Hamlet

The story of the play originates in the legend of Hamlet (Amleth) as recounted in the
twelfth-century Danish History, a Latin text by Saxo the Grammarian. This version was later
adapted into French by Francois de Belleforest in 1570. In it, the unscrupulous Feng kills his
brother Horwendil and marries his brother's wife Gerutha. Horwendil's and Gerutha's son
Amleth, although still young, decides to avenge his father's murder. He acts the fool in order to
avoid suspicion, a strategy which succeeds in making the others think him harmless. With his
mother's active support, Amleth succeeds in killing Feng. He is then proclaimed King of
Denmark. This story is on the whole more straightforward than Shakespeare’s adaptation.
Shakespeare was likely aware of Saxo's version, along with another play performed in 1589 in
which a ghost apparently calls out, "Hamlet, revenge!" The 1589 play is lost, leading to much
scholarly speculation as to who might have authored it. Most scholars attribute it to Thomas
Kyd, author of The Spanish Tragedy of 1587. The Spanish Tragedy shares many elements
with Hamlet, such as a ghost seeking revenge, a secret crime, a play-within-a-play, a tortured
hero who feigns madness, and a heroine who goes mad and commits suicide.

The Spanish Tragedy was one of the first and most popular Elizabethan "revenge
tragedies," a genre that Hamlet both epitomizes and complicates. Revenge tragedies typically
share a few plot points. In all of them, some grievous insult or wrong requires vengeance. Often
in these plays the conventional means of retribution (the courts of law, generally speaking) are
unavailable because of the power of the guilty person or persons, who is often noble if not royal.
Revenge tragedies also emphasize the subjective struggle of the avenger, who often fights (or
feigns) madness and generally wallows in the moral difficulties of his situation. Finally, revenge
tragedies end up with a dramatic bloodbath in which the guilty party is horribly and often
ritualistically killed. Hamlet is not Shakespeare's first revenge tragedy - that distinction belongs
to Titus Andronicus, a Marlovian horror-show containing all of the elements just mentioned.
But Hamlet is generally considered the greatest revenge tragedy, if not the greatest tragedy, if not
the greatest play, ever written.

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 The central reason for the play's eminence is the character of Hamlet. His brooding,
erratic nature has been analyzed by many of the most famous thinkers and artists of the past four
centuries. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe described him as a poet - a sensitive man who is too
weak to deal with the political pressures of Denmark. Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud
viewed Hamlet in terms of an “Oedipus complex,” an overwhelming sexual desire for his
mother. This complex is usually associated with the wish to kill one’s father and sleep with one’s
mother. Freud points out that Hamlet's uncle has usurped his father's rightful place, and therefore
has replaced his father as the man who must die. However, Freud is careful to note that Hamlet
represents modern man precisely because he does not kill Claudius in order to sleep with his
mother, but rather kills him to revenge his father’s death. Political interpretations of Hamlet also
abound, in which Hamlet stands for the spirit of political resistance, or represents a challenge to a
corrupt regime. Stephen Greenblatt, the editor of the Norton Edition of Shakespeare, views these
interpretive attempts of Hamlet as mirrors for the interpretation within the play itself - many of
the characters who have to deal with Hamlet, including Polonius, Claudius, and Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern, also develop theories to explain his behavior, none of which really succeeds in
doing so. Indeed, nothing sure can be said about Hamlet except that it has been a perennial
occasion for brilliant minds to explore some of the unanswerable questions of human existence.

SUMMARY

Something is amiss in Denmark -- for two successive nights, the midnight guard has
witnessed the appearance of the ghost of Old Hamlet, the former King of Denmark who has
recently died. The guards bring Horatio, a learned scholar and friend of Hamlet, Prince of
Denmark, to witness this apparition. Though skeptical at first, Horatio sees the ghost and decides
to report its appearance to Hamlet.

Meanwhile, a new king of Denmark has been crowned: Claudius, Old Hamlet's brother.
Claudius has taken Old Hamlet's widow, Gertrude, as his wife. We watch their marriage
celebration and hear about a threat from the Prince of Norway, Fortinbras, which Claudius
manages to avoid by diplomacy. Hamlet is in attendance at this wedding celebration; he is hardly
in joyous spirits, however. He is disgusted by his mother's decision to marry Claudius so soon

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after his father's demise. Horatio tells Hamlet of the appearance of the ghost and Hamlet
determines to visit the spirit himself.

Meanwhile, the court adviser, Polonius, sends his son, Laertes, back to Paris, where he is
living. Laertes and Polonius both question Ophelia (sister and daughter, respectively) about her
relationship with Hamlet. Ophelia admits that Hamlet has been wooing her. They tell her to
avoid Hamlet and reject his amorous advances, emphasizing the importance of protecting her
chastity. Ophelia agrees to cut off contact.

