Sunday, December 5, 2010

A Summary and Interpretation of Hamlet, by William Shakespeare



**This is another paper I did for school. This was written for British Lit my sophomore year at PBC.**

Summary. Hamlet is a tragic play composed in the years 1600 or early 1601, and published in the year 1603 (Spencer 307). Shakespeare opens the play with an immediate introduction to a ghostly figure stalking the palace grounds of Denmark. The ghost is the late King of Denmark. With numerous failed attempts of getting the ghost to speak, the men witnessing this sight wonder about the meaning of this visitation.
The ghost, the late king, is Hamlet’s father. When the apparition appears it had been two months since his death. At this same point, Hamlet’s uncle, Claudius, marries the widowed queen. When Hamlet’s father died, Claudius took over the throne. Hamlet is found among his uncle, his mother, and a group of courtiers in the next scene of the play. The newly crowned king and Hamlet’s mother are convincing him to stay in Denmark instead of returning to school in Wittenburg. The reader gets a sense of Hamlet’s true feelings about the marriage once the crowd exits. He is troubled by his uncle and mother’s marriage, and refers to the union as incest (Ham.1.2.).
Hamlet’s thoughts are interrupted with the entrance of the men who witnessed the ghost’s appearance. The men then reveal information about the ghostly sightings to the young prince. When Hamlet hears about the apparition, he decides to confront it himself. He believes that this appearing of his father is a sign of bad things- “My father’s spirit in arms! All is not well; / I doubt some foul play: would the night were come! / Til then sit still, my soul: foul deeds will rise, / Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes” (Ham.1.2.). It is in this confrontation that the ghost reveals to Hamlet’s ears that he was murdered by King Claudius- “Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand, / Of life, of crown, or queen, at once dispatched” (1.4.). Thus begins the main plot of Hamlet.
Throughout the rest of the story Hamlet fakes madness contemplating how and when would be best to kill his uncle who committed the murder. All believe he has gone mad. Ophelia, Hamlet’s love, is badly mistreated in the midst of his plot. He tells her- “You should have not believ’d [sic] me; for virtue cannot so inoculate / our old stock but we shall relish of it: I loved you not” (Ham.3.1.). He also tells her to go join a convent to refrain from marrying with the traitorous men of Denmark (3.1.). His fits lead him to conduct a play causing the conviction of his uncle. He also accidentally murders a man when confronting his mom about the incestuous, deceitful relationship between her and his uncle. Is it genius or really madness?
In the end, the theme of tragedy becomes a reality. Hamlet escapes death at the hands of his uncle by condemning two other men, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to their deaths instead of taking the blade himself. Polonius, Ophelia and Laertes’ father, was the man Hamlet accidentally killed in his fit. Ophelia then goes mad and accidentally kills herself in her insanity. Laertes returns to mourn his father’s death and ends up mourning his sister’s as well. He finds out Hamlet is the cause and challenges him to a duel. Hamlet’s uncle plots with Laertes on how to make the duel a permanent loss for Hamlet. This plot goes extremely wrong, however. The king plots to poison Hamlet by drink. Unfortunately, the queen drinks instead and agonizingly dies. Laertes dips the tip of his weapon in poison saying, “I will do’t [sic]: / And for that purpose I’ll anoint my sword. / I bought an unction of a mountebank / So mortal that, but dip a knife in it, / Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare, / Collected from all simples that have virtue / Under the moon, can save the thing from death / that is but scratched withal. I’ll touch my point / With this contagion, that if I gall him slightly / It may be death” (Ham.4.7.). He does cut Hamlet to infect him, but a sudden twist of events causes Hamlet to also cut Laertes with the same sword. Laertes before breathing his last breath confesses the plot to Hamlet: “It is here, Hamlet. Hamlet, thou art slain; / No medicine in the world can do thee good; / In thee there is not half an hour of life. / The treacherous instrument is in thy hand, / Unbated and envenomed. The foul practice / Hath turned itself on me; lo, here I lie, / Never to rise again: Thy mother’s poisoned: / I can no more:-- the king, the king’s to blame” (5.2.). Before Hamlet dies, he takes his revenge by stabbing his uncle with the poisoned sword and forcefully causing him to drink the rest of the poison drink. Thus ends Shakespeare’s great tragedy- Hamlet.

