Hamlet

Hamlet

The tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare at an uncertain date between 1599 and 1602. Shakespeare’s Hamlet is the longest play and is ranked among the most powerful and influential tragedies in English Literature, with a story capable of “seemingly endless retelling and adaptations by others”. The play’s structure and depth of characterization have inspired much critical scrutiny.  It is a story of a man who is innocent, moral and pure by acts and emotions but misfortune leads him to death and so many people also. Hamlet is pure by acts and soul but when this play opens we find that he is innocent but his father’s ghost instigates him to take revenge of his father’s death and his mother’s hasty marriage with Hamlet’s uncle (Claudius). The story is this entire thing, so we can say it as a “Revenge Play”.

             In Hamlet the young prince Hamlet comes home to Denmark to attend his dead father’s funeral. Hamlet gets shocked when he learns that his mother (Gertrude) has already married his uncle (Claudius). After the funeral at night a ghost walks the ramparts of Elsinore Castle in Denmark. It was first seen by a pair of watchmen than by the scholar Horatio, the ghost resembled the recently deceased king Hamlet, whose brother Claudius had inherited the throne and married his widow wife Queen Gertrude. When Horatio brings Hamlet the son of dead king Hamlet and Gertrude to the ghost, the ghost speaks, declares ominously that it is his father’s spirit and how he was murdered none other by Claudius. Ordering Hamlet to seek revenge on the man who usurped his throne and married his wife, the ghost said-

                                   [“Ghost

                      I am the father’s spirit

         Doom’d for a certain term to walk the night,

                    And for the day confined to fast in fires,

     Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature

Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid

          To tell the secrets of my prison- house,

     I could a tale unfold whose lightest word

Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,

              Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their

                                    spheres,

                  Thy knotted and combined locks to part

                  And each particular hair to stand an end,

                     Like quills upon the fretful porpentine:

                        But this eternal blazon must not be

                to ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list!

                         If thou didst ever thy dear father love—

                             Hamlet

                                O God!

                                 Ghost

   Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.”]  

Saying this ghost disappears with the dawn. Prince Hamlet devotes himself for avenging his father’s death, but as he is contemplative and thoughtful by nature, he delays entering into a deep melancholy and even apparent madness. There is tension and supernatural mystery in the beginning of the novel. We feel this tension when at the opening scene Francisco feels nervous.

          Claudius and Gertrude get worried about the Prince’s erratic behaviour and attempt to discover its cause. They employ a pair of Hamlet’s friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to watch him. When Polonius, the pompous Lord Chamberlain, hears this he says that Hamlet may be mad with love for his daughter, Ophelia, Claudius agrees to spy on Hamlet in conversation with the girl. But though Hamlet seemed mad, he didn’t seem to love Ophelia; he orders Ophelia to enter a nunnery and declares that he wishes to ban marriages.  He loves Ophelia but he cannot admit that and Ophelia also loves Hamlet, and Ophelia thinks about Hamlet that,

              Oh, what a noble mind is here o'er thrown!-

The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword,

               Th’ expectancy and rose of the fair state,

            The glass of fashion and the mould of form.

  A group of travelling actors comes to Elsinore, and Hamlet seizes upon an idea to test his uncle’s guilt and the name of the play was The Murder of Gonzago. He said the players to perform a scene closely resembling the sequence by which Hamlet thinks his uncle to have murdered his father, so that if Claudius is guilty, he will surely react. When the murder scene arrives in the theater, Claudius leaps up and leaves the room. Hamlet and Horatio agrees that this proves his guilt. Hamlet goes to kill Claudius but finds him praying. He thought that killing Claudius while praying would send his soul to Heaven, which Hamlet didn’t want and Hamlet considered it as an inadequate revenge and decided to wait. Claudius frightened of Hamlet’s madness and fearing for his own safety ordered that Hamlet should be sent to England at once.

           Before leaving Hamlet went to confront his mother, in whose bedchamber Polonius was hiding behind a tapestry. Hearing a noise from behind the tapestry, Hamlet believes that the King is hiding there and he impulsively drags his sword out and without seeing stabs Polonius through the fabric. Claudius punishes Hamlet for Polonius’s death by exiling him to England with his friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Claudius’s plan includes more than banishment, as he has given Rosencrantz and Guildenstern sealed orders for the King of England demanding that Hamlet be put to death. Hamlet discovers the plot and arranges for the hanging of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern instead. Ophelia distraught over her father’s death and Hamlet’s behaviour drowns while singing sad love songs bemoaning the fate of a spurned lover. Her brother Laertes falls next. Polonius’s son, Laertes, who has been staying in France, returns to Denmark in a rage. Claudius convinces him that Hamlet is responsible for his father’s and sister’s death. Hamlet is very lucky person because the ship by which he was sent to England got attacked by the pirates. He was saved from being murdered by the English authorities, but for his fight against the pirates he could have been killed in that battle. His boarding the pirate ship shows again his capacity impulsive. Claudius is a scheming villain. He does not take any action against Hamlet for killing Polonius because he has another plan in his mind for putting an end to Hamlet’s life, and Laertes also becomes a part of this plan readily because he has a strong reason to do so. Laertes desires to have his father’s murder as natural as Hamlet’s desire to avenge the murder of his father. However, the method by which he had been convinced by Claudius and which he will try to murder Hamlet is by no means honourable.

