Hamlet Commentary
Hamlet is often called an "Elizabethan revenge play," the theme of revenge against an evil usurper driving the plot forward as in earlier stage works by Shakespeare's contemporaries, Kyd and Marlowe, as well as by the French writer Belleforest (Histoires Tragiques, 1576). As in those works, a hero plays minister and scourge in avenging a moral injustice, an affront to both man and God. In this case, regicide (killing a king) is a particularly monstrous crime, and there is no doubt as to whose side our sympathies are disposed.
As in many revenge plays, and, in fact, several of Shakespeare's other tragedies (and histories), a corrupt act, the killing of a king, undermines order throughout the realm that resonates to high heaven. We learn that there is something "rotten" in Denmark after old Hamlet's death in the very first scene, as Horatio compares the natural and civil disorders that occurred in Rome at the time of Julius Caesar's assassination to the disease that afflicts Denmark. These themes and their figurative expression are common to the Elizabethan revenge play genre in which good must triumph over evil.
But Hamlet is far more than an outstanding example of the revenge play. It is, to begin, a tragedy in which the attainment of justice entails the avenging hero's death. It is in the first scene of Act III that Hamlet speaks a soliloquy that has become a verbal emblem for Shakespearean tragedy and a measure of its thematic depth.
To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 't is nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them?
(III.i.55-59)
Two of the play's salient themes are interwoven here; human mortality or death and fortune or chance. On the level of plot action, Hamlet is an exceedingly mortal work: virtually all of the major characters—Hamlet, Claudius, Gertrude, Polonius, Ophelia, and Laertes—die from unnatural causes by the end of the play; the penultimate scene takes place in a cemetery. Death, decay, and the futility of life fill the spoken thoughts the Danish prince, and the appearance of Ur-Hamlet's tortured ghost leaves us with cold comfort about the afterlife. Shakespeare skillfully shows vitality being cut short and leading to a gruesome end. Thus, in the graveyard scene that opens Act V, Hamlet holds up the skull of a court jester he knew as a boy, and utters the lines,
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
borne me on his back a thousand times; and now,
how abhorred in my imagination it is!
(V.i.184-187)
Not only is death pervasive, its occurrence is a product of chance and circumstance. True, Hamlet anticipates his death, while Claudius and, perhaps, Laertes deserve theirs, but Polonius dies by accident as does the Queen, while Ophelia's suicide seems to be beyond her control. Life inevitably yields death and a wormy grave, and its occurrence cannot be foreseen or avoided.
As both a plot component and a central thematic cluster, madness and, with it, the line between reality and illusion are certainly prominent throughout Hamlet. The Prince feigns madness so well that we sometimes question his underlying sanity. Indeed, Hamlet himself harbors the fear that the ghost of his father may be an hallucination. Ophelia, of course, lapses into madness, sinking below the depths of a tragic tide of events into self-destructive melancholia. Reinforcing this, Shakespeare plays on the contrast between reality and illusion. This is most often brought out in contrasts between the "real" and the "seeming" kings of Denmark (see Hamlet's condemnation of Gertrude in Act III, scene iv). This notion of illusion is embodied in Ur-Hamlet's remarks about "my most seeming virtuous queen" (I.v) and in the "play-within-a-play" where mere illusion on the stage evokes the real emotion of guilt in Claudius, the "play" being the thing through which Hamlet "catches the conscience of the King" (II.ii).
Throughout Hamlet we encounter a great deal of wordplay, Shakespeare using a vast number of multivalent terms ranging from gross puns to highly-nuanced words that evoke a host of diverse associations and images. While Hamlet can tell this difference between a "hawk and a handsaw," the play challenges the assumption that language itself can convey human experience or hold stable meaning.
Lastly, Hamlet contains a great deal of sexual material and innuendo, one in which the charge of "incest" is openly uttered. The Freudian implications of Hamlet's "case" have been explored at length by literary critics and psychoanalysts alike (see Jones 1976). Without belaboring the point, some critics believe that illicit or unnatural sexual drives, particularly Hamlet's repressed desire to be the object of his mother's affection in place of his father, form a strong undercurrent in the text.
Critical Commentary
There is little debate that Shakespeare is the greatest Renaissance tragedian, and that King Lear (pr. c. 1605-1606, pb. 1608) and Hamlet, Prince of Denmark are the best examples of his work in that genre. Since its first production at the beginning of the seventeenth century, Hamlet has been the subject of intense critical inquiry, and the figure of Hamlet has been among the most intensely studied of any of Shakespeare’s creations. Intellectual, self-reflective, alienated, and seemingly paralyzed by doubts about both himself and the circumstance in which he is called upon to act as an agent of revenge, Hamlet has come to be considered the quintessential modern hero.