That night, Hamlet accompanies the watch. The ghost appears once more. Hamlet
questions the ghost, who beckons Hamlet away from the others. When they are alone, the ghost
reveals that Claudius murdered him in order to steal his crown and his wife. The ghost makes
Hamlet promise to take revenge on Claudius. Hamlet appears to concur excitedly. He has Horatio
and the guards swear not to reveal what they have seen.

Act Two finds us some indefinite time in the future. Hamlet has been behaving in a most
erratic and alarming way. Claudius summons two of Hamlet's school friends, Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern, in order to discover the meaning of this strange behavior. Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern's attempts to discover the reason for Hamlet's madness are met with evasion and
witticism. Meanwhile, Polonius hatches a theory of his own: he thinks that Hamlet is insane due
to Ophelia's rejection of his love. He arranges to test his theory by setting Ophelia on Hamlet
when they are apparently alone and then observing the proceedings with Claudius.

Hamlet's only consolation appears to be the coming of a troupe of players from England.
Hamlet asks the player's whether they could play a slightly modified version of a tragedy. We
realize that Hamlet plans to put on a play that depicts the death of his father, to see whether
Claudius is really guilty, and the ghost is really to be trusted.

In Act Three, Ophelia approaches Hamlet when they are apparently alone; Claudius and
Polonius hide behind a tapestry and observe. Hamlet behaves extremely cruelly toward Ophelia.
The king decides that Hamlet is not mad for love of her but for some other hidden reason.

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 Hamlet prepares to put on his play, which he calls "The Mouse Trap." After instructing
the players in their parts, Hamlet retires to the audience, where Claudius, Gertrude, Ophelia, and
Polonius have gathered, along with many others. In the course of the play, both Gertrude and
Claudius become extremely upset, though for different reasons. Gertrude is flustered by Hamlet's
veiled accusation that she was inconstant and hypocritical for remarrying after Old Hamlet's
death; Claudius is shaken because he is indeed guilty of his brother's murder. Claudius decides
that he must get rid of Hamlet by sending him to England.

Following the play, Gertrude calls Hamlet to her room, intending to berate him for his
horrible insinuations. Hamlet turns the tables on her, accusing her of a most grotesque lust and
claiming that she has insulted her father and herself by stooping to marry Claudius. In the course
of their interview, Polonius hides behind a tapestry; at one point, he thinks that Hamlet is going
to attack Gertrude and cries for help. Hamlet stabs Polonius through the tapestry, thinking he has
killed Claudius. When he finds that he has merely killed a "rash, intruding fool," Hamlet returns
to the business of "speaking daggers" to his mother. Just as Gertrude appears convinced by
Hamlet's excoriation, the ghost of Old Hamlet reappears and tells Hamlet not to behave so
cruelly to his mother, and to remember to carry out revenge on Claudius. Gertrude perceives her
son discoursing with nothing but air and is completely convinced of his madness. Hamlet exits
her room, dragging the body of Polonius behind him.

After much questioning, Claudius convinces Hamlet to reveal the hiding place of
Polonius' body. He then makes arrangements for Hamlet to go to England immediately,
accompanied by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Claudius writes a letter to the English court
asking them to kill Hamlet immediately upon his arrival and places the letter with his two
cronies. On their way to the ship, Hamlet and his entourage pass Fortinbras' Norwegian army en
route to a Polish campaign.

Back at Elsinore (the Danish palace), Ophelia has gone mad following her father's death.
She sings childish and bawdy songs and speaks nonsensically. Laertes soon returns to Denmark
with a mob in tow, demanding an explanation of Polonius' death. Claudius gingerly calms the
young man and convinces him that Hamlet was the guilty party.

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 Letters arrive attesting to a strange turn of fortunes on the sea. Hamlet's ship to England
was attacked by pirates, who captured Hamlet and arranged to return him to Denmark for a
ransom. Hamlet sends Claudius an aggravating letter announcing his imminent return. Claudius
and Laertes decide that Hamlet must be killed. They decide to arrange a duel between Laertes
and Hamlet in which Laertes' sword is secretly poisoned so as to guarantee Hamlet's immediate
death. As backup, Claudius decides to poison a cup of wine and offer it to Hamlet during the
contest.

Just as Act Four comes to a close, more tragic news arrives. Gertrude says that Ophelia
has drowned while playing in a willow tree by the river.

