Soon after Hamlet strikes this discordant note at the marriage, he hears of the ghost, which has been seen upon the battlements by the night-watchmen Barnado, Marcellus and Horatio. Them come hither to bring the news; ‘In the dead waste and the middle of the night Been thus encountered: a figure like your father’.
Acts 4 & 5 show Hamlet meeting with the ghost of his late father after accompanying it into a wooded area proclaiming his ‘Fate cries out.’
When reading the play, it must be remembered that although to an audience today, the idea of this apparition may sound ludicrous, and following a ghost of your late father into the woods would be absurd, superstition was extremely prominent in Elizabetan times an audience then would be more readily open to accept this plot that perhaps a similar audience in today’s society.
Once in the woods the ghost tells Hamlet that he is the spirit of his father, this to a person at that time in history would have been believable, so Hamlet would have taken this encounter as something which could be explained by his superstition. It was widely believed at the time that ghosts were the souls of those who had died leaving unfinished business. Souls trapped between this world and the next who must resolve their grievances before being allowed to move on ; ‘I am thy father’s spirit, Doomed for a certain term to walk the night, And for the day confined to fast in fires, Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature Are burnt and purged away.’
The ghost goes on to tell Hamlet how he had been murdered by his brother, the new king of Denmark and new Husband to his wife, Hamlets uncle; ‘Murder most foul, as in the best it is’ ‘But know, thou noble youth, The serpent that did sting thy father’s life Now wears his crown.’ The ghost tells Hamlet that he must revenge his fathers death ‘Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder’
Although Hamlets belief in the ghost of his late father, along with his superstition are strong he devises a scheme to test the truth of the ghosts story by adapting a play performed by some visiting actors to mimic the murder of his father and observe the reaction of the king (To First Player)‘ We’ll ha’t tomorrow night. You could for a need study a speech of some dozen lines or sixteen lines which I would set down and insert in’t could you not?’ ‘I’ll have these players play something like the murder of my father Before mine uncle. I’ll observe his looks.’
When during the play the reaction of guilt of his uncle become apparent his fears are confirmed and Hamlet knows for certain he has been betrayed by his own family.
Hamlet also finds out that his love, Ophelia had first been told to stay away from him and then sent by her father and the king to spy on him, along with his friends from youth Rodsencrantz and Guildenstern to spy on him. By now his father is dead, his mothers married his uncle, his love, Ophelia has been told to reject him, then spy on him and his friends Rodencrantz ad Guildenstein have turned on him, he doesn’t know what to believe, his whole world has caved in.
Sympathy surely deserves to lie with Hamlet who although a murderer and debatably mad has been put through the upmost physiological torment and destruction in the course of the story. Everyone he comes in to contact with betrays him and he is driven to the ends which he takes.