For the subject of his drama, Shakespeare turned to a story already popular in English theaters; at least two earlier productions of the sad tale of the Danish prince had appeared in London playhouses. In many ways, Hamlet is typical of a subgenre immensely popular in Shakespeare’s time: the revenge play. Most of these were bloody spectacles in which almost every character dies in the final act. The body-strewn stage in act 5 of Hamlet continues this tradition, as does the central action of the drama: the need for the young Hamlet to avenge the death of his father, the king, whose ghost informs Hamlet early in the play that he (the king) had been poisoned by Hamlet’s Uncle Claudius so Claudius could become king and marry Hamlet’s mother, the queen Gertrude.
The central dramatic interest in the play is the character of its hero. Hamlet sees himself as the “scourge and minister” of some higher order, returned from school in Germany to set right the disorder in his realm caused by his uncle’s murderous action. Unfortunately, the sensitive prince is not callous enough to ignore the doubts he has about the exact cause of his father’s death. He has been told by his father’s ghost that Claudius committed murder; other hints to that effect abound. The prince feels he must delay his revenge, however, until he is certain Claudius is guilty.
Compounding Hamlet’s problem is the fact that his mother, whom he loves dearly, has married his uncle soon after the old king has died. It is not at all clear to Hamlet whether his mother has had a hand in the murder, whether she is simply unaware of Claudius’s treachery, or whether she believes Claudius is innocent. Much is made of the mother-son relationship; Hamlet spends considerable time trying to convince his mother that she has made a mistake in marrying Claudius. Only when she finally comes to accept his view that the new king is somehow guilty does Hamlet decide to act. His decision is precipitated by several other actions as well, most notably the efforts of his supposed friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to have him killed.
Many critics have observed that Hamlet is really too sensitive to effect the revenge that he intends. He is by nature melancholic, possessing a fatalistic disposition that borders on the suicidal. His most famous soliloquy focuses on the virtue of ending his life. “To be, or not to be,” he begins his musings; that is, indeed, a central question for him, since he sees little benefit in continuing to live in a world where injustice reigns. Nevertheless, he decides to act to avenge his father’s murder—once he is certain he knows who has been involved in the plot to kill him. Viewing the world as a place where things are seldom as they seem, he spends a good portion of his time trying to sort appearance from reality. He invents various devices to help illuminate the truth, such as his elaborate arrangement for a dumb show that will re-create the murder of his father in the presence of Claudius to try to make the king reveal his guilt. Hamlet is not satisfied simply to take vengeance on his uncle clandestinely; he wants Claudius to admit his guilt.
For centuries, scholars have debated Hamlet’s inability to act even when he has the opportunity to do so. Early in the play, his inactivity can be attributed to his lack of assurance that Claudius is guilty. Were he to kill the new king without justification, he would be seen as no better than a murderer himself, and no good would come of his action. Nevertheless, when he does appear to have sufficient evidence of Claudius’s role in his father’s murder, the prince still seems paralyzed. In a crucial scene after Claudius has seen the dumb show and left the room visibly upset, Hamlet finds his uncle praying in the castle’s chapel. It is a perfect chance to slay the king, but Hamlet refrains because he says he does not want to send his uncle’s soul to heaven. Such casuistry has been reason for several critics to claim that Shakespeare is simply drawing out the drama until the final catastrophe. By the final act, Hamlet has become totally fatalistic. Having killed Polonius accidentally, he has already bloodied his hands; he accepts the challenge of Polonius’s son, Laertes, with resignation, knowing that he will probably be killed himself. In the final scene, all of the principals meet their end—and almost all by some mischance of fate. Despite the resounding encomium pronounced over the body of the slain prince, the bleak ending offers little encouragement for an audience who has witnessed this great tragedy. Surprisingly, however, the ending seems justified, in that order has been restored to the Danish kingdom, although won at a terrible price. Such is the lesson of most great tragedies, and Hamlet ranks with the very best examples of the genre.