Interpretation. Hamlet is indeed a great tragedy written by the hand of one of the greatest authors that ever lived. Spencer says "No comparable work of art has been so much discussed as this tragedy" (305). One would readily admit the greatness of this work. Shakespeare reveals the ideal of tragedy by utilizing and illustrating five main themes- the supernatural, revenge, madness, conscience, and divine providence. These various themes keep the reader interested in every scene.
The play begins with an air of tragedy by utilizing the theme of the supernatural. It begins gloomily with the quick introduction of a ghostly figure stalking the grounds of Denmark. The night is cold and dark. There is a slight fog rolling in. The ghost appears. He slowly and gloomily walks around the ground. The men spot him. He won’t talk- just stares. These images from the first scene so well decorate the rest of the play in tragedy. It is gloomy and dark. The supernatural world is at work. “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” (Ham.1.4.).
The next utilization of theme to reveal tragedy is the theme of revenge. Hamlet is known as a revenge tragedy. The whole play centers on a Prince’s plot to avenge his father’s death. Hamlet is fulfilling his “sacred duty” to his father but plotting vengeance on his uncle as the ghost reveals in the beginning (Spencer 314). Revenge is the whole center of the play. Hamlet, as seen in another one of the plays themes, feigns madness in order to distract from his plotting revenge. His conscience, another theme, helps display the true purpose of the young prince- revenge. The whole entire play is the story of revenge for a death of a most beloved king and father.
Madness is another theme Shakespeare utilizes for his tragic air. The way Shakespeare uses this madness gives the air of tragedy. He has Hamlet fake madness in order to disguise the plot of revenge commanded by the ghost. Hamlet’s “madness” sends him to scare the people he loves- Ophelia and his Mother. Ophelia is mistreated in a fit. She is put out to trap Hamlet and he yells and rants about how he does not love her. His mother gets the brunt of Hamlet’s feigned madness in a confrontation in her bed chamber. He does inform his mother it is a fake madness, but the damage is already done. One, however, is assumed to not fall for his fake madness. Holzknecht claims Claudius did not accept the idea of madness. “Claudius and Polonius, in hiding, watch the encounter between Hamlet and Ophelia, with the result that Claudius is convinced that love is no cause of Hamlet's melancholy. He evens doubts that it is madness At all, scents danger to himself, and resolves that "madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go” (Holzknecht 334). Ophelia too goes mad, but her madness is not faked. She loses all her senses when her father dies by the hand of Hamlet. Her insanity leads her to death. Madness is used to severely hurt people emotionally and physically. Therefore, the theme of madness is an aid to tragedy.
The next theme to reveal tragedy is that of conscience. Conscience seems to be the undoing of the whole plot of both Hamlet and Claudius. Hamlet is uncertain about the ghost’s real message. He cannot kill his uncle if the ghost is really a demon. Spencer and Joseph point out the belief in demonic possession of humans and recently dead spirits during the time period of Hamlet (Spencer 315 and Joseph 32-35). He uses the play “Mousetrap” to catch the true conscience of the king. Joseph does an excellent job in showing this idea in his book, Conscience and the King. He argues the play is to catch the conscience of the king (Joseph 74). That is exactly what Hamlet does. The king’s conscience is also revealed in the midst of the play. He goes in a fit during the play showing his uneasiness. The next scene, Claudius is seen praying because of his guilt of his brother’s murder. He does indeed have a conscience. This is also where Hamlet hesitates taking his revenge because of Claudius’ prayers. Spencer says, “The Prince postpones his vengeance, not because he is weak, but because he is strong enough to wait till he can make it complete" (Spencer 315). The belief was that when one prayed and confessed they were clean and could go to heaven, but if the person was not confessed at the time of murder then he would go to hell (Spencer 315). Holzkneck claims that the play gives away each of the men’s secrets to the other (Holzknecht 335). Because Hamlet was successful in revealing the king’s conscience, his revenge was put off. Because Hamlet was too outright in the play’s design, the king now knows Hamlet’s mind.
The last theme in the outworking of tragedy is that of divine providence. The idea of divine providence is that each character gets what he deserves. Revenge is achieved and punishment is dealt. Hamlet plots during the whole play to conduct revenge against his uncle’s sin of murder. In order for this to be achieved, Hamlet has to kill his uncle but also ends up killing another man. Therefore, in the end he not only achieves his purpose in punishing his uncle, but he is too punished by Laertes. The queen gets her seeming punishment by also losing her life. Lastly, Laertes in his sinful plot dies as his punishment. So, another tragic event- everyone dies per divine providence. Something was at work to make this whole scene occur. Could it be God? Is His hand somehow at work? Whether Shakespeare was revealing God’s hand in this play or not is uncertain, but what is certain is each character seems to get a punishment of death.
Hamlet is a great play of tragedy. It has the supernatural, revenge, madness, conscience, and divine providence. The air of tragedy is all throughout the play thanks to the wise hand of William Shakespeare. It seems Spencer is correct in his reasoning’s of Hamlet’s popularity. He says- “this play has everything” (306). One of the greatest authors of all time created a masterpiece in his great revenge tragedy, Hamlet.



Works Cited
Spencer, Hazelton The Art and Life of William Shakespeare. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1940. Print.
Joseph, Bertram. Conscience and the King. London: Chatto and Windus, 1953. Print.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Lexington: Cricket House Books, 2010. Print.
Holzknecht, Karl J. The Backgrounds of Shakespeare's Plays. New York: America Book Company, 1950. Print.

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