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Revenge tragedy:

In Hamlet, Shakespeare has taken the obvious plot devices of the 16th century Senecan revenge tragedy that delay the hero, and made them "actions" that really reflect the protagonist's psychology (thoughts and feelings). In doing so Shakespeare connected with his audience in a new and very individual way. Greenblatt (2001) puts it this way, Shakespeare"has heightened and individuated anxiety to an unprecedented degree and because he has contrived to implicate his audience as individuals in that anxiety.

Characterisation of HamletHamlets character can be seen as a metonym for the play because it too offers shifting perspectives and continuous ambiguity. When he refers to his mind as this distracted globe Shakespeare is undoubtedly interconnecting Hamlets consciousness, the Globe theatre and acting and of course the world which for the purposes of the play is Denmark. Critics like Harold Bloom argue that Hamlet is the play referring to the importance of his character. Hamlet first reveals himself as somebody sharply intelligent with a sardonic wit, a love of word play and equally a distrust and dislike of words, Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words Sincere Ophelia gives us a long list of Hamlets fine attributes Oh what a noble mind is here othrown the courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword; The expectancy and rose of the fair state, The final hendiadys of expectancy and rose projecting Hamlets promise as a future great king. Even Claudius flatters Hamlets kind disposition as sweet and commendable in your nature for mourning his father. And Fortinbras, a straight talker, praises Hamlets manly courage in lamenting his loss to Denmark, Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage, for he was likely, had he been put on, to have proved most royal. Hamlet is much harder, however, on himself demanding that the audience side with his lists of self-loathing recrimination, Why, what an ass am I! The effect of all this divergent opinion is to drive the audience to continually shift their view of Hamlet, to try to work him out and to add to the tension and mystery of why he doesnt take revenge.

Words and acting (inextricably linked) as shown when Hamlet says suit the action to the word, the word to the action

1) Shakespeare has used acting and the stage as a metaphor to represent the human condition and Hamlets central view of his world as rotten and weary, stale, flat and unprofitable. The use of the play-on-words in Act 1 Scene 5, after Hamlet has just encountered the ghost of his father, King Hamlet, While memory holds a seat/In this distracted globe. Remember thee? is a clear indication of such consciousness. The pun on globe, drawing firstly on Hamlets disjointed state of mind after encountering his fathers ghost, distracted globe and then secondly to the Globe Theatre where the play was first performed. Shakespeare is addressing his audience inviting them to share in Hamlets common human dilemma of not knowing what to do. To note his confusion and share in it is the immediate consequence of the dramatic opening lines of the play. The interloper issues the sentrys challenge, Whos there? and then the sentry reprises his role asking that the challenger, unfold or unmask himself and identify his true character.

Confusion and the perpetual dilemma become motifs represented in every soliloquy including the major set speeches such as What a piece of work is a man! to underline, to the audience, Hamlets bafflement and the obstruction that his close examination of every issue brings him. Fortinbras and Laertes spontaneous and single-minded response to their predicament are counterpoints to Hamlets delay as his predicament.

The large part of the play is used to convey the inner battle within Hamlet, a constant struggle between acting and action, between compulsions and inhibitions that prevent him from avenging his fathers murder. One of the key sources of delays is his over reliance on language even if he mocks Polonius verbosity, words words words and many of Hamlets comments actually reveal his own faults in the unusual doubling comparisons that Shakespeare employs so frequently for a number of purposes. Hamlet attacks Rosencratz and Guildenstern for attempting to play upon him, to know (his) stops but this is exactly what he tried to do with Claudius in the previous scene with The Mousetrap, to entrap him. Hamlet castigates the dead body of Polonius, Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell! and yet he could be speaking to himself for what he has just done is rash, he has no right to intrude on his mothers sex life and by killing Polonius he has bid goodbye (farewelled) to his own life. All these problems and antitheses must be resolved for Hamlet to move on to his proper purpose as a revenge hero, the important acting of (the Ghosts) dread command.Later we see his squeamishness about killing Claudius in prayer contrasted with Laertes complete disregard of what is in effect sacrilege, for if given the chance to avenge his father he would cut his throat i' the church.

That Hamlet has such a distorted/fractured view of the world O that this too too solid flesh would melt evoked in the harsh sibilance and distraught tone of ...all tears, why she, even she-/O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason is his own very individual problem. Acting, with its false connotation is used in juxtaposition to expose the liesand reveal the truth that was so carefully hidden by the manipulation of language. Claudius address shows the consummate politician able to project a semblance of order and unity, to join funeral rites with wedding celebrations. However, Claudius and Hamlet show a similar insight into the prostitution of words, Claudius referring to the harlots cheek that plasters over the truth and painted word and Hamlet to the skin and film over ulcerous place. Consequently, the very wordy nature of this play emphasises Hamlets inability to act and the tensions between the pulls and pushes towards the enactment of the revenge.