Act Five begins at a graveyard. Two gravediggers joke about their morbid occupation.
Hamlet and Horatio arrive and converse with them. Soon, Ophelia's funeral begins. Because
there are doubts about whether Ophelia died accidentally or committed suicide, her funeral lacks
many of the customary religious rites. Laertes bombastically dramatizes his grief, prompting
Hamlet to reveal himself and declare his equal grief at the loss of his erstwhile beloved. After a
short tussle, Hamlet and Laertes part.

Later, Hamlet explains to Horatio that he discovered Claudius' plot to have him killed in
England and forged a new letter arranging for the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. While
they are conversing, Osric, a ridiculous courtier, approaches and proposes the duel between
Laertes and Hamlet. Hamlet eventually accepts this challenge.

The duel begins with Osric as referee. Hamlet wins the first two passes, prompting
Claudius to resort to the poisoned drink. Hamlet refuses the drink. In his stead, Gertrude drinks a
toast to her son from the poisoned cup. After a third pass also goes to Hamlet, Laertes
sneak-attacks the prince and wounds him. A scuffle ensues in which Hamlet ends up with
Laertes' sword. He injures Laertes. Just then Gertrude collapses. She declares that she has been
poisoned. Laertes, also dying, confesses the whole plot to Hamlet, who finally attacks Claudius,
stabbing him with the poisoned sword and then forcing the poisoned drink down his throat.
Hamlet too is dying. He asks Horatio to explain the carnage to all onlookers and tell his story.
Hamlet dies.

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 Just then, Fortinbras arrives at the court, accompanying some English ambassadors who
bring word of the death of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. With all the immediate royalty of
Denmark dead, Fortinbras asserts his right to the crown. He arranges for Hamlet to receive a
soldier's burial.

CHARACTER LIST

● Hamlet

The son of Old Hamlet and Gertrude, thus Prince of Denmark. The ghost of Old Hamlet charges
him with the task of killing his uncle, Claudius, for killing him and usurping the throne of
Denmark. Hamlet is a moody, theatrical, witty, brilliant young man, perpetually fascinated and
tormented by doubts and introspection. It is famously difficult to pin down his true thoughts and
feelings -- does he love Ophelia, and does he really intend to kill Claudius? In fact, it often seems
as though Hamlet pursues lines of thought and emotion merely for their experimental value,
testing this or that idea without any interest in applying his resolutions in the practical world. The
variety of his moods, from manic to somber, seems to cover much of the range of human
possibility.

● Old Hamlet

The former King of Denmark. Old Hamlet appears as a ghost and exhorts his son to kill
Claudius, whom he claims has killed him in order to secure the throne and the queen of
Denmark. Hamlet fears (or at least says he fears) that the ghost is an imposter, an evil spirit sent
to lure him to hell. Old Hamlet's ghost reappears in Act Three of the play when Hamlet goes too
far in berating his mother. After this second appearance, we hear and see no more of him.

● Claudius

Old Hamlet's brother, Hamlet's uncle, and Gertrude's newlywed husband. He murdered his
brother in order to seize the throne and subsequently married Gertrude, his erstwhile
sister-in-law. Claudius appears to be a rather dull man who is fond of the pleasures of the flesh,
sex and drinking. Only as the play goes on do we become certain that he is indeed guilty of
murder and usurpation. Claudius is the only character aside from Hamlet to have a soliloquy in

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the play. When he is convinced that Hamlet has found him out, Claudius eventually schemes to
have his nephew-cum-son murdered.

● Gertrude

Old Hamlet's widow and Claudius' wife. She seems unaware that Claudius killed her former
husband. Gertrude loves Hamlet tremendously, while Hamlet has very mixed feelings about her
for marrying the (in his eyes) inferior Claudius after her first husband's death. Hamlet attributes
this need for a husband to her lustiness. Gertrude figures prominently in many of the major
scenes in the play, including the killing of Polonius and the death of Ophelia.

● Horatio

Hamlet's closest friend. They know each other from the University of Wittenberg, where they are
both students. Horatio is presented as a studious, skeptical young man, perhaps more serious and
less ingenious than Hamlet but more than capable of trading witticisms with his good friend. In a
moving tribute just before the play-within-the-play begins, in Act Two scene two, Hamlet praises
Horatio as his soul's choice and declares that he loves Horatio because he is "not passion's slave"
but is rather good-humored and philosophical through all of life's buffets. At the end of the play,
Hamlet charges Horatio with the task of explaining the pile of bodies to the confused onlookers
in court.

● Polonius

The father of Ophelia and Laertes and the chief adviser to the throne of Denmark. Polonius is a
windy, pedantic, interfering, suspicious, silly old man, a "rash, intruding fool," in Hamlet's
phrase. Polonius is forever fomenting intrigue and hiding behind tapestries to spy. He hatches the
theory that Ophelia caused Hamlet to go mad by rejecting him. Polonius' demise is fitting to his
flaws. Hamlet accidentally kills the old man while he eavesdrops behind an arras in Gertrude's
bedroom. Polonius' death causes his daughter to go mad.