             There is also a comic scene in the play after the tragic death of Ophelia. It is so while the grave diggers (clowns) sings in the course of his digging a grave puzzles Hamlet, Horatio says that he is no longer sensitive to death because it has become a habit of him to dig graves. While the second grave digger goes to fetch some liquor Hamlet and Horatio, enter and asks question to the first grave digger. The grave digger and Hamlet engage in a witty game of “chop- logic”- repartee composed of a series of questions and answers. The grave digger says Hamlet that he has been digging graves since the day Old King Hamlet defeated the Old King Fortinbras, the very birthday of Prince Hamlet – “he that’s mad, and sent to England”- thirty years ago. Hamlet mulls over the nature of life and death, and the great chasm between the two states. He tosses skulls and parries with the possibilities of what each may have been in life. He asks the grave digger whose grave he is in, and the grave digger plays with the pun and answers that the grave is one who was a woman. But that amusing dialogue of Hamlet and the grave digger gives place to a tragic situation when Hamlet comes to know about Ophelia’s death that she is no more and dead and the new grave is meant for her. When Ophelia’s body is placed into the grave, Hamlet watches the Queen strew the coffin with flowers. “Sweets to the sweet,” she says; “I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife”. (cliffnotes) Hamlet leaps into the grave and attacks Laertes, who has just cursed him. Hamlet and Laertes argued over who loved Ophelia best. Laertes tries to strangle Hamlet, but attendants separate them. Gertrude decries her son’s madness. Claudius asks Horatio to look after Hamlet and promises Laertes immediate satisfaction. He instructs Gertrude to have her son watched, implying that another death will serve as Ophelia’s memorial.

               Hamlet recalls the events of his escape from the plot of killing him. He tells Horatio that the night when the pirates took him, he was unable to sleep, and he used the opportunity to investigate Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s cabin. Groping in the darkness, he discovered letters addressed to the English King, which he managed to open with surreptitious skill. To his surprise he read that Claudius has asked the King of England to imprison and behead Hamlet as soon as possible. Horatio remains silent until Hamlet hands him the letter. Hamlet says that he immediately conjured a brilliant plan. He composed a second set of letter in the original style ordering that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern should be killed. They both were unaware about the exchange of letters which Hamlet did, and thus according to Hamlet, their demise will be due to their own actions in delivering the letter to the English King. Claudius’s behaviour horrifies Horatio, “what a King is this!” he exclaims. Hamlet reminds him that this is the same King who killed the right King, made Gertrude a whore and robbed Hamlet of his own birthright, at one stroke. Hamlet says that he is sorry about one thing that is; in all this he has to engage Laertes. Osric, a courtier, enters and Hamlet mocks at the man’s flamboyance. Osric tells Hamlet that Laertes invites the Prince for a duel with him. Horatio feels uneasy about the duel and suggests that Hamlet could lose. Hamlet shrugs off any possibility of Laertes’s winning, but says that in any event one cannot avoid one’s destiny. Hamlet must do what he must do. The duel starts, Hamlet asks Laertes to forgive his earlier acts of madness at Ophelia’s grave. He further claims that his madness, not he himself, is responsible for Polonius’s death, and he begs pardon for the crime. Laertes remains stiff and says that he has no grudge. Osric brings the swords and Laertes makes a show of choosing the sword. The King sets wine for the duelists and hold up the cup intended for Hamlet. Osric proclaims a hit in favour of Hamlet and Claudius holds Hamlet’s goblet and takes a drink. Claudius drops a pearl in the wine as a gift to Hamlet. When Hamlet hits Laertes a second time, then Laertes says it to be a mere touch. Claudius assures Gertrude that “Our son shall win”. Gertrude agrees and takes Hamlet’s wine, wipes his brow, and offers him a drink, which he refuses. She then toasts her son, Claudius asks her not to drink, but again she drinks and wipes Hamlet’s brow. Laertes says Claudius that the time has come to hit him with the poisonous tip but Claudius disagrees. Hamlet accuses him of dallying and presses for a third bout. The two fight again and Laertes hits Hamlet with the poisoned tip. Both drop their swords and in the scuffle, Hamlet picks up Laertes’s sword and Laertes picks up Hamlet’s sword. Hamlet hits Laertes with the poisoned sword. Gertrude swoons. Hamlet sees the Queen fall and asks anxiously “How does the Queen?” the King assures him saying that the Queen has fainted seeing the blood, but Gertrude cries out that the drink has poisoned her. Hamlet gets angry and orders the doors to be locked so that the King cannot escape. Laertes reveals the murder plot to Hamlet and says that the sword which is in Hamlet’s hands is being poisoned. In a fury, Hamlet runs the sword through Claudius yelling, “Venom to they work”. Before Claudius died Hamlet poured the poisonous wine down the King’s throat. Hamlet then goes to Laertes who was about to die, the two forgave each other so that none of them is denied from going to Heaven. Laertes dies and Horatio rushes to Hamlet’s side.

              Hamlet tells that he is dead, and asks Horatio “tell my story”. Osric announces the sound of an approaching army, which meant that Fortinbras has arrived defeating the Poles. Hamlet tells Horatio to ensure that the Danish crown passes to Fortinbras. With the words “The rest is silence”, Hamlet dies and Horatio wishes him a gentle rest. Fortinbras appalled by the sight of the mayhem that greets him, “with sorrow” recognizes his right to wear the crown of Denmark, which Horatio collaborates with Hamlet’s words.

        Fortinbras orders that Hamlet be given military honors, “with music and rite of war”. He orders that Hamlet’s body should be a carried “like a soldier”. Fortinbras said that if Hamlet had had the chance, he would “have proved the most loyal”. He ordered the firing of ordnance, with which the play ends.