As the play was in the Elizabethan era, the general consensus of the audience (who would all be strong Christian believers) would be that revenge wouldn’t be the appropriate course of action as it goes against Christian teachings. The bible teaches this: ‘But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also’. (Matthew 5:39). Although society tends to favour forgiveness and mercy of Christianity over the ‘eye for an eye’ notion, Shakespeare tries to get the audience to understand that revenge can also be seen as heroic and noble in this case. Hence Hamlet’s admiration of the rugged Pyrrhus.
Revenge tragedies were expected to contain certain characteristics, first and foremost, a crime had to be committed and for various reasons, laws and justice could not punish the criminal, and therefore an individual (usually the main character) goes through with revenge. Generally speaking the main chunk of the play is a stage where the main character decides whether to take revenge or not, and plans his crime carefully, whilst sub-plots proliferate and are entwined around this. Revenge tragedies also usually have distinctive characteristics such as - apparitions, ghosts, and generally speaking a close bond is formed between main character and audience through the use of monologues and soliloquies. Hamlet follows these main conventions fairly meticulously. But the differences are more instructive than the similarities. Hamlet delays the whole process of revenge, and this is more subtle than Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy, or the early Hamlet. Shakespeare develops the struggle for the soul of the protagonist that earlier morality plays dramatized and so Hamlet’s conscience is divided and he is involved in an internalised pschyomachia, the battle for his soul.
Shakespeare uses the procrastination of Hamlet in order to explore the theme of revenge. Hamlet's procrastination continues throughout the play. Laurence Olivier's Hamlet begins with the quotation, ‘here is a story about a man who could not make up his mind’, and although seen as too simplistic by some, many people agree with this statement. Hamlets own ‘tragic flaw’ or, as described in Act 1, Scene 4, ‘a vicious mole in nature’, is he continually analyses his motives and actions, and this is seen as the cause for his vacillation. As Levin says, ‘though is Hamlet's tragedy; Hamlet is the man who thinks too much, ineffectual because he is intellectual; his nemesis is a failure of nerve, a nervous prostration.’ Hamlet’s problem is that he tends to over-intellectualise the situation. Due to this over-intellectualising Hamlet’s instinct is suffocated and he begins to question himself and also initiates a self examination process. This is illustrated to the audience in his soliloquies where he asks: ‘Am I a coward?’ (Act 2, scene 2). He goes on to admit this cowardice in Act 3 scene 1, ‘Thus conscience does make cowards of us all’.
Shakespeare uses characters in similar positions to explore different attitudes to revenge and so there is a strong element of parallelism in the play. This involves Laertes, Fortinbras and Hamlet, who are all members of the three major families in the ‘Tragedy of Hamlet’. The heads of each of these families are all slaughtered within the play. In the time in which this play is set, avenging the murder of a father was part of one's honour, and was a duty which had to be carried out. In this parallelism Fortinbras comes out on top, as both Laertes and Hamlet die. What is interesting is that Fortinbras was the only one out of the trio not to carry out, or attempt to carry out revenge. Here, Shakespeare has subtly demonstrated that revenge does not always lead to success and can equally lead to ones downfall. So, although trying to get the audience to understand that revenge is heroic and noble in one case, he shows that on the other hand revenge can lead to ones ruin.
Yet the most important and significant quest for vengeance within the play is that of Hamlet. Old King hamlet was killed by his brother, Claudius, (who then went on to marry his wife):
“O my offence is rank, it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t,
A brother’s murder.” (Act 3 scene 3, lines 36-38).
After the death of his father, and his return in the form of a ghost, Hamlet swore vengeance on his uncle and now step-father, Claudius. Old Hamlet appeared to Hamlet in the form of a ghost and told of his gruesome murder by his brother:
“And in the porches of my ears did pour
The leperous distilment, whose effect
Holds such an enmity with blood of man.”
