Hamlet has fascinated audiences and readers
for centuries, and the first thing to point out about him is that he is
enigmatic. There is always more to him than the other characters in the play
can figure out; even the most careful and clever readers come away with the
sense that they don’t know everything there is to know about this character.
Hamlet actually tells other characters that there is more to him than meets the
eye—notably, his mother, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—but his fascination
involves much more than this. When he speaks, he sounds as if there’s something
important he’s not saying, maybe something even he is not aware of. The ability
to write soliloquies and dialogues that create this effect is one of
Shakespeare’s most impressive achievements.
A university student whose studies are
interrupted by his father’s death, Hamlet is extremely philosophical and
contemplative. He is particularly drawn to difficult questions or questions
that cannot be answered with any certainty. Faced with evidence that his uncle
murdered his father, evidence that any other character in a play would believe,
Hamlet becomes obsessed with proving his uncle’s guilt before trying to act.
The standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt” is simply unacceptable to him. He
is equally plagued with questions about the afterlife, about the wisdom of
suicide, about what happens to bodies after they die—the list is extensive.
But even though he is thoughtful to the point
of obsession, Hamlet also behaves rashly and impulsively. When he does act, it
is with surprising swiftness and little or no premeditation, as when he stabs
Polonius through a curtain without even checking to see who he is. He seems to
step very easily into the role of a madman, behaving erratically and upsetting
the other characters with his wild speech and pointed innuendos.
It is also important to note that Hamlet is
extremely melancholy and discontented with the state of affairs in Denmark and
in his own family—indeed, in the world at large. He is extremely disappointed
with his mother for marrying his uncle so quickly, and he repudiates Ophelia, a
woman he once claimed to love, in the harshest terms. His words often indicate
his disgust with and distrust of women in general. At a number of points in the
play, he contemplates his own death and even the option of suicide.
But, despite all of
the things with which Hamlet professes dissatisfaction, it is remarkable that
the prince and heir apparent of Denmark should think about these problems only
in personal and philosophical terms. He spends relatively little time thinking
about the threats to Denmark’s national security from without or the threats to
its stability from within (some of which he helps to create through his own
carelessness).
Hamlet’s major
antagonist is a shrewd, lustful, conniving king who contrasts sharply with the
other male characters in the play. Whereas most of the other important men in Hamlet are
preoccupied with ideas of justice, revenge, and moral balance, Claudius is bent
upon maintaining his own power. The old King Hamlet was apparently a stern
warrior, but Claudius is a corrupt politician whose main weapon is his ability
to manipulate others through his skillful use of language. Claudius’s speech is
compared to poison being poured in the ear—the method he used to murder
Hamlet’s father. Claudius’s love for Gertrude may be sincere, but it also seems
likely that he married her as a strategic move, to help him win the throne away
from Hamlet after the death of the king. As the play progresses, Claudius’s
mounting fear of Hamlet’s insanity leads him to ever greater
self-preoccupation; when Gertrude tells him that Hamlet has killed Polonius,
Claudius does not remark that Gertrude might have been in danger, but only that
he would have been in danger had he been in the room. He tells Laertes the same
thing as he attempts to soothe the young man’s anger after his father’s death.
Claudius is ultimately too crafty for his own good. In Act V, scene ii, rather
than allowing Laertes only two methods of killing Hamlet, the sharpened sword
and the poison on the blade, Claudius insists on a third, the poisoned goblet.
When Gertrude inadvertently drinks the poison and dies, Hamlet is at last able
to bring himself to kill Claudius, and the king is felled by his own cowardly
machination.
Few Shakespearean characters have caused as
much uncertainty as Gertrude, the beautiful Queen of Denmark. The play seems to
raise more questions about Gertrude than it answers, including: Was she
involved with Claudius before the death of her husband? Did she love her
husband? Did she know about Claudius’s plan to commit the murder? Did she love
Claudius, or did she marry him simply to keep her high station in Denmark? Does
she believe Hamlet when he insists that he is not mad, or does she pretend to
believe him simply to protect herself? Does she intentionally betray Hamlet to
Claudius, or does she believe that she is protecting her son’s secret?
These questions can be
answered in numerous ways, depending upon one’s reading of the play. The
Gertrude who does emerge clearly in Hamlet is a woman defined
by her desire for station and affection, as well as by her tendency to use men
to fulfill her instinct for self-preservation—which, of course, makes her
extremely dependent upon the men in her life. Hamlet’s most famous comment
about Gertrude is his furious condemnation of women in general: “Frailty, thy
name is woman!” (I.ii.146). This comment is as much indicative of Hamlet’s
agonized state of mind as of anything else, but to a great extent Gertrude does
seem morally frail. She never exhibits the ability to think critically about
her situation, but seems merely to move instinctively toward seemingly safe
choices, as when she immediately runs to Claudius after her confrontation with
Hamlet. She is at her best in social situations (I.ii and V.ii), when her
natural grace and charm seem to indicate a rich, rounded personality. At times
it seems that her grace and charm are her onlycharacteristics, and
her reliance on men appears to be her sole way of capitalizing on her
abilities.
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