Death is the expression of life. It has a double sense and a double meaning in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”. The funeral ceremony, mourning, revenging, talking with ghosts or committing suicidal acts represent passages in the circularity of life, based on various cultural or religious beliefs.
The Christian tradition implies a funeral ceremony for the dead people. Hamlet’s father did not benefit of such a ceremony after he was murdered by his brother, Claudius, who later took his throne and his wife. Nevertheless, prince Hamlet is permanently mourning him through his acts, through his perceived madness, illusory estate, and mixed thoughts: revenging the death of his father and stating philosophies about life and human condition.
This aspect is the first clue about Hamlet’s dual nature. Being strong and having a critical thinking and a solid judgment is a sign of his androgynous nature. On the contrary, being weak and having delusional moments, mourning and weeping are characteristics that define women, the weaker sex, making Hamlet a bisexual from an attitudinal point of view. Women must express through their sexuality, their fertility and their mourning the stages of life: birth, death and renewal of life (Schaffer 116)
In fact, Schaffer (115) observes that Hamlet is in the intermundus estate, meaning that he communicates with his death father through the act of mourning. The act of mourning is specific to women, but no women in Denmark actually mourned for King Hamlet, not even his wife, Queen Gertrude. Prince Hamlet considers his filial duty to take the role of a woman and to become weakened by grief of losing his father, weeping for him.
The play “Hamlet” indicates that “something’s rotten in the state of Denmark” (Shakespeare 74). Shaffer (115) observes that the source of the bad smell from Denmark comes from the corpse of the unburied King Hamlet. He has not found his peace because he was deprived of the Christian funeral ceremony and as a result he is still haunting his former Kingdom, through the smelly air with which he covers Denmark and through the presence of his Ghost, searching for revenge.
Barber and Wheler (29) advance the hypothesis according to which prince Hamlet is seeing himself in the Ghost of his father, adopting the human – spirit conviction that creates the fundament of Christianity. Just as Jesus considers himself one with God and the Holy Spirit, Hamlet perceives himself as one entity with his death father and his haunting Ghost.
Following this rational, there can be stated that Hamlet is actually targeting the revenge for his own murder. This hypothesis might actually have roots also in the social perception according to which when one loses someone dear, a piece from within that person dies too.
The Ghost might also be Hamlet’s alter ego, his subconscious mind, the symbol of his grief. Shakespeare does offer certain indications for the readers of his play to understand that in fact, is prince Hamlet who is actually the Ghost who haunts the castle.
This would explain his dual character, the fact that he has strong moments of lucidity and free judgment and then he suddenly becomes a different person, both in the way he acts, as in the way he looks. His speech is confusing, he becomes weak, mourning and weeping, acting like a madman. Hamlet scares Ophelia when he enters her room, because of his ghostly appearance:
“Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other/And with a look so piteous in purport/As if he had been loosed out of hell” (Shakespeare 102).
Barber and Wheeler (248) analyze the presence of the Ghost into the play. The Ghost is a symbol of the Purgatory, specific to Catholicism. Therefore, there was introduced a catholic element in the Protestant Denmark. Likewise, the Ghost is interpreted to be either a paganesque Ghost or the devil (West in Barber & Wheeler, 248).
A significant aspect should be mentioned about the Ghost. As it is the symbol of the Purgatory and only Hamlet could see it, this might indicate the fact that he was already in the Purgatory, as he was haunted and distressed with anguish and feelings of revenge. Or another interpretation can be precisely that the entire Denmark was the Purgatory itself, where all the sinners reached to repent for their sins.
Returning to the mourning thematic, which is a part of the funeral ceremony, the play “Hamlet” did imply the weep of a woman – of Ophelia, who cried over her father’s death, who has been murdered by prince Hamlet. Critics consider that the mourning of Ophelia for her father signifies the general cultural representation of the mourning of a woman for a father, which is the lyrical grief that the play needed. This would mean that King Hamlet was also wept by a woman (Schaffer 117).
The suicidal theme is entrenched in the Christian tradition as an action that one must not commit. In Christianity it is considered that one received life from God and only God is the one who decides when to take it. Any action against life (murder or suicide) is considered a sin and individuals are blamed for their action according to the Christianity morals. Hamlet is a good Christian and he respects the religious tradition he was raised in. But only a part of it, considering the fact that he decides against the suicidal idea, but goes on with the murder plan.
