effort is at first made to seem vainglorious, and the sacrifice of troops the symptom of a social maladay. 

    Truly to speak, and with no addition,

    We go to gain a little patch of ground

    That hath in it no profit but the name.

    To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it;

    Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole

    A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee. - IV,iv,17

    and:

    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,

    Exposing what is mortal and unsure

    To all that fortune, death and danger dare,

    Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great

    Is not to stir without great argument,

    But greatly to find quarrel in a straw

    When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,

    That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,

    Excitements of my reason and my blood,

    And let all sleep? - IV,iv,47

    The contrast is a bit confusing, but this could be an exposure of Hamlet's mentality, his illness, as well.

     

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    Posted by jagtig on Wednesday August 26, 2009 at 12:22 PM