One of the most unique elements of the Hamlet character is that he is so human. Manytypes of readers can identify with him. Hamlet is imperfect, and he is fretful. Hamlet hashuman properties, and it is his humanity that I intend to explore. Indeed it is these humanqualities and imperfections that make his story so tragic. Another tragic part of the play isthe plays irony. Irony is an important tool in the hands of the playwright to achieve bothcomical and/or dramatic effect. There is usually little reason for a tragedy to be funny, soShakespeare has used this tool to add more tragedy to the play.
I will investigate thenature of this irony. Also, I will investigate the types of conflict that play a major part inthe play and the relationships between Hamlet and the two people who have been closestto him; Ophelia and the Ghost. Hamlet cannot share his strong feelings and emotions with his mother or hisgirlfriend. While his mother is literally sleeping with the enemy, Ophelia has chosen theside of Claudius because of her father, Polonius. It is especially difficult for Hamlet totalk to Ophelia. The only other woman in his life, Gertrude, has betrayed his father bymarrying Claudius.
Hamlet may be obsessed with the idea that all women are evil, yet hereally does love Ophelia, because when he finds out Ophelia has died, he cries out, “I lov’dOphelia; forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up mysum. “(Act V, Scene 1) The ghost provides Hamlet with a dilemma. In Shakespeare’s plays, supernaturalcharacters are not always to be trusted; think of the three witches in MacBeth, who areinstrumental in his downfall. Hamlet does not know whether the ghost is telling the truthor not.
If Hamlet had killed Claudius solely on the ghost’s advice, he would certainly havebeen tried and put to death himself. There would probably have been a war to choose thenew king. Being the humanitarian that he is, and taking account of his responsibilities as aprince and future king, Hamlet most likely would want to avoid civil war. Even thoughClaudius is a murderer, and probably not as noble a king as Hamlet’s father was, he is stilla king. He brings order to Denmark. Hamlet does not wish to plunge his country intochaos. He realizes that this will happen when he kills Claudius.
Hamlet is unable tocombine the spiritual world (in the form of his father’s ghost) with the tangible, every-dayworld that surrounds him. There is much irony throughout this play. One occurrence of irony I foundparticularly striking was the fact that Hamlet effectively maneuvers himself into the sameposition as Claudius. Claudius had attacked and killed a man who did not have theopportunity to defend himself, but when Hamlet kills Polonius, is he not guilty of thesame? It is intriguing that both Claudius and Hamlet have killed fathers.
It is interestingto see how these two completely different characters deal with this problem in differentways. Other interesting parallels I found are the numerous deaths by poison. Hamlet’s fatherwas murdered by Claudius with poison. In the final act, the queen is the first to bepoisoned, by drinking from Hamlet’s cup. Then, Hamlet is wounded by the poisoned tipof Laertes’ sword. When they change swords, Hamlet gets the upper hand and Laertes ispoisoned. When the queen dies, Laertes explains all to Hamlet, before he dies.
Hamletthen kills Claudius before dying himself. It is ironic that, as Claudius is poisoned becauseof his own plotting, he had already signed his own death warrant when he killed Hamlet’sfather, the first tragic action of the play. There are only three people in this play whodon’t die by poisoning: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern meet their deaths in England, afterbeing outsmarted by Hamlet. The third is Ophelia, who is drowned. There are three types of conflict I can identify in the play: ‘man versus man’, ‘manversus nature’ and ‘man versus himself’.
Hamlet’s fight with Laertes in Ophelia’s grave andthe subsequent duel would both easily classify as ‘man versus man’ conflicts. Man also struggles with nature in this play, most notably in the form of Ophelia’s drowning andHamlet’s crossing the sea to England – although the latter conflict plays more of abackground role. The ‘man versus himself’ conflict is most directly exposed in Hamlet’s famous soliloquy,where he is wrestling with his conscience. The realization he comes to in this soliloquy isthat we are afraid to kill ourselves because we do not know what is to be found afterdeath.