2. The play opens in an atmosphere of uneasiness, ambiguity and nervous interrogation. Whos there?- the first words spoken, confuse the identity of the sentry and the interloper. Five more questions follow in the next 20 lines, and Franciscos comment, tis bitter cold and I am sick at heart. Only adds to the sickly mood. When the drama moves to the Danish court we find a world equally, out of joint - as Hamlet says in his first tortured soliloquy, an unweeded garden .. rank and gross. A King has married his brothers wife, an incestuous union in the Elizabethan context and it has come about inappropriately soon after her husband, the former Kings death. Hamlet metaphorically colours it as a hangover and emotionally lacking in warmth, the funeral baked meats. Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.

Language too, seems to have lost its way so that the new king Claudius welcoming address, outwardly soothing, fuses impossibly antithetical notions with clever half-rhymes, mirth & dirge into one equal scale. Hamlets duty, to set right this hopelessly corrupted world causes him much anguish and cursing of fate, born to do so. For while Hamlet is the old kings surviving son, his modern Humanist desire to determine his own fate are in opposition to his royal and filial obligation. As Laertes puts it, impossibly conflating two opposing principles, obligation and choice For he himself is subject to his birthfor on his choice depends the sanctity and health of this whole state.

Claudius tries to paper over the cracks, tries to place film over the sore (ulcer), but a marriage following a funeral is just wrong (unhealthy). Hamlet on the other hand has to resolve the rot, fix the state and to bring it back to sanctity and health

Hamlet searches for clarity but finds himself thrust between conflicting ideologies; an older epic morality he should obey and a modern scientific one which requires the burden of proof. But ambiguity is rife and even the boundaries between what is real and false refuse to hold to the extent that death, the final boundary, the undiscovered country from whose bourn (boundary) no traveler returns appears to be eroding when a Ghost appears. The Ghosts role as a dramatic device - the interpretive crux of the play is convincingly argued by Stephen Greenblatt. Its origins, as a spirit of health or goblin damned speak to an Elizabethan audience confounded by Catholic and Protestant allegiances who feel that the dead are not being remembered in this new and cynical world.

3)

Further discussion of words important to say something about seems as a key word:Hamlet corrects his mother furiously and defensively when she asserts that he is guilty of seeming in wearing his mourning clothes for too long. Seems madam? Nay it is, I know not seems, he protests vehemently picking up on the offending word. The repetition of seems is pointed because along with painting it becomes a key word in the play to connote the difficulty of determining the reality or truth of so many acts, actions, painted words and faces. And his angry retort, I have that which passes show is his claim to be morally superior, that he in fact is what he seems. Hamlets initial soliloquy launches seems as a key word in seem to me all the uses of this world! as his particular difficulty in seeing with any clarity through such a murky, corrupt world. The Ghost refers ironically to Gertrude as my most seeming virtuous Queen and then exposes her as a creature of lust that prey(s) on garbage. Its double use in the pivotal central dumb show with, The poisoner seeming to condole with her and she seems harsh awhile shows how Shakespeare uses repetition, patterning and echo in the language of the play to underscore a key motif, appearance versus reality . How often acting belies the man in this corrupt state of Denmark . And by extension and identification our own 2009 world where the painted word and the public acting or posturing of our political leaders are often a poor reflection of the truth of a situation.The psychological barriers to action that Hamlet erects and the verisimilitude created in the portrayal of them have often led to character studies of Hamlet which speculate beyond the events of the play; to even an identification with the character himself from famous literary figures such as S.T. Coleridge. Coleridge confessed, I have a smack of Hamlet myself, if I may say so. They culminated in Ernest Jones, a practicing psychoanalyst lifting Shakespeares hero out of the play and psychoanalysing him in Hamlet and Oedipus (1949). But the emphasis lately has been to examine his words, his acts and his audience and for this reason seeing Hamlet through the prism he creates for himself which informs his view of the world and his consciousness. Namely, for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me (Denmark) it is a prison.

4) While Hamlet swears to act rapidly to the Ghost, Haste me to knowt his interior motivation and thoughts show themselves in imagery that is contradictory, with wings as swift as meditation. But Hamlet reacts furiously and a little preciously to his mothers suggestion that he may be only acting a part. His indignation hisses and spits back seems with consonance and alliterative s and t sounds for Hamlet believes he has that within that passes show. And Hamlet, despite his assurances that he is, aquires himself an antic disposition; to find the answer to the question of who killed his father, by indirections find directions out. Ironically following the advice of the most practised schemer, Polonius. Hamlet, however, is still in a no mans land of uncertainty based on negation and the soliloquy that follows, How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable seems this world! previews the Ghost in mood and language supporting Greenblatts contention about its alliance with Hamlet and its pivotal role in the play. Hamlet says, Seems, madam?, the Ghost says seeming virtuous queen. Hamlet says, incestuous sheets, the Ghost, that incestuous, adulterate beast..