● Ophelia

The daughter of Polonius and sister of Laertes. Ophelia has received several tributes of love from
Hamlet but rejects him after her father orders her to do so. In general, Ophelia is controlled by

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the men in her life, moved around like a pawn in their scheme to discover Hamlet's distemper.
Moreover, Ophelia is regularly mocked by Hamlet and lectured by her father and brother about
her sexuality. She goes mad after Hamlet murders Polonius. She later drowns.

● Laertes

Polonius' son and Ophelia's brother. Laertes is an impetuous young man who lives primarily in
Paris, France. We see him at the beginning of the play at the celebration of Claudius and
Gertrude's wedding. He then returns to Paris, only to return in Act Four with an angry entourage
after his father's death at Hamlet's hands. He and Claudius conspire to kill Hamlet in the course
of a duel between Laertes and the prince.

● Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

Friends of Hamlet's from the University of Wittenberg. Claudius invites them to court in order to
spy on Hamlet. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are often treated as comic relief; they are
sycophantic, vaguely absurd fellows. After Hamlet kills Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
are assigned to accompany Hamlet to England. They carry a letter from Claudius asking the
English king to kill Hamlet upon his arrival. Hamlet discovers this plot and alters the letter so
that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are put to death instead. We learn that they have indeed been
executed at the very close of the play.

● Fortinbras

The Prince of Norway. In many ways his story is parallel to Hamlet's: he too has lost his father
by violence (Old Hamlet killed Old Fortinbras in single combat); he too is impeded from
ascending the throne by an interfering uncle. But despite their biographical similarities,
Fortinbras and Hamlet are constitutional opposites. Where Hamlet is pensive and mercurial,
Fortinbras is all action. He leads an army through Denmark in order to attack disputed territory
in Poland. At the end of the play, and with Hamlet's dying assent, Fortinbras assumes the crown
of Denmark.

● Osric

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The ludicrous, flowery, stupid courtier who invites Hamlet to fence with Laertes, then serves as
referee during the contest.

● The gravediggers

Two "clowns" (roles played by comic actors), a principal gravedigger and his assistant. They
figure only in one scene -- Act Five scene one -- yet never fail to make a big impression on
readers and audience members. The primary gravedigger is a very witty man, macabre and
intelligent, who is the only character in the play capable of trading barbs with Hamlet. They are
the only speaking representatives of the lower classes in the play and their perspective is a
remarkable contrast to that of the nobles.

● The players

A group of (presumably English) actors who arrive in Denmark. Hamlet knows this company
well and listens, enraptured, while the chief player recites a long speech about the death of Priam
and the wrath of Hecuba. Hamlet uses the players to stage an adaptation of "The Death of
Gonzago" which he calls "The Mousetrap" -- a play that reprises almost perfectly the account of
Old Hamlet's death as told by the ghost -- in order to be sure of Claudius' guilt.

● A Priest

Charged with performing the rites at Ophelia's funeral. Because of the doubtful circumstances of
Ophelia's death, the priest refuses to do more than the bare minimum as she is interred.

● Reynaldo

Polonius' servant, sent to check on Laertes in Paris. He receives absurdly detailed instructions in
espionage from his master.

● Bernardo

A soldier who is among the first to see the ghost of Old Hamlet.

● Marcellus

A soldier who is among the first to see the ghost of Old Hamlet.

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 ● Francisco

A soldier.

● Voltemand

A courtier.

● Cornelius

A courtier.

● A Captain

A captain in Fortinbras' army who speaks briefly with Hamlet.

● Ambassadors

Ambassadors from England who arrive at the play's close to announce that Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern are dead.

THEMES

● Death

Death has been considered the primary theme of Hamlet by many eminent critics through the
years. G. Wilson Knight, for instance, writes at length about death in the play: "Death is over the
whole play. Polonius and Ophelia die during the action, and Ophelia is buried before our eyes.
Hamlet arranges the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. The plot is set in motion by the
murder of Hamlet's father, and the play opens with the apparition of the Ghost." And so on and
so forth. The play is really death-obsessed, as is Hamlet himself. As as A.C. Bradley has pointed
out, in his very first long speech of the play, "Oh that this too solid flesh," Hamlet seems on the
verge of total despair, kept from suicide by the simple fact of spiritual awe. He is in the strange
position of both wishing for death and fearing it intensely, and this double pressure gives the play
much of its drama.

