An Introduction to

The Tragedy of Hamlet

To be, or not to be, that is
the question: (III, i, 64-
65)
There are more things in
heaven and earth,
Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in
your philosophy.
(I, v, 186-187)


The Play
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark was
probably written in 1601.
It is commonly considered to be one of Shakespeares
greatest works, and, thus, one of the greatest pieces of
literature ever written.
Hamlet Whats the situation?
Hamlet is Prince of Denmark
As the play opens he has recently returned to Denmark from
Wittenburg, where he is a student. (anachronism).
During his absence from Denmark, his father has died and his
uncle,Claudius, has both married Hamlets mother and
become king.
Hamlet is greatly disappointed that this has all taken place.
He is concerned over the moral appropriateness of his
mothers marriage, his uncles ascension to the throne, and his
own destiny.
The Ghost
Hamlets father was also named Hamlet. (Well call him OLD
HAMLET)
The ghost that appears to Marcellus, Bernardo, Horatio and
Hamlet in Act 1 may not be that of Hamlets father. It may be
an evil being.
It was believed during Shakespeares time that ghosts or other
spirits could take on any shape they chose for their own evil
purposes.
It is important for Hamlet to confirm the true identity of the
ghost before he acts on what the ghost tells him or even believes
that what it tells him is true.
Claudius
Claudius is Hamlets uncle and, as the play opens,
becomes his stepfather as well.
Following the death of Claudius brother ,Old Hamlet,
Claudius has become king by election of the nobles.
He seems to be shown acting very much the king in Act 1,
scene 2. We may ask if he is noble and decisive from his
actions here.
He has also hurriedly married Gertrude, Hamlets mother,
whom he genuinely seems to love.
Gertrude
Gertrude is Hamlets mother and the queen.
Hamlet is very upset that she has married his uncle so soon
after the death of his father.
Is there a suggestion of an illicit affair between Gertude
and Claudius before the death of the elder Hamlet?
The crowning of Claudius seems to have taken place before
Hamlet has had time to arrive from Wittenburg or very
shortly thereafter. Gertrudes marriage to Claudius may
have taken place just prior to the entrance in Act 1, scene 2.
In the original legend, she is the queen and her husband
became the king. Is this part of the Shakespeare version?
Horatio
Horatio is Hamlets friend and confidant. Hamlet suggests
to Horatio that he intends to pretend to be insane (1.5.171-
172), and he relates other secrets to Horatio as the play
develops.
Horatio, in essence, is present to represent the audience
(Greek chorus role) on stage, to ask questions and respond
to Hamlet for us.
Hamlet has to explain to Horatio about the customs of the
Danes. Is Horatio not a native Dane?
Fortinbras
Fortinbras is the prince of Norway.
His father has also recently died (Old Fortinbras), and his
uncle has also assumed the throne in place of the dead
king.
Fortinbras threatens to invade Denmark in revenge and is
seemingly thwarted by Claudius.
As consolation, he is allowed to attack Poland.
Fortinbras takes action against wrongs done to him.
Fortinbras serves as a foil to Hamlet.
Polonius
Polonius is the Principal Secretary of State.
He is somewhat pompous and full of dire warnings.
He is the father of Ophelia (Hamlets girlfriend) and Laertes.
There is a suggestion that he gained his office by supporting
Claudius claim to the crown.
Hamlet mistrusts Polonius because of his suspicion that
Polonius betrayed either his father, Hamlet himself, or both.
Ophelia
Ophelia is Hamlets tragic lady
love.
Does Hamlet really love her,
despite the cruelty he shows her
in Act 3?
How does Ophelias virginity
affect her status in the play?
Is she strong enough to be the help-mate that Hamlet needs
to fulfill his ambition (similar to Lady Macbeth)?
Her madness late in the play models for the audience what
real lunacy is, in contrast to Hamlets act.
Laertes
Laertes is the son of Polonius and the brother of Ophelia.
He is a student at the University of Paris.
Polonius gives him advice to take care of himself at the
expense of others. What does this says about this family and
