Hamlet

An approach to understanding the play


Shakespeare utilises the form of a revenge tragedy in order transcend the genre. As a consequence, although we may readily trace the source elements (an obligation to revenge, ghost, graveyard scene, madness, play-within-a-play, violence), the play is transformed into a medium for discussion of issues such as:

- the nature of duty, of sons to fathers/mothers, brothers to sisters, self to honour, etc
- the purpose of life and/or what it means to be human (consider especially the soliloquies)
- the consequences, in this life and the next, of wrongdoing
- the nature of love and friendship
- the status of the supernatural
- the traumatic effects of loss (Hamlet/Laertes/Fortinbras/Ophelia/Gertrude)
- revenge as 'wild justice', executed by mortals not God
- illusion and reality (consider questions of 'truth' as they apply to the ghost, to Hamlet's madness, to the 'friendship' of Rosencrantz and G. , to the love of Gertrude and Claudius, to the representations in The Mousetrap etc)
- how words may deceive when we contrive them (the official version of old Hamlet's death, Hamlet's exchanges with Polonius) but reveal when we do not (eg Hamlet's lexis from reflection and thought even when he appears to express a resolve to action)
- the tension in human nature between thought and action (Hamlet's delay)
- the relationship between being and acting (Hamlet is clearly happier playing a role than facing reality, Claudius is acting a role as King and lover)
- whether there are sins of omission as well as commission
- tragedy itself (consider the candidates for tragic hero in the play: these must surely include Polonius, flawed as an eavesdropper and Claudius, flawed by ambition, as well as Hamlet himself)

The consequence is that Shakespeare has written a play about what it means to be human, to play our parts on the stage of life and to reconcile the physical and violent with the reflective and diplomatic side to our fallen natures. This tension between negotiation and war, and even the moral questions associated with the nature of revenge, could not be more relevant in the new millenium and the aftermath of September 11th.

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I Curr 2002