One of the aspects of death which Hamlet finds most fascinating is its bodily facticity. We
are, in the end, so much meat and bone. This strange intellectual being, which Hamlet values so

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highly and possesses so mightily, is but tenuously connected to an unruly and decomposing
machine. In the graveyard scene, especially, we can see Hamlet's fascination with dead bodies.
How can Yorick's skull be Yorick's skull? Does a piece of dead earth, a skull, really have a
connection to a person, a personality?

Hamlet is unprecedented for the depth and variety of its meditations on death. Mortality is
the shadow that darkens every scene of the play. Not that the play resolves anything, or settles
any of our species-old doubts and anxieties. As with most things, we can expect to find very
difficult and stimulating questions in Hamlet, but very few satisfying answers.

● Intrigue

Elsinore is full of political intrigue. The murder of Old Hamlet, of course, is the primary
instance of such sinister workings, but it is hardly the only one. Polonius, especially, spends
nearly every waking moment (it seems) spying on this or that person, checking up on his son in
Paris, instructing Ophelia in every detail of her behavior, hiding behind tapestries to eavesdrop.
He is the parody of a politician, convinced that the truth can only be known through the most
roundabout and sneaking ways. This is never clearer than in his appearances in Act Two. First,
he instructs Reynaldo in the most incredibly convoluted espionage methods; second, he hatches
and pursues his misguided theory that Hamlet is mad because his heart has been broken by
Ophelia.

Claudius, too, is quite the inept Machiavellian. He naively invites Fortinbras to march across
his country with a full army; he stupidly enlists Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as his chief spies;
his attempt to poison Hamlet ends in total tragedy. He is little better than Polonius. This political
ineptitude goes a long way toward revealing how weak Denmark has become under Claudius'
rule. He is not a natural king, to be sure; he is more interested in drinking and sex than in war,
reconnaissance, or political plotting. This is partly why his one successful political move, the
murder of his brother, is so ironic and foul. He has somehow done away with much the better
ruler, the Hyperion to his satyr (as Hamlet puts it).

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 It's worth noting that there is one extremely capable politician in the play -- Hamlet himself.
He is always on top of everyone's motives, everyone's doings and goings. He plays Polonius like
a pipe and evades every effort of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to do the same to him. He sniffs
out Claudius' plot to have him killed in England and sends his erstwhile friends off to die instead.
Hamlet is a true Machiavellian when he wants to be. He certainly wouldn't have been as warlike
as his father, but had he gotten the chance he might have been his father's equal as a ruler, simply
due to his penetration and acumen.

● Language

In Act Two scene two Polonius asks Hamlet, "What do you read, my lord?" Hamlet replies,
"Words, words, words." Of course every book is made of words, every play is a world of words,
so to speak, and Hamlet is no different. Hamlet is distinguished, however, in its attentiveness to
language within the play. Not only does it contain extremely rich language, not only did the play
greatly expand the English vocabulary, Hamlet also contains several characters who show an
interest in language and meaning in themselves.

Polonius, for instance, is often distracted by his manner of expressing himself. In Act Two
scene two, for example, he says, "Madam, I swear I use no art at all. / That he is mad, 'tis true:
'tis true 'tis pity, / And pity 'tis 'tis true. A foolish figure, / But farewell to it, for I will use no art."
Of course this is typical Polonius -- absurdly hypocritical, self-enamored, dull-witted. Just as he
is extremely windy in recommending brevity, here he is fussy and "artful" (or affectedly
artificial) in declaring that he is neither of those things. Polonius' grasp of language, like his
political instinct, is quite shallow -- he gestures toward the mastery of rhetoric that seems like a
statesman's primary craft, but he is too distracted by surfaces to achieve any real depth.

Another angle from which to consider language in the play -- Hamlet explores the traditional
dichotomy between words and deeds. In Act Four, when talking to Laertes, Claudius makes this
distinction explicit: "what would you undertake, / To show yourself your father's son in deed /
More than in words?" Here deeds are associated with noble acts, specifically the fulfillment of
revenge, and words with empty bluffing. The passage resonates well beyond its immediate
context. Hamlet himself is a master of language, an explorer of its possibilities; he is also a man

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who has trouble performing actual deeds. For him, reality seems to exist more in thoughts and
sentences than in acts. Thus his trouble fulfilling revenge seems to stem from his overemphasis
on reasoning and formulating -- a fault of over-precision that he acknowledges himself in the
speech beginning, "How all occasions do inform against me."

Hamlet is the man of language, of words, of the magic of thought. He is not fit for a play that
so emphasizes the value of action, and he knows it. But then, the action itself is contained within
words, formed and contained by Shakespeare's pen. The action of the play is much more an
illusion than the words are. Hamlet invites us to consider whether this isn't the case more often
than we might think, whether the world of words doesn't enjoy a great deal of power in framing
and describing the world of actions, on stage or not.