its values?
Polonius sends a spy to Paris to check up on him.
Laertes is allowed to go back to school when Hamlet is not,
and when Polonius is killed, he springs into immediate action
to get revenge.
Laertes, too, acts as foil to Hamlet.
To put an antic disposition on...
In Act 1, scene 5, lines 171-172, Hamlet tells Horatio that
he will perchance put an antic disposition on.
Hamlet is telling Horatio that, he may begin to act
strangely, but he will only be feigning insanity.
He then warns Horatio not to note that you know aught
of me (1.5.178-179)--Hamlet is asking Horatio not to
give him away to others by revealing that he is only
pretending to be mad.
Insanity
In the pagan world, the insane were thought to be touched
by the gods, perhaps even blessed, and were therefore
treated kindly, though they were also a little feared.
In Shakespeares time, insanity was viewed much
differently. Insanity was a punishment for sins, and the
insane were greatly maligned.
Madness
In choosing to pretend to be mad, in the pagan sense,
Hamlet protects himself from Claudius.
If Claudius were to harm a mad Hamlet, he might
displease the gods and thus bring harm to Denmark.
Hamlet buys time by acting mad. He needs time to
discover if the ghost is truthful.
Shakespeare depended on his audience knowing the
pagan view of madness to explain Hamlets decision to
pretend to be insane.
Hamlets feigned madness
Playing the madman grates on Hamlet.
He is a man of action (1.5) and a warrior (4.4 and 5.2).
Hiding behind this faade conflicts with everything that
defines his sense of himself.
It is a hard act to maintain constantly for months. Thus,
Hamlet must explain I am but mad north-north-west
(3.2.381) to excuse those times when the faade slips.
Does Hamlet Contemplate Suicide?
Hamlet is quite often perceived as being on the verge
of suicide. Is this accurate?
Hamlet rejects the idea of suicide in 1.2.131-132, as
being against Gods will-- would that the
Everlasting had not fixed his canon gainst self-
slaughter!
In his most famous soliloquy then, if he is not
contemplating suicide, what is he musing about?
Experts disagree on Hamlets suicidal intentions
To be, or not to be
The most famous speech in Hamlet is delivered in scene i of
Act 3.
Death, the undiscovered country, is one of the issues to
which he speaks.
Having dismissed the idea of suicide in the first scene in
which he appears to the audience (1.2), what else might
Hamlet mean when he questions, To be or not to be?
The Oedipus Complex
The psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud, borrowed from
Greek myths to name the complexes of human behavior
that he identified.
He referred to the physical desire that a son may feel for
his mother as the Oedipus Complex.
Because Hamlet seems obsessed with his mothers
behavior, some audiences interpret this as evidence that
he suffers from the Oedipus Complex
Does this reveal a flaw in Hamlets character, or is there
a different meaning to his comments?
Oedipus
Oedipus was a Greek hero and
king. It was prophesized that
he would kill his father and
marry his mother, so he was
sent away to be killed at birth.
As in many such stories, the
person charged with his murder
could not carry it out. Oedipus
grew up to fulfill the prophesy.
How Old is Hamlet?
He has returned home from the University
of Wittenburg. This suggests he is fairly
young, perhaps 19 or 20.
His youth may have kept him from the
crown
In the scene above (5, 1), Hamlet is looking at the skull of Yorick,
the jester, who hath borne me on his back a thousand times.
In this same scene, the First Clown, says he has held his job since the
young Hamlet was born, or for thirty years.
Yorick has been in the grave three and twenty years.
Hamlets Age
The rest of the play strongly supports the depiction of Hamlet as
a young man. There are a couple of reasonable explanations,
and even a rather far-fetched one, to account for this
discrepancy:
An uncorrected transcription error that has existed for nearly 400 years
ago and is now part of the canon.
Shakespeare created it as an excuse to allow an older actor play the
role of the young Hamlet.
The Hamlet of Act 5 is significantly different from the Hamlet of the
rest of the play. Is it symbolic of the change?