This leads to another idea about the suicidal thought. Hamlet did considered suicide, but acted against it, because he did not consider it a noble act. He was a royal son, had noble principles that he needed to follow more than anything else. Because suicidal was against the noble principles, he decided not to do it, although it would have been easier for him. It would have been easier for him because he would not have to face the agony of knowing that his father was murdered, by his uncle and that Claudius, his uncle is sitting on the Denmark throne, married to his mother (Barber & Wheeler 12).
Another idea regarding Hamlet’s though about suicide was that the prince was contemplating what would life be after death and this imposes the discussion of reincarnation. This discussion is a theme in various religious cults. The sustainers of this idea claim that Hamlet was not seriously thinking of suicide, but was solely generating simple philosophies about this act, considering the human condition. On the other hand, Barber and Wheeler (262) consider that Hamlet was considering his own suicide and that he expressed his suicidal thoughts precisely in order to save himself for committing this act. These scholars also consider that Hamlet was using the idea of suicide in order to maintain his “wounded identity” (262).
Nevertheless, the play itself offers clear clues of Hamlet’s suicidal thoughts, explaining his cultural and religious beliefs through his philosophies:
“To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether ‘this 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” (Shakespeare 156).
Nobles and fortune are two criteria that Hamlet indicates in his suicidal consideration. He questions whether to suicide and once taking this action to renounce of nobles and of the fortune (the destiny that God gave) or to fight against the troubles of life, resisting them and ending them. This might be just Hamlet the philosopher talking these words, but philosophies often come from within.
The play “Hamlet” did include a suicidal act – Ophelia killed herself being raged about her father’s murder and by the fact that she was abandoned (by her father and seemingly by Hamlet, who deflowered her). In fact, Ophelia’s mourning and her suicide might have been closely related to the fact that she was seduced and abandoned by Hamlet. Hence, her weep becomes the crying of the sinful Magdalen: “Before you slept with me,/You promised we’d be wed.” (Shakespeare, 249). She takes her life for being betrayed and because she has nobody else in her life: Hamlet scorns her, her brother is away and her father is dead. Ophelia has lost the battle with men and her suicidal indicates that she captured to the androgynous power (Schaffer, 123).
Where Ophelia was weak, Hamlet was strong. Although both contemplated the idea of suicide, Ophelia was the one to actually commit this act and to sleep, not to bear the pain of being victimized or being abandoned (“to die is to sleep” (Hamlet in Shakeaspere, 157)). Hamlet resisted his impulse of taking away his life and rested to the difficulties imposed by life, because he had an oath to keep to his death father: to kill his uncle, Claudius, his father’s killer.
It was therefore the murder of another human being that kept Hamlet from taking his own life. This indicates that the promise made to a father (even a dead father) is stronger than the religious beliefs (as it was stated earlier murder is a sin in the Christian dogma).
Looking at the murder aspect from another angle, even the Christian religion talks about the life after death. After the body is dead, even if murdered the soul continues to exist. The soul reincarnates in another body and as Shaffer (123) observes there is always another life after death. As such, the murder of King Hamlet signified the continuity of his existence through his son, seeking for revenge. Just like this, the murder of King Claudius would mean the continuing of his soul’s existence through another body.
The murder is also perceived both as an act of loyalty towards a killed father seeking for revenge through his son, but also like a purification act. According to the Catholic belief, the sinful souls require for a time spent in Purgatory in order to purify themselves, for reaching the Heaven (Bobick 4). Only dead people get to Purgatory and although murder was against the Catholic norms, it was the only solution for getting Claudius into Purgatory, repenting for the fact that he has murdered his own brother and wedded his brother’s widow, committing yet, another sin – the incest.
The fact that in the end, everybody dies in “Hamlet”, either by murder or suicide indicates that except Horatio, who was kept alive to tell the story, all were sinful beings and they needed to be saved and cleaned for their sins, in order to continue the circularity of life.
Works Cited
Barbi, Lombardi, Cesar & Wheeler, Richard, Paul. The Whole Journey: Shakespeare’s Power of Development. University of California Press: Los Angeles. 2002. Print.
Bobick, Melanie. Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the Movie. Norderstedt: GRIN Verlag. 2002. Print.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet: Original Shakespearean Text with a Modern Line – for – line Translation. New York: Baron’s Educational Series, Inc. 2002. Print.
Schaffer, E.S. Comparative Criticism: Volume 9, Cultural Perceptions and Literary Values. New York: Cambridge University Press. 1987. Print.