● Madness

By the time Hamlet was written, madness was already a well-established element in many
revenge tragedies. The most popular revenge tragedy of the Elizabethan period, The Spanish
Tragedy, also features a main character, Hieronymo, who goes mad in the build-up to his
revenge, as does the title character in Shakespeare's first revenge tragedy, Titus Andronicus. But
Hamlet is unique among revenge tragedies in its treatment of madness because Hamlet's madness
is deeply ambiguous. Whereas previous revenge tragedy protagonists are unambiguously insane,
Hamlet plays with the idea of insanity, putting on "an antic disposition," as he says, for some
not-perfectly-clear reason.

Of course, there is a practical advantage to appearing mad. In Shakespeare's source for the
plot of Hamlet, "Amneth" (as the legendary hero is known) feigns madness in order to avoid the
suspicion of the fratricidal king as he plots his revenge. But Hamlet's feigned madness is not so
simple as this. His performance of madness, rather than aiding his revenge, almost distracts him
from it, as he spends the great majority of the play exhibiting very little interest in pursuing the
ghost's mission even after he has proven, via "The Mouse Trap," that Claudius is indeed guilty as
sin.

No wonder, then, that Hamlet's madness has been a resilient point of critical controversy
since the seventeenth century. The traditional question is perhaps the least interesting one to ask

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of his madness -- is he really insane or is he faking it? It seems clear from the text that he is,
indeed, playing the role of the madman (he says he will do just that) and using his veneer of
lunacy to have a great deal of fun with the many fools who populate Elsinore, especially
Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Perhaps this feigned madness does at times edge into
actual madness, in the same way that all acted emotions come very close to their genuine models,
but, as he says, he is but mad north-nothwest, and knows a hawk from a handsaw. When he is
alone, or with Horatio, and free from the need to act the lunatic, Hamlet is incredibly lucid and
self-aware, perhaps a bit manic but hardly insane.

So what should we make of his feigned insanity? Hamlet, in keeping with the play in general,
seems almost to act the madman because he knows in some bizarre way that he is playing a role
in a revenge tragedy. He knows that he is expected to act mad, because he thinks that that is what
one does when seeking revenge -- perhaps because he has seen The Spanish Tragedy. I'm joking,
of course, on one level, but he does exhibit self-aware theatricality throughout the play, and if he
hasn't seen The Spanish Tragedy, he has certainly seen The Death of Gonzago, and many more
plays besides. He knows his role, or what his role should be, even as he is unable to play it
satisfactorily. Hamlet is beautifully miscast as the revenger -- he is constitutionally unfitted for
so vulgar and unintelligent a fate -- and likewise his attempt to play the madman, while a valiant
effort, is forced, insincere, anxious, ambiguous, and full of doubts. Perhaps Hamlet himself, if
we could ask him, would not know why he chooses to feign madness any more than we do.

Needless to say, Hamlet is not the only person who goes insane in the play. Ophelia's
madness serves as a clear foil to his own strange antics. She is truly, unambiguously, innocently,
simply mad. Whereas Hamlet's madness seems to increase his self-awareness, Ophelia loses
every vestige of composure and self-knowledge, just as the truly insane tend to do.

● Subjectivity

Harold Bloom, speaking about Hamlet at the Library of Congress, said, "The play's subject
massively is neither mourning for the dead or revenge on the living. ... All that matters is
Hamlet's consciousness of his own consciousness, infinite, unlimited, and at war with itself." He
added, "Hamlet discovers that his life has been a quest with no object except his own endlessly

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burgeoning subjectivity." Bloom is not the only reader of Hamlet to see such an emphasis on the
self.

Hamlet's soliloquies, to take only the most obvious feature, are strong and sustained
investigations of the self -- not only as a thinking being, but as emotional, bodily, and
paradoxically multiple. Hamlet, fascinated by his own character, his turmoil, his inconsistency,
spends line after line wondering at himself. Why can't I carry out revenge? Why can't I carry out
suicide? He questions himself, and in so doing questions the nature of the self.

Aside from these massive speeches, Hamlet shows a sustained interest in philosophical
problems of the subject. Among these problems is the mediating role of thought in all human
life. "For there is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so," he says. We can never know the
truth, he suggests, nor the good, nor the evil of the world, except through the means of our
thoughts. Certainty is not an option. And the great realm of uncertainty, the realm of dreams,
fears, thoughts, is the realm of subjectivity.

