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PLAY SYNOPSIS - HAMLET
A Later Tragedy - the longest Shakespeare play by number of lines (3929)
Hamlet is the son of the late King Hamlet (of Denmark) who died two months before the start of the play. After King Hamlet's death, his brother, Claudius, becomes king, and marries King Hamlet's widow, Gertrude (Queen of Denmark). Young Hamlet fears that Claudius killed his own brother (Hamlet's father) to become king of Denmark, greatly angering Hamlet. Two officers, Marcellus and Barnardo, summon Hamlet's friend
Horatio and later Hamlet himself to see the late King Hamlet's ghost appear at midnight. The ghost tells Hamlet privately that Claudius had indeed murdered King Hamlet by pouring poison in his ear. Hamlet is further enraged and plots of how to revenge his father's death.
In his anger, Hamlet acts like a madman, prompting King Claudius, his wife
Gertrude and his advisor Polonius to send Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spy on Hamlet and figure out why he is acting mad. Hamlet even treats Polonius' daughter Ophelia rudely, prompting Polonius to believe Hamlet is madly in love with her, though Claudius expects otherwise. Polonius, a man who talks too long-windedly, had allowed his son Laertes to go to France (then sent Reynaldo to spy on Laertes) and had ordered Ophelia not to associate with Hamlet. Claudius, fearing Hamlet may try to kill him, sends Hamlet to England. Before
leaving however, Hamlet convinces an acting company to reenact King Hamlet's death before
Claudius in the hopes of causing Claudius to break down and admit to murdering King Hamlet. Though Claudius is
enraged he does not admit to murder. Hamlet's mother tries to reason with Hamlet after the play, while Polonius spied on them from behind a curtain. Hamlet hears Polonius, and kills him through the curtain, thinking the person is Claudius. When finding out the truth, Hamlet regrets the
deat, yet Claudius still sends him to England, accompanied by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern with orders from Claudius that the English kill Hamlet as soon as her arrives.
After Hamlet leaves, Laertes returns from France, enraged over Polonius' death. Ophelia reacts to her father's death with utter madness and eventually falls in a stream and drowns, further angering Laertes. En route to England, Hamlet finds the orders and changes them to order Rosencrantz and Guildenstern killed,
which takes place, though Hamlet is kidnapped by pirates one day later. The pirates return Hamlet to Claudius (for a ransom), and Claudius tries one last attempt to eliminate Hamlet: he arranges a sword duel between Laertes and Hamlet. The trick, however, is that the tip of Laertes' sword is poisoned. As a backup precaution, Claudius poisons the victory cup in case Hamlet wins. During the fight, the poisoned drink is offered to Hamlet, he declines, and instead his mother, Gertrude, drinks it (to the objection of Claudius). Laertes, losing to Hamlet, illegally scratches him with the poisoned sword to ensure Hamlet's death. Hamlet (unknowingly), then switches swords with Laertes, and cuts and poisons him. The queen dies, screaming that she has been poisoned and Laertes, dying, admits of Claudius' treachery. Weakening, Hamlet fatally stabs Claudius, Laertes dies, and Hamlet begins his death speech. Though Horatio wants to commit suicide out of sorrow, Hamlet entreats him to tell the story of King Hamlet's death and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's deaths to all. Fortinbras, the prince of Norway, arrives from conquest of England, and Hamlet's last dying wish is that Fortinbras become the new King of Denmark, as happens.
ANALYSIS
The Inner Turmoil of Hamlet
Within the play there exists many puns and phrases which have a double
meaning: ittle ploys on words which add a bit of entertainment to the dialogue of the play. These forked-tongue phrases are used by Shakespeare to cast an insight to the characters
to give them more depth and substance. However, most importantly these phrases cause the reader or audience to think. They are able to show a double meaning that not all people would pick up on, which is the purpose of the comments.
Little is known about Shakespeare’s life, other than he was a playwright whose works serve to
mould literary casts for ages to come. This was his occupation; he wrote and directed plays to be performed.
If people did not like what he wrote then he would not earn any money. If the people didn’t like what they saw, he became the starving artist. Shakespeare wrote these dialogues in such a manner as to entertain both the
nobility as well as the peasants.
The Shakespearean theatre is a physical manifestation of how Shakespeare catered to more than one social class in his theatrical productions. These Shakespearean
theatres had a unique construction which had specific seats for the wealthy, and likewise, a designated separate standing section for the
commoners. This definite separation of the classes is also evident in Shakespeare’s writing, in as such that the nobility of the productions speak in poetic iambic pentameter, whereas the peasants speak in ordinary prose. Perhaps Shakespeare incorporated these double meanings to the lines of his characters with the intent that only a select amount of his audience were meant to hear it in either its double meaning, or its true meaning.
However, even when the tragic hero Hamlet's wordplay is intentional,
it is not always clear as to what purpose he uses it. To confuse or to clarify? Or to control his own uncensored thoughts? The energy and turmoil of his mind brings words thronging into speech, stretching, over-turning and contorting their implications. Sometimes Hamlet has to struggle to use the simplest words repeatedly, as he tries to force meaning to flow in a single channel. To Ophelia, after he has encountered her in her loneliness, "reading on a book," he repeats five times "Get thee to a nunnery," varying the phrase very little, simply reiterating what was already said by changing "get" to "go." This well known quote, to this day cannot be deciphered in its entirety, for nunnery is a place where nuns live, yet it is also a brothel. Hamlet seems to knowingly cast a shade of confusion into the minds of the audience…or is it in fact clarity within confusion. That is, the audience is able to better understand the thoughts and inner struggle of Hamlet via these conflicting terms.
