Ryan Freiwald

British Literature

Col. Miller

7 December 2017

 

Revenge in Hamlet:

Hamlet is a play written by William Shakespeare that depicts an emotional and dramatic tragedy of a revenge killing involving the main character “Hamlet,” Hamlet’s father, and, the villain, Claudius. Throughout this paper, Hamlets mindset, motivations, and shortcomings will be analyzed along with theories about Hamlets struggle with family, personality, and morbid desires.

The killing of a king was not something that would happen every day in the early modern period and was frowned upon for many different reasons. The first of these reasons would be the religious one. People in England during the early modern time period, and even still today, believed that the office of king was one that should be supported and protected by the people of England but more importantly ordained by God. The people believed that God put kings into their offices and would have them die of natural causes when their purpose was done. For this purpose, people were very much opposed to the rebellious, or vengefully motivated killings of kings because it disrupted the natural order and progression of the royal bloodlines.

The political, social, and religious implications all go hand in hand in this situation. Since, as was just described, people were in the support of whatever king was in place at the time for religious reasons, if a king was killed and the person that killed them was then appointed to the office of king by birth right, they might not be supported by the rest of England. Furthermore, if the king turned out to be a bad king, the people might end up rebelling due to the fact that at the current moment they would not believe that the office was ordained by God. The idea of the office being ordained by God is very important in understand what would really motivate Hamlet to make an attempt at the current king’s life. This is due to the fact that through the office of king, the King was protected from anything that could happen to him that would be supported by the people (i.e. rebellion or political assassination). This leads us into the idea of Hamletism which will be the main focus of this paper.

“Hamletism,” as defined by Dr. Foakes in his essay “Hamlet’s Neglect for Revenge” is “the disillusion, cynicism, or despair” that drives people to do things that they would not normally do. Based on Hamlets dialog, interactions, and experiences, by the end of this paper the reader will be able to understand better the implications of Hamletism and why all of Hamlets actions were guided by a false sense of purpose and honor that were imparted onto him by the ghost of his deceased father. The idea that his father came back as a ghost is also important to take into consideration in this topic. Back in early modern England, people believed that ghost could appear and come back from the dead as apparitions for two different reasons. The reasons are one, that they person was not good enough to get into heaven but not quite bad enough to be in hell so they would haunt earth while they waited in purgatory and two, that they person had some unfinished business that needed to be resolved before they would be able to get into heaven. This all ties into the idea that Hamlet is misguided and lead astray by a desperate apparition of his father that wanted a ticket into heaven through the completion of a task.

Hamlet’s story can only be described as depressing and confusing in the later years of his life. His father was killed and his uncle took over as king of England. This turn of events left Hamlet in search his “individuality in [his] complex relationship with the past.” Someone’s father doesn’t die without the son or daughter being effected as the meaning of the relationship between the father and the child is “inscribed in the name each [person] takes from its forebear.” This, meaning that the personality, past, and present of a person can all be suggested from his/her family name. From all of this, Hamlet is worried that he is not worthy of this family name. When the ghost appears to Hamlet, it conveys to Hamlet a purpose that would result in him being able “to deserve the name.” This purpose was to kill Claudius and “to be a revenger.” This struggle with family identity is the very reasons why Hamlet “can never receive full credit” for just having a sudden “impulse to revenge” upon receiving the information of how his father was killed. The idea was not developed by Hamlet but by ghost and his “radical identification of son with father that their undifferentiated name suggests.”

The ghost is very convincing in the way that it conveys to Hamlet that due to the relationship between father and son, he would end up killing Claudius due to the “inescapable imitative nature” that a son has for his father (Kastan). So what does this have to do with Hamletism? Hamletism, by nature needs two main ingredients for it to effect a person or a group of people. These ingredients are crisis that causes “the disillusion, cynicism, or despair” and a person that can provide a purpose that makes sense (Foakes). The ghost was able to understand the despair that Hamlet felt from losing his father and was able to provide him with a purpose that he suggested would help him get in touch with who he really was and heal is “wounded name” (Kastan).

Hamlets actual state of mind while he is plotting how to kill his uncle, although described in great detail in the play, is still arguable up to the interpretation of the reader. Mercer argues that “however much revenge and satire may share a manic temper, they have, in the end, essentially different objectives. Hamlet states that he is going to pretend that he is going crazy in order to eliminate suspicions that may arise from some of his investigations, however, this does not provide any insight into what would have been “inhibiting [Hamlet] to the possibility of action” in actually carrying out the task. When the act of revenge was proposed to Hamlet he was not very effected by this an accepted the task. However, when missed opportunities continued to pile up, the ghost had to reappear to Hamlet and give him a little extra motivation and reminder. This is where the manic state of mind could come into play.