● Suicide

Like madness, suicide is a theme that links Hamlet and Ophelia and shapes the concerns of
the play more generally. Hamlet thinks deeply about it, and perhaps "contemplates" it in the more
popular sense; Ophelia perhaps commits it. In both cases, the major upshot of suicide is
religious. In his two "suicide soliloquies," Hamlet segues into meditations on religious laws and
mysteries -- "that the Everlasting had not fixed / His canon 'gainst self-slaughter"; "For in that
sleep of death what dreams may come." And Ophelia's burial is greatly limited by the clergy's
suspicions that she might have taken her own life. In short, Hamlet appears to suggest that were
it not for, first, the social stigma attached to suicide by religious authorities, and second, the
legitimately "unknown" nature of whatever happens after death, there would be a lot more
self-slaughter in this difficult and bitter world. In a play so obsessed with the self, and the nature
of the self, it's only natural to see this emphasis on self-murder.

It's worth mentioning one of the major interpretive issues of Hamlet: was Ophelia's death
accidental or a suicide? According to Gertrude's narration of the event, Ophelia's drowning was
entirely accidental. However, some have suggested that Gertrude's long story may be a

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fabrication invented to protect the young woman from the social stigma of suicide. Indeed, in
Act Five the priest and the gravediggers are fairly certain that Ophelia took her own life. One
might ask oneself -- why does it make such a difference to us whether she died by her own hand
or not? Shakespeare seems, in fact, to inspire this very sort of self-interrogation. Are we, like the
characters in the play, so invested in protecting Ophelia from the stigma of suicide?

● Theater

Which is the star of this play, Hamlet or Hamlet? T.S. Eliot, for one, unequivocally endorses
the latter: "Few critics have ever admitted that Hamlet the play is the primary problem, and
Hamlet the character only secondary." In effect, Hamlet is a play about plays, about theater. Most
obviously, it contains a play within a play, detailed instructions on acting technique, an extended
conversation about London theater companies and their fondness for boy troupes, several
references to other theater (including to Christian mystery plays, and to Shakespeare's own Julius
Caesar), and still more references to the stage on which it is being performed, in the globe theater
with its ghost "in the cellarage."

But what is the point of this constant metatheatrical winking? Hamlet, among other
things, is an extended meditation on the nature of acting and the relationship between acting and
"genuine" life. It refuses to obey the conventional restrictions of theater and constantly spills out
into the audience, as it were, pointing out the "real" surroundings of the "fictional" play, and thus
incorporating them into the larger theatrical experience.

Most specifically, Hamlet is an exploration of a specific genre and its specific generic
conventions. It is the revenge tragedy to end all revenge tragedies, both containing and
commenting on the elements that define the genre. Modern audiences are quite comfortable with
this sort of "meta-generic" approach. Think of modern westerns, heist movies, or martial arts
movies. All of these genres have become almost obligatorily self-aware; they contain references
to past milestones in their respective genres, they gleefully and ironically embrace (or
alternatively reject) the conventions that past films treated with sincerity. Hamlet, in its
relationship to revenge tragedy and to theater more generally, is one of the first dramas of this
kind and perhaps still the most profound example of such post-modern concerns.

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 To put it cutely, Hamlet itself is the main character of the play, and Hamlet merely the
means by which it explores its own place in the history of theater. To make things yet dizzier,
Hamlet seems, deep down, to know that he is in a play, to know that he is miscast, to understand
the theatrical nature of his being. And who's to say that we aren't all merely actors in our own
lives? Surely, from a philosophical perspective, this is one of the basic truths of modern human
life.

MOTIFS

● Incest and Incestuous Desire

The motif of incest runs throughout the play and is frequently alluded to by Hamlet and the
ghost, most obviously in conversations about Gertrude and Claudius, the former brother-in-law
and sister-in-law who are now married. A subtle motif of incestuous desire can be found in the
relationship of Laertes and Ophelia, as Laertes sometimes speaks to his sister in suggestively
sexual terms and, at her funeral, leaps into her grave to hold her in his arms. However, the
strongest overtones of incestuous desire arise in the relationship of Hamlet and Gertrude, in
Hamlet’s fixation on Gertrude’s sex life with Claudius and his preoccupation with her in general.

● Misogyny

Shattered by his mother’s decision to marry Claudius so soon after her husband’s death,
Hamlet becomes cynical about women in general, showing a particular obsession with what he
perceives to be a connection between female sexuality and moral corruption. This motif of
misogyny, or hatred of women, occurs sporadically throughout the play, but it is an important
inhibiting factor in Hamlet’s relationships with Ophelia and Gertrude. He urges Ophelia to go to
a nunnery rather than experience the corruptions of sexuality and exclaims of Gertrude, “Frailty,
thy name is woman” (I.ii.146).