Shakespeare exploits the notion of how man compares his actions with the deeds of others and two of Hamlets soliloquies are preoccupied with either his lack of passion, cowardice or tendency to talk and not do, Why yet I live to say The things to do. But ironically it is just one more rhetorical question among so many which is not answered even if it does by its rhetorical pose induce more thinking and analysis on our part. Hamlet compares himself to Fortinbras, Pyrrhus and the audience compares him to Laertes all flawed models of men of action but all able to avenge their fathers without a delay caused by simply thinking too precisely on thevent. Hamlet questions his feelings, that he lacks passion, even the semblance of it, Whats Hecuba to him? but then in a pivotal moment of consciousness, splits the soliloquy in two with his cry, O vengeance! - deciding on an action. The plays the thing wherein Ill catch the conscience of the king.

When Hamlet finally decides to act, the temporary calmness this induces allows him to deliver his most famous soliloquy in an entirely different frame of mind; showing that as Marjorie Garber says, thought should be considered action because it brings the hero to a new consciousness. One that is modern and appealing in its universality and sincerity. To be, or not to be answers one big question, even though it too, is based on negation: that the fear that death may be oblivion prevents us taking actions that risk it. This great oration is unambiguously engages an audience, the Is have been replaced with we and us, Hamlet is calmer, conciliatory and although the iambs and trochees at times challenge each other like his first most tortured soliloquy, O that this too, too sullied flesh.. they dont represent a battle within Hamlet himself but a contemplation for all humans when the trochee of Or to take arms... It follows the contemplation of every choice we must make in life. There are the parenthetic asides but they are not attacks on women as previously, Frailty, thy name is woman! but empathetic musings, Ay, theres the rub.

Hamlets calmer reflections on fate and choice here, are soon thrown into disarray by his explosive encounter with his mother and his thwarted attempt to kill Claudius. Questions, doubts and comparisons resurface in his final soliloquy, What is a man? returning Hamlet thematically to an earlier conundrum about mans status, part god, part animal, ultimately dust. Hamlets surrender, finally, does not inspire us, his question is not answered; but Horatio, his true friend agrees to Tell (his) story because for Hamlet, as for all after death, The rest is silence.

5) But in Hamlets To be or not to be oration, we see that finally a decision to act, to catch the conscience of the king affirmed previously, induces in Hamlet a moment of calm that turns him away from his own problems. The Is of the other soliloquies are replaced with We and Us and a contemplation of universal larger questions and problems. Hamlet acknowledges and metaphorically colours thought as "inaction", "the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought". But as Garber says Hamlets thoughts move him to a new state of consciousness which is an act in itself. The whole speech employs active verbs and concrete nouns that are simple, coherent (strings of monosyllables abound)"To die, to sleep - to sleep, perchance to dream." to explore the most abstract of ideas - death and existence. The end of the speech a clear caesura indicated with the hyphen and change of tone to soft f sounds, - Soft you now, the fair Ophelia showing that unlike his earlier outbursts in parenthetical asides, Frailty, thy name is woman. - Hamlet values and asks Ophelia to remember him in her prayers. It is similar in affection and tone to his request to Horatio to keep his story alive, "And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain To tell my story."

6)The revenge tragedy sets up Hamlets vocation which drives the plot, to avenge his father and to right the rotten world of Denmark. Shakespeare changes the normal syntax so that the Iambs stress ever I was accentuates Hamlets regret that he has been singled out to carry out the dread command emphasising both Hamlets duty and his terrible inadequacy. Hamlet acknowledges responsibility as the scion of noble bloodstock but feels psychologically ill-equipped. Two of Hamlets seven soliloquies mourn and compare his inability to perform his vocation with others that excel in theirs. Firstly when the actor whose vocation is to represent truth on stage acts out Hecubas tears, Hamlet exclaims What is Hecuba to him? Hamlet is ironically praising acting as representing the truth of fiction and also at the same time making an invidious comparison with himself. Hamlet is presenting his own inadequacy in following his calling to avenge his fathers murder. Furthermore, in comparison to Fortinbras, a man of action, Hamlets defeatist rhetoric How all occasions to inform against me... intones and echoes previous references to his dull revenge and blunted purpose which needs spurring by the examples of others.

7) Shakespeare has crafted Hamlet to achieve these ends by exploiting the ambiguity and unreliability of language itself, in puns and irony. Claudius, the consummate Elizabethan politician, (little has changed in politics) conflates antithetical notions such as joy and grief, celebration and mourning using words that half-rhyme such as mirth and dirge, or alliteratively link such as delight and dole. He manages to subsume opposing notions and feelings into a harmonious whole with language In equal scale weighting delight and dole. He further reassures people that Denmark is not disjoint and out of state by belittling the youth of Fortinbras with emotive word clusters such as young pester and weak. Complex inner thought processes are not just made audible but experienced by the audience with Shakespeares use of language. Hamlets first soliloquy reveals a despondent Hamlet, the line, How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable running over the pentameter by a syllable to compound the sense of the line. The iambs and irregular trochees, for instance the Or of line three, battle with each other to represent what Hamlet describes later as, In my heart there was a kind of fighting.

