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The following notes on the
physical and
thematic structure of Hamlet
are based on Harold Jenkins's introduction
to the Arden edition of the play
(1982; quotations are
taken from this ed.).
Jenkins warns against viewing the play
too schematically, even though he admits
that we can't help doing so.
Schema may be artificial, but then so
is Hamlet a construct of
high artifice.
Doubtless Jenkins is right in chiding
T. S. Eliot,
when he remarks that
"a critic who fails to perceive that
Hamlet is a play about
sons and fathers seems unlikely to
have anything useful to say about it"
(134 n.).
Think about it:
We have the young Fortinbras
avenging his father's death at
the hands of King Hamlet;
we will have Laertes needing to avenge
the wrongful killing of his father,
Polonius—and indirectly, his sister,
Ophelia;
Hamlet avenging his own father's murder.
Threading through the play,
we hear of King Hamlet's murder—while
asleep, and in a state of sin,
by his own brother;
we see the play-within-the-play,
The Murder of Gonzago,
which Hamlet adapts to mirror the reality
of his father's murder—something
about which only Claudius and he can know;
the powerful classical image of Pyrrhus
about to slay King Priam balanced against
Hamlet's opportunity to kill Claudius
while at prayer
(thus saving his mortal soul).
As Jenkins points out,
"Laertes' reference to
'my father's death' when Hamlet dies
avenging his father's death reminds us
of the wrong Hamlet has done.
Each, while killing his father's killer,
forgives and is forgiven by his own"
(145 n.).
I. The Prince and the Brother Kings
- Hamlet agrees in the likeness of
the Ghost to his dead father;
- Next, he repudiates his uncle-King's
"fatherly" claim, declaring his
allegiance to his own father.
This important first soliloquy
contrasts the "brother kings":
A was
a man,
take him for all in all:
I shall not look
upon his like
again.
(1.2.187-88; emphasis added)
So
excellent
a king, that was to
this
Hyperion to
Satyr.
(1.2.139-40; emphasis added)
Hyperion,
of course, is the god of the sun in human form,
while a satyr is half-man,
half-beast.
The comparison is between the two essential
natures of man:
good and evil, the magnanimous soul versus
sensual appetite.
Before Hamlet
knows of his father's murder he makes these
connections, leading him to see that the
godlike has been
supplanted by the
beast.
What is worse, his own mother has ceased to mourn
"Hyperion" and taken the "satyr" to her bed,
thus becoming worse than a beast herself
(because she should be ruled by reason):
"A beast that wants discourse of reason ⁄
Would have mourn'd longer" (1.2.150-51).
In a broad sense, Hamlet's task is not simply to
avenge his father's murder, but through that to
rid the world of the satyr,
thus restoring it to Hyperion.
- This initial comparison of the brother
kings foreshadows Hamlet's comparison
of the two portraits of these men,
which occurs (significantly) almost
at the play's center (3.4).
-
Gertrude is murdered
indirectly
by the beast-husband.
II. The Sons (Fortinbras-Laertes-Hamlet)
- One of Shakespeare's favorite
techniques:
Enrich the plot with sub-plots,
or counterplots that repeat or
contrast with it.
Thus, in the first of three court
scenes which pit Hamlet against
Claudius (1.2), the three sons
are dealt with in order; Fortinbras
and Laertes lead up to Hamlet because
their situations are designed to
reflect (or anticipate) his.
- The harmful aspects of the son's zeal
for restitution are recognized from
the first.
Fortinbras and Laertes are envisaged
at the beginning as revenger
and potential revenger,
contrasting with Hamlet.
Both are "exiled,"
as Hamlet will be,
and will return in act 4.
Fortinbras is a precursor of
Laertes.
III. Delay
- A word never used by Hamlet
(rather, "tardy"—which
suggests postponement but
not neglect).
Hamlet's use of the word dull
unites with the second appearance
of the Ghost, connecting with young
Hamlet's blunted
purpose.
Thus, the "dull" revenge reveals
itself as a creative element in
a developing pattern.
- The Player King plants an important
couplet in the center of
the play:
"What to ourselves in passion we
propose, / The passion ending, doth
the purpose lose" (3.2.189-90);
this rhetorical device is called
chiasmus, or
antimetabole, a favorite
of Shakespeare's.
-
Hamlet's "addition" to the
players' script of the
stock Pyrrhus image from
the revenge tradition:
The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms;
Black as his purpose, did the night resemble
When he lay couched in the ominous horse,
Hath now this dread and black complexion smear'd
With heraldry more dismal. Head to foot
Now is he total gules, horridly trick'd
With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,
Bak'd and impasted with the parching streets,
That lend a tyrannous and a damned light
To their lord's murder.
Roasted in wrath and fire,
And thus o'ersized with coagulate gore,
With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus
Old grandsire Priam seeks.
(2.2.448-60)
Here the
twin actions of revenge and marriage intertwine
and bring them to their crises together in
Hamlet's mistaken killing of Polonius for
Claudius.
Here the second revenge—the one that
consumes the revenger—begins;
and Hamlet still hasn't satisfied the Ghost.
Thus,
Hamlet rejects Ophelia's love:
"I say we will have no mo marriage,
Those that are married
already—all but one—shall live;
the rest shall keep as they are" (3.1.149-51).
- Laertes as revenging son seems
almost to caricature Hamlet
as revenger.
Whereas Hamlet takes pains to
establish Claudius's guilt by
confronting him with his crime,
Laertes challenges the King about
a crime he has not done.
In the end both Laertes and Hamlet
meet death because Hamlet is too
magnanimous to "peruse the foils"
and Laertes is mean enough to take
advantage of it.
IV. Dual Revenger Roles of
Hamlet and Laertes
- Revenge of Laertes for Polonius
involves Hamlet as its object:
-
| Agent |
Revenger |
Victim |
| Polonius
→
|
Laertes
→
|
Hamlet |
| Old Fortinbras
→
|
Young Fortinbras
→
|
Denmark |
| Image of Pyrrhus ⁄
→
Play-within-play
|
Hamlet
→
|
Claudius,
Polonius,
Laertes, &
Hamlet
|
|
|