Hamlet was driven by a purpose but still had objections to the actual task of taking revenge. This why he had to take on a different and more rash personality that would allow him to finish the task at hand. This switch in personality, in which Hamlet’s mind actually cracks and he kills a man by blindly stabbing through a curtain. Hamlet wanted to accomplish the task and be done with it (Mercer). So what does this have to do with the idea of Hamletism? Hamlet was driven by a purpose, not by reason or emotion. Although he was emotionally attached to the situation by the way of his father and the ghostly apparition of his father, it can also be argued that he was emotionally unattached to the actual act that he had to commit in order to accomplish his particular purpose (Mercer).

Hamletism as defined by the creator of the idea, R.A Foakes, is an idea that not only has been used to describe the mindset that Hamlet was in when he was contemplating whether or not to take revenge. Foakes uses many different examples to explain the idea such as “Nazi gas chambers, atomic bombs, and the resurgence of genocide” (Foakes). There are many different ways that this idea can be tied to Hamlet (even if the idea of genocide and atomic bombs is a little more morbid then the idea of Hamlet planning to kill his uncle). Hamlet adopted and idea that was given to him by the ghost of his father, this is similar to the way the German people accepted the ideas of their leader Hitler. Hamlet, although he did not have the idea of killing his uncle until the ghost had pushed him toward it, must have had that idea into his head all along. Hamletism is the idea that a person can be prompted to do something that they would not normally do if they are undergoing a certain amount of “delusion, cynicism, or despair.” The combination of, or the single amount of these types of feelings can cause a person to look for and follow and external source that makes sense and that they believe has the ability to provide them with personal identity again. After all that Hamlet did and planned to do, the read of the play can’t help but think about the mental implications that could come along with these sets of actions. Hamlet’s conscience is something that is not usually discussed in the reading of Hamlet (with the exception of a few references) but it is still something that, throughout the play, effected his decisions and moods. As Catherine Belsey states in her paper “The Case of Hamlet’s Conscience,” that “moral sense inhibits action by generating fear.” This can be taken two different way depending on what part of the play this is mentioned from. The first way that if can be taken is the context in which Hamlet is first told by the ghost that he needs to take revenge.

For the next Act Hamlet plans and misses perfect opportunities but never follows through with what he has agreed to do. This is because morally he knew that taking revenge would be wrong both socially and religiously. Religious reasons should also be mentioned because as could be seen when Hamlet passes up the opportunity to kill Claudius while he is praying, he mentions that he believed if he were to kill him while he was praying then he would probably go to heaven and Hamlet wanted him to go to hell. Although this thought is vengeful to its core, it comes off as more of an excuse. Moving forward, since Hamlet knew it was wrong and the only reason that he had agreed to kill his uncle in the first place was out of fear, he hesitated. This fear comes from topics that have been discussed earlier in this paper such as acceptance from his father and personal identity. The second context that this can be taken is from when he commits to killing his uncle (mostly referring to when he stabs through the curtain). When he stabs through the curtain, whether through fear or rage, he display a drive that has not been seen up until this point throughout the play. At that point in time, he felt that it was his obligation to kill his uncle and he was not going to waste any more time planning out this next move.

 

Conclusion

Throughout this paper, the read has been exposed to many different political, religious, and social aspects that all tie into the idea of Hamletism. This idea, although founded in the Hamlet play, can be tied to other events in history (as was briefly mentioned in this paper) and therefore can be seen as an idea that is bigger than the play itself. Hamletism is the idea that people can be prompted to do things that they, personally, would not otherwise be inclined to do but are incentivized to do so by an outside source. The outside sources can be literature, people, or as could be seen in Hamlet, ghosts but the idea remains the same.

The outside source has to be able to provide a reasonable solution to a personal, ethical, or situational problem that is presented in a way that it seems doable and necessary. In the discussion of Hamletism one of the things that is commonly brought up (which was also brought up in this paper) is the question of whether or not Hamlet had actually gone crazy at some point. Through the research into Hamletism, it can be seen that he had and had not in a sense. He might seem crazy to a reasonable person but in hindsight, this affliction has taken its hold on enough groups of people that instead of crazy, it could be better described as delusional and driven. Both of which, are a powerful combination in accomplishing a task especially if the task is not driven by ones moral compass.

 

Works Cited

• Belsey, Catherine. “The Case of Hamlet’s Conscience.” Studies in Philology2 (1979): 127-148.
• Foakes, Reginald A. “Hamlet’s Neglect for Revenge.” Hamlet: New Critical Essays(2013): 85-99.
• Kastan, David Scott. “” His semblable is his mirror”:” Hamlet” and the Imitation of Revenge.” Shakespeare Studies19 (1987): 111.
• Mercer, Peter. Hamlet and the Acting of Revenge. University of Iowa Press, 1987.
• Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. PDF.