Another ‘man versus himself’ conflict is Claudius’ inability to pray. He cannotreally justify his past deeds. For him this is actually another step into darkness. Hamlet may be a thinking man; however, this does not mean he actually likes to think. Although he might have liked to think in the time preceding the play, when the time hascome for him to take action, he cannot because of this urge to contemplate. His capacityof thinking becomes a handicap rather than an advantage. And this is not even the mostpainful or tragic part of the Hamlet character.
The biggest problem is that he is aware ofthis. Not only is he incapable of acting without thinking, he knows that this is the case,which makes the burden even heavier. Hamlet cannot face reality. It is already atraumatic experience for him when he has to believe the words of the ghost, and actuallythe ghost’s demanding him to act on this information is too much for him. Hamlet is however, a man of decision. But he is also contemplative. He needs to thinkin order to justify his actions, and his intellectual characteristics are the major differencebetween Claudius and himself.
Hamlet is very aware of the relationship between actionand reaction and realizes that he has to proceed very carefully. In the play, Claudius is thedecisive character, and the man of action. He takes the first action, the action that sets thestory in motion – the poisoning of Hamlet’s father. He also instigates the final action, the poisoning of the blades and the cup; an action that will backfire and cause his own death. In the play, there seems to be a constant shift of action, where only one party can act atany time.
These two parties are of course Hamlet and Claudius. When Claudius has takenthe action that secures him the throne, he allows Hamlet to become the man of action. But Hamlet procrastinates. The only action Hamlet takes is staging the play, which seemsmore to serve the purpose to establish that Claudius is indeed guilty of his father’s murder. He does this for himself and for Horatio. Then he proceeds to kill the eavesdroppingPolonius. Hamlet is given the chance to avenge ”this foul and most unnatural murder” when hesees Claudius praying.
Hamlet, being a Christian prince, cannot bring himself to killClaudius while he is praying, as this would secure his place in heaven. Hamlet wants tomake sure Claudius will suffer in the afterlife, just as his father did. Hamlet leaves justbefore Claudius gets up, declaring he cannot pray; “My words fly up, my thoughts remainbelow: Words without thoughts never to heaven go” (Claudius, Act III, Scene 3). HadHamlet known Claudius was unable to pray, then he could have had his revenge right thenand there, instead of waiting until the end, and taking everyone else with him.
Most of the other characters would probably have acted much quicker than Hamlet ifthey were in his position. Imagine Polonius in the situation Hamlet found himself in. Hewould not procrastinate as much. It would have most likely been off with the head of themurderer! Any other character in the play would not have stayed as quiet as Hamlet does(confiding only in his best friend, and even keeping the truth from his mother until the endof Act III). Although not every one of them might have come to killing Claudius. ButHamlet does not seem to do anything.
Again, he thinks too much. But why? Hamlet is self-conscious, while the majority of characters that surround him are not. This explains why he feels inhibited to act. Hamlet resembles a real person more than anyother character in the play, which might be another reason why he still remains a subject of discussion, and why the play remains so popular. Hamlet is one of the most interestingcharacters in English fiction because we can identify with him, and understand, althoughnot always agree with his actions. Hamlet is also set apart by his elusiveness.
Many of the characters in the play can becategorized within minutes of their introduction. I’m not calling them caricatures, butthere is definitely a caricature-like side to some of them. The pompous Polonius and thedeceitful and thick-headed Guildenstern and Rozencrantz come to my mind. However,this does not hold true for some other characters, such as Laertes and Ophelia. The character of Hamlet refuses categorization. Interesting with regard to this is hislove of theater. He is particularly interested in the idea that things may seem differentfrom what they really are, just like the people that surround him.
His mother is no longerhis father’s wife, but his uncle’s, his girlfriend is no longer there for him, and Guildensternand Rosencrantz are no longer his friends. Also, he is aware that he will have to disguisehimself and his real motives and goals in order to attain them – this is why he fakes hismadness. It is not until he picks up Yorick’s skull in the beginning of Act V that he findsout what is real and what not. In the end, when the truth is revealed and everyone’s”masks” are removed, death is all that is to be found.