8)O vengeance why what an ass am I! This is most brave, that I, the son of the dear murdered, prompted to my revenge by heaven and hellunpack my heart with words, and fall a-cursing like a very drab, a scullion. In this impassioned speech Shakespeare makes use of opposing notions (heaven/ hell, dear/drab, ass/brave) to powerfully highlight Hamlets torment and indecision. The notion of words themselves being the vehicle of betrayal is alluded to, and yet ironically everyone in the play is dependent upon words, as is the play itself. Words are the tools for pretence and illusion and acting. Words, words, words is Hamlets bitter response to Polonius ignorance and treachery. There is a constant repetition of the word seems ;seems to me all the uses of this world ; She seems harsh a while.We note also the repetition of paint. The paint used by an actor, the paint used by a woman, all of whom he tars with the brush of treachery, and to Ophelia I have heard of your paintings like the Greek mask concealing one face behind another. Ironically, only the mute-play within a play, itself a simulation, is the catalyst to the revelation of the truth, where finally Claudius guilt as a murderer is revealed. This is ironically achieved without words. In the play within a play, the characters are mute. Muteness and silence are shown to be more powerful, reliable and honest than words. However at the end of the play the ghost is also mute, he has disappeared begging the horrifying possibility that he too may have only been an actor, the spirit I have seen may be a devilabuses me to damn me manipulating Hamlet, or worse a figment of his own mind.In contrast, Claudius is never mute. His capacity to manipulate words to suit his purposes, reveal him as the consummate politician and actor. Here words can be used to disguise action, in one moment Claudius feigns grief, though yet of Hamlet, our dear brothers death, in the next he overlooks his hasty marriage to Gertrude therefore our sometimes sister, now our queen, and moves rapidly on to dealing with affairs of state. By using such language devices as the pairing of conveniently opposing concepts valiant, impotent; defeated/joy, and the use of belittling terminology such as impotent, pester, weak, Shakespeare enables Claudius to move ideas around and manipulate language to suit his malign purposes.

9)When Shakespeare changes the normal syntax of that I was ever to ever I was so that the iambs stress accentuates Hamlets lament that he has been singled out to act out the dread command he is emphasizing both Hamlets apparent suitability and his terrible inadequacy. Because while Hamlet accepts responsibility as the scion of noble bloodstock (fitting the revenge tragedy archetype) that he must right the wrong, Shakespeares protagonist feels he is psychologically ill-equipped. And as his delays mount his sense of it becomes more acute even speaking for the Ghost that comes to reproach him, Do you not come your tardy son to chide, ? . Here Hamlet puns acting to mean doing, Thimportant acting of your dread command. Shakespeares purpose may be to show Hamlet is confused about performing the action when he has only been acting out the grief, despair and anger but it also shows that we need to act out, publicise what we are doing if the message is to go out. For a public figure like Hamlet, the name of action is important.Two of Hamlets seven soliloquies lament and compare his inability to perform his vocation with others that excel in theirs. Firstly when the actor whose vocation is to represent truth on stage acts out so convincingly Hecubas tears, Hamlet exclaims, Whats Hecuba to him? Here he is ironically praising acting as representing the truth of fiction but also at the same time making an invidious comparison with himself. Hamlet is presenting to us his own inadequacy in following his calling which is to avenge his fathers murder. Secondly when Fortinbras so aptly demonstrates his vocation as a man of action. Hamlets defeatist rhetoric, How all occasions to inform against me.. intones and echoes perfectly earlier references to his dull revenge and blunted purpose which needs spurring by the example of others. So Hamlet likes acting, is fascinated by theatre but is paradoxically disgusted when others including himself fail to act to reflect what they feel or what they should do and when their words and disguises reflect nothing that is their true nature. What is also different in Shakespeares revenge tragedy from Thomas Kyds revenge tragedies (Kyd was the Elizabethans principal exponent and adapter of the ancient Roman form of Seneca) is that revenge as an act seems often to have drifted out of Hamlets mind. His central soliloquy, To be, or not to be speaks as much of mans eternal dilemma making sense of our existence, death and suffering as it does about a single act which may or may not right a wrong. Only once is Hamlet physically incapable of performing the act when he is exiled to England following his dispatch of the meddlesome and foolish prating knave, Polonius. We therefore are forced to examine Hamlets consciousness if we are to understand his delays.Shakespeare has taken the simple traditional plot devices of the 16th century revenge tragedy that delay the hero and made them "actions" that really reflect the protagonist's psychology (thoughts and feelings). And in doing so Shakespeare connected with his audience in a new and very individual way. Greenblatt (2001) puts it this way, Shakespeare"has heightened and individuated anxiety to an unprecedented degree and because he has contrived to implicate his audience as individuals in that anxiety.