Advanced Themes
The central issue in Hamlet, which allows for numerous interpretations of the play, can be summed up with a single question: Why does Hamlet delay avenging Claudius? While scholars propose various answers, their theories generally fall into two categories: those that focus on Hamlet's internal psychological struggles and those that emphasize external barriers preventing him from taking action. Critics who believe Hamlet's delay is rooted in his internal thoughts often see him as a man of profound moral integrity, compelled to commit an act that conflicts with his deepest values. Many times, Hamlet attempts to resolve his moral conflict through introspective soliloquies. A soliloquy is a speech given when the character is alone, designed to reveal their thoughts or provide crucial information about other characters. Another interpretation of Hamlet's inner turmoil is that he has become so disillusioned with life since his father's death that he lacks both the desire and the will to seek revenge. Furthermore, Hamlet is horrified and disgusted that, in his time of mourning, Gertrude has succumbed to Claudius's advances, marrying him a mere two months after her husband's funeral. To Hamlet, these events have reduced the Danish court to nothing more than "an unweeded garden, / That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature / Possess it merely" (I.ii.135-37). Hamlet's strongest urge is to end his own life to escape further degradation, but he is terrified of the eternal consequences of suicide. With such heavy burdens on his mind, the Ghost's demand for revenge only adds to Hamlet's indecision, resulting in numerous episodes of self-doubt and extended inaction.
Critics who argue that Hamlet's hesitation stems from external rather than internal obstacles often highlight a key point: the prince's struggle to distinguish between appearance and reality as the main barrier preventing him from taking action. For instance, Hamlet questions whether the Ghost is genuinely a benevolent spirit or a devil attempting to deceive him into killing Claudius. Moreover, the Ghost's accusations present a practical challenge for Hamlet because Claudius initially appears as a competent and responsible monarch, not a villainous murderer. To Hamlet, the king's only transgression seems to be his hasty and incestuous marriage to Gertrude.
Other obstacles further prevent Hamlet from killing Claudius even after he convinces himself of the king's guilt. The most obvious is that Claudius is almost always surrounded by guards. The sole exception occurs during the prayer scene (Act III, scene iii), where Hamlet hesitates to kill Claudius out of fear of sending his soul to heaven. This moment of inaction is perhaps the most contentious aspect of Hamlet's delay. Critics who interpret Hamlet's procrastination as an internal struggle argue that this scene clearly shows his inability to take revenge. Conversely, those who believe in external influences contend that Hamlet delays killing Claudius not only due to the fear of sending the king's soul to heaven but—more importantly—because he has not proven to anyone (except possibly Horatio) that his uncle is a murderer.
If Hamlet is seen as a victim of external factors, his internal reflections on his hesitation do not necessarily indicate an incapacity to act. Instead, they express his need to vent his frustration through self-reproach over his inability to find an opportune moment to avenge his father's murder.
The theme of revenge is intricately connected to Hamlet's hesitation. The prince is not the sole character fixated on vengeance in Hamlet. Fortinbras harbors resentment towards Denmark because King Hamlet killed his father, and Laertes, enraged by Polonius's death, considers overthrowing the Danish government before allying with Claudius to plot Hamlet's murder. Moreover, Hamlet is part of the Revenge Tragedy genre. This dramatic form, popularized on the English stage by Thomas Kyd with his play Spanish Tragedy, typically involves a son avenging his father's death or vice versa, often guided by the ghost of the murdered individual. Common elements in Revenge Tragedies include the hero's hesitation, real or feigned madness, suicide, intrigue, and on-stage murders. Some scholars suggest that Shakespeare disdained the Revenge Tragedy for its overused conventions. Nevertheless, due to the genre's popularity with Elizabethan audiences, Shakespeare had to adhere to certain norms to ensure commercial success. Consequently, he transformed the genre by embedding a double entendre (double meaning) to subtly criticize the clichés of Revenge Tragedies while still delivering many of its beloved elements. Hamlet's aversion to revenge throughout the play mirrors Shakespeare's own disdain for revenge theater, even as he met the audience's expectations for a tragic ending.
Various patterns of imagery add a visual layer to the dramatic action in Hamlet. The most prominent imagery involves bodily corruption and disease. Throughout the play, Hamlet fixates on the moral decay of the Danish court and the vile implications of Claudius and Gertrude's incestuous union. While images of corruption and disease permeate the play, they are never linked to Hamlet himself; instead, they underscore Claudius's crime and Gertrude's sin. Additionally, the imagery of disease and corruption extends beyond the visual to engage the olfactory senses (relating to smell). Shakespeare vividly depicts decay and stench through images of cancerous infection, rotting flesh, and the sun as a corrupting force. These rank odors accentuate the cunning and lechery of Claudius's evil deed, which has tainted the entire kingdom of Denmark. War imagery is another significant visual pattern that frequently appears in Hamlet. In fact, war images occur more often than those of corruption and decay, serving to highlight the deadly duel between Hamlet and Claudius.
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