● Ears and Hearing

One facet of Hamlet’s exploration of the difficulty of attaining true knowledge is slipperiness
of language. Words are used to communicate ideas, but they can also be used to distort the truth,
manipulate other people, and serve as tools in corrupt quests for power. Claudius, the shrewd

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politician, is the most obvious example of a man who manipulates words to enhance his own
power. The sinister uses of words are represented by images of ears and hearing, from Claudius’s
murder of the king by pouring poison into his ear to Hamlet’s claim to Horatio that “I have words
to speak in thine ear will make thee dumb” (IV.vi.21). The poison poured in the king’s ear by
Claudius is used by the ghost to symbolize the corrosive effect of Claudius’s dishonesty on the
health of Denmark. Declaring that the story that he was killed by a snake is a lie, he says that
“the whole ear of Denmark” is “Rankly abused. . . .” (I.v.36–38).

GENRE

● Tragedy

Hamlet is one of the most famous tragedies ever written, and in many respects it exhibits the
features traditionally associated with the tragic genre. In addition to the play ending with the
death of Hamlet and a host of others, Hamlet himself is a classic tragic protagonist. As the Prince
of Denmark, Hamlet is a figure whose actions matter to an entire kingdom, which means the
play’s events reverberate through the entire world of the play. Like other tragic heroes, he
displays many admirable traits. Hamlet may have a reputation for moping around Elsinore Castle
with a melancholy disposition, but this is because he grieves his beloved father’s untimely death.
Despite his sadness, Hamlet is an intelligent young man of great potential, as many other
characters recognize. Fortinbras says as much in the final lines of the play: “he was likely, had he
been put on [the throne], / To have proved most royal” (V.ii.373–74). Finally, part of the reason
Hamlet sets out down the dark path to destruction is that he succumbs to increasing isolation. His
isolation amplifies his inwardness, and it also has tragic effects on others. His rejection of
Ophelia, combined with his murder of her father, drives her to madness and, presumably, to
suicide.

For all that it resembles a traditional tragedy, Hamlet also strains the usual conventions of the
genre. One notable example is in the “dark path” that Hamlet embarks on that leads to
catastrophe. In most tragedies it’s clear that the hero is choosing to pursue something they
shouldn’t—in the case of a revenge tragedy, the hero succumbs to a desire for murderous
vengeance. In Hamlet’s case, he seems to have every reason to take vengeance, because Claudius

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really did murder the king and usurp his place, but Hamlet seems ambivalent about the Ghost’s
plea for vengeance, or slow to carry it out. He seems to want to know the truth more than
anything, which doesn’t seem like a tragic choice. The choice he makes that leads to many of the
tragic consequences of the play—such as the death of Ophelia—is his choice to isolate himself
from everyone else, behave erratically, and pretend to be mad.

Another ambiguity in Hamlet’s status as a tragic hero pertains to his tragic flaw. Readers
often identify this as his indecisiveness, which makes sense, given that Hamlet himself
repeatedly berates himself for being slow to take vengeance. Laertes and Fortinbras function as
Hamlet’s foils in this regard; each one acts with surefooted certainty throughout the play.
Indecisiveness is a strange tragic flaw, though, because in most tragedies the flaw helps explain
why the protagonist pursues the wrong things—the flaw is more typically an urge or desire rather
than a passive trait. Hamlet’s indecisiveness does not explain why he murders Polonius, spurns
Ophelia, psychologically manipulates Gertrude, and isolates himself from his peers. In fact, his
indecisiveness is the reason he tends to avoid taking action. Read in this way, Hamlet’s
indecisiveness does not mark a tragic flaw so much as an existential condition—a condition that
today’s audiences often identify with strongly.

Hamlet also belongs to the genre of revenge tragedy in that it features a main character
seeking to avenge a wrong against himself, but Shakespeare satirizes and modifies the genre in
several ways. In traditional revenge tragedies, which Shakespeare’s audience would have been
familiar with, the hero is an active, decisive figure who doggedly pursues a clear villain. The
obstacles he faces are external, and once he sees the opportunity to take his revenge, he seizes it.
Hamlet, on the other hand, struggles mostly with himself in his pursuit of Claudius. His obstacles
are his own indecision and hesitation, and he lets several opportunities to seize revenge pass,
such as when he sees Claudius praying and decides not to kill him. Further, Hamlet only kills
Claudius once his own death is assured, so any satisfaction he gets from his nemesis’s death is
extremely short-lived. In these ways Shakespeare provides the traditional, bloody, action-filled
revenge tragedy with a greater degree of psychological complexity and plausibility.

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