After Hamlet has visited his mother "all alone" in her closet and killed
Polonius, after she has begged him to "speak no
more" and after his father's ghost has reappeared, Hamlet repeats "Good night" five times, with still fewer changes in the phrase than "Get thee to a nunnery" and those among accompanying words only.
So Hamlet seems to be struggling to contain his thoughts even by use of these simple words, rather than enforcing a single and simple message as a first reading of the text might suggest; and the words come to bear deeper, more ironic or more blatant meanings. It is from these phrases which even manage to confuse the complex mind of Hamlet that we begin to get a glimpse into the intentions of
Hamlet's mind, and seeing just exactly the way he ticks.
Much of the dramatic action of this tragedy is within the head of Hamlet, and wordplay represents the amazing, contradictory, unsettled, mocking nature of that mind, as it is torn by disappointment and positive love, as Hamlet seeks both acceptance and punishment, action and stillness, and wishes for consummation and annihilation within a world he perceives to be against him. He can be abruptly silent or vicious; he is capable of wild laughter and
tears and also playing polite and sane. The narrative is a kind of mystery and chase, so that, underneath the various guises of his wordplay, we are made keenly aware of his inner dissatisfaction, and come to expect some resolution at the end of the tragedy, some unambiguous "giving out" which will report Hamlet and his cause aright to the unsatisfied among the reader/audience . Hamlet himself is aware of this expectation as the end approaches, and this still further whets our anticipation for what is to become.
A commonly recurring theme throughout the play is that of honesty. It is introduced in the beginning of the play and as the play continues, its use becomes more and more common, as well as more and more ironic. This theme within the play itself is ironic, for as Marcellus said "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark" and this corruption we see so exhibited in the play is far from honest.
When Hamlet applies the word honest to the main characters of the play, his use of
it becomes undeniably ironic and much of the dark humor of the play derives from Hamlet's wordplay. Polonius marks that though Hamlet's insults seem to make no
sense "yet there is method in 't." In Act II, it is Polonius that is the first target of Hamlet's irony of the use of honest. Hamlet calls him first a "fishmonger" which itself has many meanings, including the implication that Ophelia is a whore and Polonius is her pimp. And of course, Polonius has employed his daughter in his plot to discover the depth of Hamlet's "madness." When Polonius says he is not a fishmonger, Hamlet replies "Then I would you were so honest a man." In other words, he wishes Polonius was as honest as a simple fish seller, or even more insulting, as honest as the pimp Hamlet insinuated he was.
In this scene, Hamlet also uses this ironic meaning of honesty against Rosencrantz and Guildenstern when he tells them "...I will not sort you with the rest of my servants, for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am most dreadfully attended." He seems to mean that he cannot speak to them with honesty, because they themselves are dishonest in their intents.
Honesty resonates as a theme in Hamlet because nothing is as it seems in Denmark. The King deceives the world and pretends a legitimacy he does not have; Hamlet deceives the court by feigning madness; Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern all try to deceive Hamlet into revealing why he is distraught, and no one knows what is truth and what is a lie. The world has not grown honest, as Rosencrantz claims, but dishonest, and no one who lives in it can keep his honesty pure from the corrupting air.
Hamlet seems to be the character who uses the majority of such puns and phrases in the play. These phrases which have double meaning could represent the inner turmoil which seems to be tearing Hamlet apart. By seeing a definite double meaning to many phrases in the play, we are able to easily see that all is not as it should be. Hamlet’s personality is thrown into chaos. He is in mourning the death of his
father and then his mother marries his uncle. He is enraged at her and on top of all of this he sees the ghost of his father commanding him to avenge his wrongful murder. Yet, amongst all this turmoil,
Hamlet possibly was only playing the part of being crazy. He speaks in riddles and plays on words in order to create a certain suspicion about his sanity. This abnormal activity gives him the ability to sneak
in a few insults without having to directly confront his enemies. It seems to be quite a bit worse if the person who was insulted isn’t exactly sure whether or not they were just insulted. Hamlet is able to interject these insults without even the other character noticing, which is the art of insult
It is this unpredictability of action, this sporadic bouts of insanity and sanity, the inner turmoil brewing within Hamlet which keeps the audience’s interest. Nobody is really sure whether or not Hamlet was insane. Many have theories and beliefs, but Shakespeare never came out and said he definitely is or definitely is not sane.
He only hints. There are valid arguments on either side, for Hamlet Himself said "I am mad but north-northwest":
that is he is only mad about one thing in particular.
The wordplay in Hamlet is a representation of the complexity of the minds of the characters that Shakespeare created. It is a depiction of the inner turmoil within a character struggling with sanity. However, more importantly it is necessary to keep in mind that Shakespeare was a playwright and that the play on words did one thing in particular, which is why Shakespeare lived to write so many plays. Hamlet, because of its wording is entertaining and that made all the difference.
Adapted from: http://papercamp.com/lit35.htm
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