Hamlet
In class, we have frequently mentioned how prince Hamlet is a revenge character more complex than those of traditional precedence. Hamlet is a complex individual and his soliloquies offer particular insight into his motivations and feelings. This short essay will provide a close reading of excerpts from William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet in order to illustrate the effectiveness of Hamlet’s language in his soliloquies as reflective of a protagonist confronting moral dilemma. I will specifically consider religious language and Socratic rhetorical questioning in Hamlet’s speech demonstrates his language as intentional and effective in presenting his vengeance as a legitimate moral dilemma instead of a simple revenge tragedy.
Religious language is important to the effectiveness of the realization of Hamlet’s moral crisis. Being educated in his Christian faith and considering it in his soliloquies presents him as being capable of knowing good from evil. In response to the meeting with the ghost of his father who tells him to kill Claudius, Hamlet questions whether the figure is “a spirit of health or goblin damned… wicked or charitable… (because) thou (the ghost) comest in such a questionable shape” (I. iv. 38-43). These lines represent Hamlet’s concept of good and evil through his use of religious language as he wonders whether the ghost is more “wicked or charitable.” Hamlet also states that this phenomenon, his father appearing as a ghost, is a “questionable shape.” Hamlet’s capacity for reason is presented in this Socratic questioning of the figure before him. While Hamlet is literally questioning the nature of the ghost, this might also represent his questioning of his own motivations to kill Claudius and whether or not killing him would be righteous revenge or simply cold blooded murder. Religious language in his soliloquies represents Hamlet’s Christian values and one side of the dichotomy of his moral dilemma of whether to kill Claudius.
Later, in his most infamous soliloquy, Hamlet questions the question of to be or not to be. Once more Hamlet engages in a dialogue with himself in order to verbalize his moral dilemma in an attempt to understand and act accordingly. The following is an excerpt from the to be or not to be soliloquy:
“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” (III.i.59-61)
The vague rhetorical question of “to be or not to be” parallels a myriad of dualities Hamlet struggles with throughout the play concerning the nature of life versus death, sin versus virtue, action versus inaction. While Hamlet is too often too early dismissed as a victim of madness, his reasoned and rhetorically competent language suggests a firmer grasp of control of his actions. Surely, the man so keenly aware of the effects of his words should also be held accountable for his violent actions. Hamlet himself is cognizant of his paper bullets, or rather daggers, saying “I will speak daggers to her, but use none” (III.ii.366).
In summation, Hamlet’s language is effective in framing the play as a more complex than your typical revenge play. Hamlet’s language characterizes him as the scholar that he is and the religious allusions are reflective of his Christian conscience that complicates his decision to take revenge. Hamlet is a highly self-aware character whose ultimate inhibition to violence represents an Elizabethan fall of Man struggling against the seeming futility and absurdity of the word around him.