10)Firstly Hamlet intends to find the truth about a great miscarriage of justice, against cultural mores (his mother has committed incest in marrying her husbands brother) and against God. Regicide has taken place a crime against God since a king was divinely appointed. Ironically something Claudius starts to believe when threatened by the mob , There's such divinity doth hedge a king. he superciliously warns a threatening Laertes alluding to the privileged protection awarded a king.Acting, dissembling in words and actions which Hamlet sees all around him is covering the ugly truth of peoples intentions. It becomes a major motif as the language and craft of theatre and politics is punned and played on throughout the play. Claudius, is Hamlets strange double, in that he shares similar views with Hamlet on dissembling but shows himself, however, to be a master of it in smooth political deliveries which brush over troubled times, Though yet of Hamlet our dear brothers death. Their choice of words, their verbal patterns and images are so similar when describing vice that the message is coloured and even ambiguous. Claudius refers to the painted word on two occasions and Hamlet accuses Ophelia of vice with, I have heard of your paintings too, Hamlet warns his mother not to hide the truth for, It will but skin and film the ulcerous place.. Claudius smarts, How smart a lash. at Polonius talk of sugar(ing) over the devil himself.Hamlets attempts to prevent these patterns of deception are not helped, however, by his own deception, his antic disposition. which he claims is a subterfuge that will help him uncover the truth, "by Indirections find directions out". Neither is the source of this strategy in the devious Polonius a healthy reason to be stooping to it himself because in fact it causes great suspicion and watchfulness from his enemies. Hamlets response is to spy on Claudius in turn, in The Mousetrap to catch the conscience of the king. Hamlet and his audience, kept close, by virtue of the numerous soliloquies which signal his intention and innermost thoughts are becoming more and more frustrated. His almost blunted purpose is remarked on during the Ghosts second visitation. This is the lot of the common man battling for justice against the powerful who can not resort to Pyrrhus mad bloody vengeance and of course mythical existence. Claudius again a doubling voice for Hamlet express the different legal system that serves the wealthy in his soliloquy of self-loathing but self-acceptance, Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice, And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself. Buys out the law. His following conviction in Divine justice, But 'tis not so above; There is no shuffling.. is typically ambiguous, however, because he is unable to act on it himself.So in his famous soliloquy Hamlet shows unusual empathy for us, common humanity, unable to take arms against a sea of troubles, forced to bear, thoppressors wrong, the proud mans contumely, the laws delay.. This is the lack of justice and lack of resolve that faces the common Elizabethan man and woman when faced with injustice and the great uncertainty of death when great risks are taken. What is unusual about this soliloquy compared to the others which are so introspective is that it does represent such a reaching out to his audience. Its inclusive pronouns, its empathetic asides, Ay, theres the rub. and its concrete workman-like metaphors, death is the undiscovered country, the burdens of life are fardels- loads of sticks a peasant woman might carry. Hamlets perspective, we feel, his despairing view is slowly changing to a kind of fatalism but it is commiserating rather than angry at the human condition and talks of the nobility of suffering a Christian moral attitude quite different from medieval bloody vengeance.

Paintings

In Hamlets famous soliloquy in a rare moment of calm he is able step back and examine his problematic relationship with choice - his inability to act. To be, or not to be. also, for the first time, explicitly includes his audience. The Is of the other soliloquies are replaced with we and us and his tone measured by the regular single syllable phrases appears reflective rather than agonised. Asides such, Ay, theres the rub, reach out to his audience, empathising with them, not just demanding their sympathy for his plight. Concrete metaphors for abstract concepts such as death as the undiscovered country speak unpretentiously and sincerely. His address to Ophelia, now the fair Ophelia where the soft f sounds of soft and fair bring her into his thoughts contrast his earlier attacks on her sex, Frailty, thy name is woman. and previous encounters where he belittled her. Hamlets message in this oration is universal, we are all stymied by fear and doubt when the outcomes are unknown, when the task is large, here symbolised in death and fate. This is what paralyses action, saps courage and corrupts justice Hamlet says, and it is a situation shared by all. To this end Hamlet seems to follow his own advice, that it is, nobler in the mind to suffer. fate than to fight it.

Revenge

Throughout the play Hamlet struggles to settle on how exactly he should approach his act of revenge; hasty action without thought, or thorough meditation before action? In fact Hamlets soliloquies and most of his speeches including the speeches of Claudius, Polonius and Gertrude attempting to fathom Hamlets madness mean that the play is in the interrogative mode almost in its entirety. The effect is to tempt his audience to answer the questions themselves, and with the plays ambiguity, the answers have often been throughout history more a reflection of the context and time in which Hamlet was read than when the play was written. (relevant dont chop)

Hamlets contemplations lead him to examine humanity and our choices so that frequently we see the revenge, as we do in the To be, or not to be. soliloquy slip from his thoughts. In his last soliloquy where the invidious comparisons with others would seem to be a galvanising spur to action, he is philosophical again, What is a man if his chief good and market of his time.. is a meditation on the Godlike reason we must not let fust (rot) unused. The plays catharsis, therefore, for its audience, is not vicarious bloody revenge which as Francis Bacon, a political commentator of the time, said, is a kind of wild justice; which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out and that its enactment sets the bloody pendulum of revenge into its inexorable motion. It is rather a trust in Providence, God, or a resigned fatalism.