Hamlet became a pirate and has been at sea for ten years.
Indecisive or a man of action?
Hamlet is sometimes criticized for moping around the
castle instead of just killing Claudius and seizing the
crown. Consider these points:
To kill the king without cause would be regicide and
would not gain Hamlet the throne.
Hamlet wants revenge, but he also wants the throne.
He does take immediate action in choosing to feign
madness to buy himself time.
He needs the time find out if the ghost is honest and to
prove Claudius murdered his father.
What Hamlet wants:
He that hath killed my king, whored my mother//Popped in
between th election and my hopes//Thrown out his angle to
my proper life (5.2.64-66). Hamlet tells the audience exactly
what he wants in this and at least two earlier scenes.
He wants
The crown
Revenge for the murder of his father
To somehow restore his mothers lost virtue
Sources of Hamlet
Hamlet is based on the story of Amleth in Danish mythology.
That character feigns madness in order to avenge his
murdered father.
Subsequent versions of the story and plays introduced
additional elements that are also found in Shakespeare.
Shakespeare chose to make the murder of the father a secret
and to use the ghost to reveal it to the son.
Amleth
The story of Amleth is a revenge tragedy, but it also is in
the category of the Hero as Fool tradition.
In these stories, the hero pretends to be witless or insane,
but his encounters with others show he is much more
clever than they, and he triumphs by virtue of his wits.
The Great Chain of Being
Hierarchy of organization used by
Elizabethans as a philosophy which then
provides authors with a source of allusions
God at the top, angels, men, women, animals,
plants, and rocks below
Queen Eliz. I out of order as a female ruler.


The Great Chain of Being
The Great Chain of Being was a Christian idea that
mapped out Gods natural hierarchy to the world and all its
living creatures, and other inanimate things in nature were
at the bottom of the chain, below plants, insects, and other
less noble creatures. In the animal kingdom, mighty
beasts such as (especially admired in England and France
as war heroes were often given appellations like lion-
hearted), bears, and wolves reigned supreme. But humans
undoubtedly ranked above the rest of the flora and fauna.
The kingwho was apparently God-chosen, according to
absolute doctrines like the Divine Right of Kingsand
clergy were the most important human beings. God,
obviously, was at the very top of The Great Chain of
Being. Since this holy chain was established by almighty
and powerful God, it was considered sinful to disturb it
and doing so would ultimately result in chaos.

Chain contd
Purpose assigned a place
for everything in the
universe
King at top of man
Divine Right of Kings
Lion at top of animal
chain used as a
metaphor for king
Rose at top of plant chain
same metaphor
Gold at top of mineral
chain same metaphor

Women in Hamlet
As a widow, Gertrude would have left the court and been
relegated to a small house as the dowager queen. Marrying
Claudius, the new king, allows her to maintain her title as queen.
What does this say about her character??
Ophelia was a young, unmarried woman who is completely
dependent on her father. She is expected to be obedient and
reject Hamlets advances. She also reports to her father about
Hamlets behavior. Although she is desperate to be loyal to
Hamlet, she must obey Polonius. Have Hamlet and Ophelia
consummated their relationship? How would this affect her
status and her state of mind?

Shakespearean Tragedy
Shakespeare follows Aristotles formula for
tragedy, including catharsis allowing the
audience to experience the pity, sympathy, fear,
and horror the characters feel.
Hamlet as a protagonist is a man of inner strength
and greatness, despite his indecision.
Intrigue, denied love, realistic action, secret
murder, war preparations, drinking, traveling to
far off places all contribute to the excitement of
the play.

Shakespeares Tricks
Anachronism something that is historically out
of place. Example: Hamlet, a 7
th
century Dane,
is a student in Wittenberg, a university founded in
1502. Allows audience to identify with characters
shows Hamlet as a scholar and a skeptic where
ghosts are concerned.
Imagery Claudiuss Denmark is associated with
corruption and disease; Hamlet wears an inky
cloak of grief; Hamlet associates all women with
makeup or artifice hiding their true faces.

Famous Hamlets
Ethan Hawke, below
Sir Lawrence Olivier,
right
Famous Hamlets
Jude Law,
left
Mel
Gibson,
right
Kenneth
Branaugh,
below
Famous Hamlets
Edwin Booth, left
Richard Burton, above