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Why should you read "Hamlet"? - Iseult Gillespie
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- "Who’s there?" Whispered in the dark,
- this question begins a tale of conspiracy, deception and moral ambiguity. And in a play where everyone has something to hide,
- its answer is far from simple. Written by William Shakespeare between 1599 and 1601,
- "Hamlet" depicts its titular character haunted by the past, but immobilized by the future.
- Mere months after the sudden death of his father, Hamlet returns from school a stranger to his own home,
- and deeply unsure of what might be lurking in the shadows. But his brooding takes a turn
- when he’s visited by a ghost that bears his father’s face. The phantom claims to be the victim of a “murder most foul,”
- and convinces Hamlet that his uncle Claudius usurped the throne and stole queen Gertrude’s heart.
- The prince’s mourning turns to rage, and he begins to plots his revenge
- on the new king and his court of conspirators. The play is an odd sort of tragedy,
- lacking either the abrupt brutality or all-consuming romance that characterize Shakespeare’s other work in the genre.
- Instead it plumbs the depths of its protagonist’s indecisiveness, and the tragic consequences thereof.
- The ghost’s revelation draws Hamlet into multiple dilemmas– what should he do, who can he trust,
- and what role might he play in the course of justice? These questions are complicated by a tangled web of characters,
- forcing Hamlet to negotiate friends, family, court counselors, and love interests–
- many of whom possess ulterior motives. The prince constantly delays and dithers over how to relate to others,
- and how he should carry out revenge. This can make Hamlet more than a little exasperating,
- but it also makes him one of the most human characters Shakespeare ever created. Rather than rushing into things,
- Hamlet becomes consumed with the awful machinations of thinking itself. And over the course of the play,
- his endless questions come to echo throughout our own racing minds. To accomplish this,
- Shakespeare employs his most introspective language. From the usurping king’s blazing contemplation of heaven and hell,
- to the prince’s own cackling meditation on mortality, Shakespeare uses melancholic monologues to breathtaking effect.
- This is perhaps best exemplified in Hamlet’s most famous declaration of angst: "To be or not to be—that is the question:
- Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
- Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And, by opposing, end them."
- This monologue personifies Hamlet’s existential dilemma: being torn between thought and action,
- unable to choose between life and death. But his endless questioning raises yet another anxiety:
- is Hamlet’s madness part of a performance to confuse his enemies, or are we watching a character on the brink of insanity?
- These questions weigh heavily on Hamlet’s interactions with every character. And since he spends much of the play facing inward,
- he often fails to see the destruction left in his wake. He’s particularly cruel to Ophelia,
- his doomed love interest who is brought to madness by the prince’s erratic behavior. Her fate is one example of how tragedy could have been easily avoided,
- and shows the ripple effect of Hamlet’s toxic mind games. Similar warning signs of tragedy are constantly overlooked throughout the play.
- Sometimes, these oversights occur because of willful blindness– such as when Ophelia’s father dismisses Hamlet’s alarming actions
- as mere lovesickness. At other points, tragedy stems from deliberate duplicity–
- as when a case of mistaken identity leads to yet more bloodshed. These moments leave us with the uncomfortable knowledge
- that tragedy evolves from human error– even if our mistake is to leave things undecided.
- For all these reasons, perhaps the one thing we never doubt is Hamlet’s humanity. But we must constantly grapple with who the “real” Hamlet might be.
- Is he a noble son avenging his father? Or a mad prince creating courtly chaos?
- Should he act or observe, doubt or trust? Who is he? Why is he here?
- And who’s out there– waiting in the dark?