Ophelias death in a garland of floating flowers, there is a willow grows askant a brook and the personification of the weeping brook. Is the first indication that the imagery of violent ambition, disease and corruption is changing to something softer more peaceful to echo Hamlets growing placidity. The graveyard scene with its workman like humour and contemplation of Yoricks skull again is nostalgic and yearning in tone, Alas poor Yorick! no longer vengeful and frustrated. The skull, a common Elizabethan symbol for death and an actual possession among the wealthy to remind man of his mortality and ensure humility is handled by Hamlet with affection. Death, mans predicament has shifted Hamlets perspective of revenge to the contemplation of the insignificance of human endeavour itself.

In the last act of the play therefore Hamlet speaks often in imagery which is simple, natural and wholesome. Providence is in the fall of a sparrow, God is all caring and omnipresent and indicates that a certain amount of acceptance of the unfairness of life will help us to cope better because, there is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them, how we will.

Hamlets Foil characters:Other characters Fortinbras, Laertes as obviously flawed action men who define Hamlet, Ophelia and Gertrude.Hamlet defines himself and his delays by comparing himself to the player in Act Two, Sc 2, Whats Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba? and Fortinbras in Act 4, How all occasions do inform against me. But significant parallels align Hamlet with the Ghost, through Shakespeares use of verbal patterning. The Ghost refers to fat weedThat roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf, Hamlet talks of Denmark as an unweeded garden. These connections suggest that maybe the Ghost is Hamlets conscience or literally, his prophetic soul. Similar doubling and therefore ambiguity yokes Hamlets character to Claudius throughout the play, even as far as Act 4, when Hamlet soliloquises for the last time that he may as well be a beast that lacks god-like reason, and shortly after Claudius laments that without fair judgement we are mere beasts. Hamlets task and equally the audiences by now is to resolve these dualisms or antitheses in character and becomes another source of confusion and delay.

Thought on stage or how is Hamlets thinking dramatized on stage and our inclusion in the process, To be, or not to be soliloquy.

Hamlet does move on from his obsession with the disconnection between appearance and reality sufficiently to deliver his To be, or not to be oration. Here the presence of the audience is most evident, the Is replaced with we and us, the asides empathetic and inclusive, Ay, theres the rub. Hamlets audience is part of his universal dilemma and his followers in the 16th in a theatre with a proscenium stage which brought the audience into such close proximity would have been entranced, carried on as each argument, counter argument was weighed and added. The numerous pauses, stops and turns created with punctuation and word choice would have directed their thoughts along with Hamlets thoughts. The concrete metaphors that explored abstract and metaphysical questions, death evoked as the undiscovered country from whose bourn (boundary) No traveller returns, allowing time for the processing of them. Human consciousness in a world which now allowed great uncertainty, where the churchs guarantees and social institutions were crumbling is Hamlets subject, death its symbol.

The Ghost as the interpretative crux or the main engine of the play (Stephen Greenblatt)

1) The Ghost is discussed early as part of the ambiguity and uncertainty of the opening mood when Hamlet confronts it he is perplexed, uneasy, even if he swears to follow its command, O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else?/And shall I couple hell?. He does not doubt the Ghosts message, however, since it seems to confirm his prophetic soul and we cannot fail to see the links that both Marjorie Garber and Stephen Greenblatt had deduced in language, imagery and morality. It is as if Hamlets thoughts and therefore his language in this part of the play intertwine with the Ghost. Hamlet earlier sarcastically cautions his mother, Seems, madam?; with the Ghost echoing later, seeming virtuous Queen. Again, the Ghost says, Murder most foul; which parallels with Hamlets cries earlier regarding the existence of the Ghost, Foul deeds will rise.. Even his most personal objections to the oer hasty marriage of his mother in incestuous sheets are echoed by the Ghost, that incestuous adulterate beast. It is another example of how the doubling of character traits and language induces ambiguity and interpretation.

2) Hamlets task therefore is to remember the dead (his father) in some satisfactory way killing another person is clearly not a way to show respect for those who have passed on. The Ghost is also a feature of the 16th century revenge genre and its message, the commandment to Remember me which is doubled and echoed 16 times both as an imperative and commitment as Hamlet and his companions prepare to swear reflects an Elizabethan concern. It is one that supports Greenblatts view that remembrance is more important than revenge in the context of Shakespeares play.