(Act 1 scene 5, lines 63 - 65)
Hamlet was greatly disturbed to learn that his uncle was to blame for his father’s murder. He was then told by the ghost to seek revenge on Claudius and to:
"revenge his foul and most unnatural murder"
(Act 1 scene 5)
These three quotations display similar characteristics. The language is foul and full of rottenness and disease. There are many more examples of this throughout the play, as there is a vein of disease that runs through it. Hamlet suggests in Act 1 Scene 5 that his father’s ear was not the only thing poisoned, the ‘whole ear of Denmark’ was also infected by poison. This is both literal poison, and metaphorical poison; the poison of people’s lies. This poison spreads out of control and finally culminates in many deaths
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The critic Francis Bacon said, in his essay Of Revenge, ‘Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought the law the weed it out’. This would suggest that a desire for vengeance is natural to those who feel ill-treated. Also, Bacon states, ‘kings must not be killed but in certain cases kings must be killed’. Hamlet faces an ethical dilemma of whether it is morally right for him to seek vengeance over the death of his father. Hamlet does, however, feel a duty to gain revenge on Claudius as not only has he committed incest by marrying Hamlet’s mother (his sister in law) but had gone against the divine right of kings, a tradition whereby it was seen that kings were given their right to reign from God. Therefore by killing the king Claudius had not only betrayed King Hamlet, he had also gone against God, and this was seen as unacceptable. Not only had Claudius usurped the throne, he had also usurped the role of God.
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In Hamlet and Oedipus, Ernest Jones (Freud’s student and biographer) states that
with his father’s death and his mother’s hasty remarriage, Hamlet associates the idea of sexuality with his mother and so this facet of his subconscious enters into the family relationship.
Gertrude’s sexuality invades the and Hamlet’s long repressed desire to take his father’s place is unconsciously stimulated by the sight of someone else taking this long coveted position. Hamlet is even more disgusted due to the fact that Claudius is his father’s brother and to Hamlet this seems to be incestuous, indeed the ghost of Hamlet’s father calls Claudius “that incestuous, that adulterate beast.” This remark seems to add a spark of jealousy to Hamlet’s anger which is manifested in the sniping remarks that he makes to Claudius:
CLAUDIUS: But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son.
HAMLET: [Aside] A little more than kin, and less than kind.
When Hamlet’s father is murdered and his mother remarries rather too swiftly for Hamlet’s liking, he feels that he must avenge his father’s death in his role as a dutiful son. In doing so Hamlet can act out the role of the main authority figure which his father had done. That is so that Hamlet could take on the characteristics of the father he had idolised whereby mentally fulfilling the wishes of the Oedipus complex.
The entire situation with his mother comes to a head in Act 3 Scene 4, where Hamlet reveals to Gertrude the truth of the matter. The scene is a powerful emotional climax of the play as the intensity of the images are very strong. Also the force of the language used reveals how forcibly he feels about what his incestuous mother has done:
“In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed
Stewed in corruption, honeying, and making love
Over the nasty sty.”
(Act 3 scene 4, lines 92 – 94)
This foul language illustrates to the audience that he wants to inflict pain and shame on his mother. He keeps slashing away at her metaphorically with his language. The scene conveys to the audience that Hamlet’s attitude to revenge is extremely potent but at the same time suggesting that the only reason for this is because of his pent up sexual desire for his mother. This is an interesting way in which Shakespeare explores revenge as this sub-plot regarding the Oedipus complex proliferates the main plot. This way of exploring revenge is extremely subtle, as the fact that Hamlet has these inappropriate sexual desires for his mother is not clear for all the audience to see.
In conclusion, revenge was the driving force behind Hamlet’s actions, it eventually led to the downfall of the main character, which leads us to question whether Shakespeare was giving a message about revenge and its consequences, and condemning it in Elizabethan society. However, in the diverse society that we live in today, there are many views on a number of things. Therefore the response of a modern day audience would be more varied as people now have had their views expanded on Hamlet and the topic of revenge. Many scholars and critics have written about the idea of revenge in the play, this would influence people’s views on the subject, along with their own moral standpoints.
