And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmixed with baser matter.
This was very largely unfair of the ghost of his father, on Hamlet, enthusiastic though he seemed at first. It placed an unnaturally large amount of pressure on Hamlet, having to commit such a daunting act, however justified it may have seemed. Shakespeare emphasizes the effect of this action in Hamlet’s life, in the many incidences and soliloquy’s where Hamlet just muses, thinks the situation out and talks about it, but can never bring himself to actually do anything about the revenge.
In the relationship of Laertes and Polonius, there is not so much responsibility placed on Laertes by Polonius, as there is nagging and nitpicking about the way that Laertes should present himself and the way he should live his life when he is overseas. In this sense, the ‘responsibilities’ being placed on Laertes are those of keeping in his father’s will and rule, and maintaining a good name for himself. At the point in the play, in act I.3, Polonius is displayed by Shakespeare as just another normal father, or maybe more appropriately, a mother, who is proud of his son, but needs to remind him to keep a good image all the same. This ‘bestowing’ of responsibility can be considered to be only natural for any father to do. However, in act II.1, we see that Polonius is actually quite obsessed with the idea that his son might bring shame to Polonius, and goes to the extents of sending a spy keep a watch on Laertes, and even ‘muddy’ his name, so that he does not get too comfortable.
But breath his faults so quaintly that they may seem
The taints of liberty, the flash and outbreak of a fiery
Mind
‘I saw him enter a house of sale’,
Videlicet, a brothel, or so forth.
Polonius even goes to extents of ‘dishonouring’ so that he may retain his own honour, which is a rather strange sense of logic. In this sense, it can be said that Polonius places responsibility on his son just to save himself any possible shame. This is rather selfish on the part of Polonius, but it is in accordance with Shakespeare’s illustration of Polonius’s character as being that of a conniving, scheming, slightly evil old man that you might feel sorry for.
In the relationship of young Fortinbras and his foster-father, or father-figure, old Norway, we see, again, a ‘normal’ attitude of a parent toward their child. When Fortinbras’s plans for an attack on Claudius’s realm are found out by Norway, he immediately admonishes the impetuous firebrand of a youth and prevents him from doing so. When Fortinbras indicates that he doesn’t actually want to go along with the attack, Norway forgives him and even allows him to come to Denmark on peaceful terms. In this sense, old Norway is teaching Fortinbras the responsibility of thinking clearly and not acting rashly or whimsically.
On the whole, Shakespeare presents the responsibilities and obligations placed on the sons, by their fathers, in Hamlet, as ways for the fathers to get what they want. In the case of Hamlet and the ghost, it is for the ghost’s want of revenge and justice for a ‘murder most foul’, without much thought as to the effects of the deed, and even the contemplation of the deed, in the case of Hamlet, on him. In the case of Laertes and Polonius, it is a selfish and unwarranted want to save his own face from any shame that Laertes need not necessarily have caused in the first place. In the case of Norway and Fortinbras, it is the want to maintain good diplomatic relations and the prevention of unnecessary quarrels. In all cases except the diplomatic one, the fathers in question were rather selfish and self-centered in thinking of ways to get their sons to do their bidding. In the case of Norway and Fortinbras, it was done for diplomatic reasons, but it was still to save the bed-ridden Norway’s old skin. This gives a rather negative impression of father figures and what they tell their children to do.
Possibly, Shakespeare chose to illustrate these aspects of fatherhood the way that he did because it was his own interpretation of ‘responsibilities and obligations’ set down by fathers, maybe drawn from his own bad experiences with his own father during his younger days. Hamlet, as a play, could be then seen to be a Shakespearean ‘self-help’ guide on “How to know what is right to do as a father by knowing what is wrong to do as a father”, and it could have been a lesson to all the bad fathers out there who use manipulate their sons as they would a mindless henchman.