3) The Ghostly mandate is seen as both a propelling force driving Hamlet to his revenge but also a restraining one causing him to delay as he considers its legitimacy and therefore the legitimacy of his actions. For many the Ghost is the interpretive crux of the play lending plausibility to Hamlets delays, despair for a lost heroic world and confirmation of his belief that in the modern state of Denmark, thing rank and gross in nature possess it merely. Its origins, as a spirit of health or goblin damned speak to an Elizabethan audience confounded by Catholic and Protestant allegiances who feel that the dead are not being remembered in this new and cynical world.The ghosts appearance also erodes the boundaries between life and death, between what is real and imagined emphasising the ambiguity and uncertainty within Denmark.

4 )One of the major catalysts of the play according to Stephen Greenblatt is the Ghost and his call to Hamlet to, revenge his foul and most unnatural murder. Shakespeare has made use of the classic revenge tragedy format to impel Hamlet into action but as Philip Edwards points out the delay inherent in the form is used by Hamlet, not to plot the murder of his uncle and satisfy his 16th centurys audience thirst for violent vengeance, but to confront his own inability to make a choice when his uncle and mother are so guilty of moral depravity. Now even further steeped in cynicism Hamlets ever-increasing awareness that those around him are acting and seeming, pushes Hamlet into action while at the same time restraining his capacity to act. Ironically Hamlet decides to feign madness, an antic disposition, sharing in the seeming he despises. The push-pull of Hamlets inner torment is a device used by Shakespeare throughout the play to heighten drama, tension and an overwhelming sense of angst and premonition. Unlike the traditional 16th century revenge tragedy Hamlets battle is with himself as much as his enemies.O vengeance why what an ass am I! This is most brave, that I, the son of the dear murdered, prompted to my revenge by heaven and hellunpack my heart with words, and fall a-cursing like a very drab, a scullion. In this impassioned speech Shakespeare makes use of opposing notions (heaven/ hell, dear/drab, ass/brave) to powerfully highlight Hamlets torment and indecision. The notion of words themselves being the vehicle of betrayal is alluded to, and yet ironically everyone in the play is dependent upon words, as is the play itself. Words are the tools for pretence and illusion and acting. Words, words, words is Hamlets bitter response to Polonius ignorance and treachery. There is a constant repetition of the word seems ;seems to me all the uses of this world ; She seems harsh a while.

The final two acts- resolving the conflicts, oppositional elements.

In the final two acts Shakespeares use of the subplots emphasizes to both us and Hamlet his inaction. In his soliloquy of Act 4, Hamlet starts by discussing revenge How all occasions do inform against me... but we can imagine because of the extent of rhetorical questioning that the audience is close by. He then questions the Renaissance man What is a man? reminding us of What a piece of work is a man! in Act 2 and brings us back to Existentialist attitudes that connect being and doing, This things to do. It suggests that the most important notion of action in Hamlets thinking is that he cant be the person he feels he should be, Why yet I live to say, this things to do. So in the final act Hamlet abandons himself to Fate and God theres a divinity that shapes our ends... juxtaposes as well a dismissal of the pointless scheming that obsesses Claudius and that Hamlet has earlier guarded against, our deep plots. Although Readiness is all appears a Catholic sentiment extolling the value of not being burdened by unrepented sin at the point of death, Hamlets final acceptance Let be overrides any preconceived notions of actions that will change the course of our moment of death. Therefore it is concluded that action should be reasoned, but not thought too much as the dangers of thinking too precisely on thevent are great.

Religious context of the play which poses a delay

1) The religious context of the play and the fear of death if he goes against Christian canons against suicide prevents him acting more decisively, he states plainly, O that this too too solid flesh would melt,/Thaw and resolve itself into a dew,/Or that the Everlasting had not fixed/His canon gainst self slaughter. We are prepared for the religious conundrum that the Ghosts origins will produce, a spirit of health, or goblin damned.

To be or not to be soliloquy

In Hamlets famous soliloquy in a rare moment of calm he is able step back and examine his problematic relationship with choice - his inability to act. To be, or not to be. also, for the first time, explicitly includes his audience. The Is of the other soliloquies are replaced with we and us and his tone measured by the regular single syllable phrases appears reflective rather than agonised. Asides such, Ay, theres the rub, reach out to his audience, empathising with them, not just demanding their sympathy for his plight. Concrete metaphors for abstract concepts such as death as the undiscovered country speak unpretentiously and sincerely. His address to Ophelia, now the fair Ophelia where the soft f sounds of soft and fair bring her into his thoughts contrast his earlier attacks on her sex, Frailty, thy name is woman. and previous encounters where he belittled her. Hamlets message in this oration is universal, we are all stymied by fear and doubt when the outcomes are unknown, when the task is large, here symbolised in death and fate. This is what paralyses action, saps courage and corrupts justice Hamlet says, and it is a situation shared by all. To this end Hamlet seems to follow his own advice, that it is, nobler in the mind to suffer. fate than to fight it.

To be or not to be and existentialist readings.

Shakespeares play Hamlet exemplifies a timeless and universal awareness of humanity, and our existence, To be or not to be. The plays preoccupation with death and its characterization of life as either perpetual sleep or active suffering, stems from Shakespeares insight that an existence dedicated solely to thought or one dependant wholly on action are equally destructive. Through Shakespeares use of dramatic techniques, such as recurring motifs, juxtaposition, imagery, characterization and soliloquies, the memorable idea of a modern man trapped in a corrupt world is movingly portrayed to the audience. The recurring motif of King Hamlets ghost reveals Hamlets helplessness, leading to Hamlets solution to dissolve, thaw and melt i.e. surrender. Though the ghost gives him a purpose in revenge, Hamlet gradually discovers that purpose is not enough; he must act on it. He realizes not only have others let him down, but he lets himself down either by thinking too much or other times acting too rashly. Only in his last soliloquy in Act Four does Hamlet seem to understand the balance between godlike reason and action my thoughts be bloody, however he is too late in this realization.The recurring juxtaposition of acting and action further emphasize Shakespeares theory that both total thinking and total action are deadly. To act only is to do what Claudius does lose morality and become a beast, without fair judgment he concedes we are mere beasts. To think only, however, is to imprison ones self To me it (Denmark is a prison. Not until he knows hes dead can he can end the discussion and finally act, the rest is silence. Critic Fintan OToole suggests Hamlets problem is that he is stuck between the old-feudal thinking and this new one, this referring to Hamlets exposure to Renaissance thinking, a modern man trapped in a corrupt world. Furthermore, Shakespeare enhances this theory through the recurring imagery of weaponry weaved within the juxtaposed conflict of reason and action. Interestingly, though words and reason serve as Hamlets intangible obstacles in stopping his fulfillment of revenge, Hamlet initially chooses words as his weapon of choice in his progression to action. I will speak daggers to her but use none, and his effect seen in Act Three Scene Four these words like daggers enter my ears. The divide between words and thought is essential to the way Hamlet works, by indirection find directions out in the words of Polonius. Again this confliction in finding the balance between action and reason embedded in the language of the play reflects Hamlets confliction with the world he is a part of. Shakespeares characterization of Hamlet as a metaphoric representation of action vs. reason is yet another technique that allows the audience to better comprehend Shakespeares greater message. Within this, Hamlets consciousness metaphorically reflects an intentional parallelism with the state of Denmark. His antic disposition reciprocates the condition of his country and its rule, so intertwining acting and reality. The play is built upon this contrast and comparison between various kinds of illusion. However, Shakespeare shows that in Hamlet putting on this act of insanity, he in fact avoids taking action. As a result of his decision to solely reason Hamlet does not achieve the vital balance of action and reason, resulting in the fatal ending of his life and his familys dynasty. Additionally the omnipresent theme of a higher being characterized by King Hamlets ghost directs the actions of the characters made players, made clear with Shakespeares use of celestial imagery. Hamlet plays with fire, and the stable sun turns lunatic by failing to realize that he cannot analyze everything.Shakespeare makes us aware of the complexity of human beings, the dramatic effectiveness of the soliloquies bring Hamlets thinking processes to us as we observe too the development of Hamlets reasoning. Shakespeare displays Hamlets progression from frustrated melancholy to a man of action by gradual detachment I could drink hot blood, to a man of Zen like acceptance, If it be now,'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now .... the readiness is all. By the final act there are no soliloquies as Hamlet has no need to portray a now decisive mind, and Shakespeare further develops this notion in Hamlets progressive use of active verbs, Let it be, Horatio

Shakespeares frequent theatrical metaphors bring into play the concept of plays, reflective of Hamlets need to act a part unlike himself in a corrupt world. Hamlet speaks his dying moments to an audience to this act suggesting that the characters are ultimately aware they are performers in the theatre of life. The entire play is structured as a series of plays within the play e.g. the Mousetrap and the multiple acts conjured by Polonius. Additionally as critic Simon Faulkner believes, the role of the players proves crucial in contrasting the realness evoked by the players against the actors everyone else has become. Shakespeares chilling language intertwines all themes in the play. The languages tone and rhetoric portrays the state of Denmark as a place of persistent perversion, through Shakespeares use of dark imagery, coupled with the language of acting and action. No windy suspiration of forced breath or the dejected havior of the visage this is the language of acting.

Conclusion that fit with the ending of the play

1) The ending of the play, then, has brought Hamlet to a new consciousness that man lacks the ability to determine much at all. That to scheme endlessly is to achieve little, if it be, tis not to come, if it be not to come.. a message, New Historicists like Greenblatt believe were directed to a corrupt Elizabethan court and judicial system. But Hamlets story must be told, the rest is silence. says Shakespeare in a double entendre which poignantly draws the human condition and meta-theatre into one.

2) The staging of Kenneth Brannaghs 1996 film production of Hamlet explores this duality of characters. His choreography in the Hall of Mirrors scene highlights the binary nature evident within each character. Hamlet is a Renaissance man, an intellectual, but also a flawed man who demonstrates a false callous nature with Ophelia. The better half of Hamlets duality is from then on left in the reflection of who he used to be.

1Samuel Hague 2012