Consider the significance of the Hamlet's ghost to the play in relation to the characters and the audience, both contemporary and Elizabethan.

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                                                                                                      Susana Corona Cruz

Consider the significance of the Hamlet’s ghost to the play in relation to the characters and the audience, both contemporary and Elizabethan.

Hamlet was written some time between 1599 and 1609. During those times revenge tragedies were very popular and ghosts were not an unusual feature. Similarly to the Senecan ghost used in Elizabethan times, Shakespeare’s ghost acts as a prologue and sets up the action of the play, it introduces the plot line which irremediably leads to the later tragic consequences. However Hamlet’s ghost was in many ways a “revolutionary innovation” and broke previous conventions of ghosts. Unlike its predecessor, the Senecan ghost, a “kind of Jack-in-the-box” (J.W.D) which was no more than a spook puppet used to scare the audience, undoubtedly adding “to the intense edification of the groundlings”; Hamlet’s ghost had a much more human and realistic appearance. It was said to have been the figure of the old king Hamlet, still dressed in his old armour “Together with that fair and warlike form” and surrounded by an edgy, cold and frightening environment in which typically ghosts appear “’Tis bitter cold”. The ghost disappeared at the sound of the cock crow, when the morning dawned; “(…) Fare thee well at once.

                               The glow-worm shows the matin to be near

This is another typical convention, as people perceived that evil creatures and spectres only came at night. But moreover, the cock crow, had also a Christian meaning, it was symbolic of betrayal in the Bible, when, after Jesus’ death Peter denies ever knowing him.

But in addition to this, Hamlet’s ghost also caused a stir among the public regarding its religious origin. The ghost then becomes a controversial issue in the play, interpreted differently by different groups in the audience. Protestantism had been recently introduced and imposed by the royal family; however the old beliefs of Catholicism were still fresh in most people’s minds and some still secretly held to the former religion.

By bringing this unconventional character into life, very different from the earlier devices that played ghosts, Shakespeare creates an even more awesome creature, giving it a contemporary spiritual background and lifting at the same time the ghost subject onto a higher level “(…) to transform a ranting roistering abstraction into a thing at once tender and majestical. Moreover, Shakespeare also poses a burning question on the ghost’s origins; whether this ghost is good or evil, angel or devil remains a mystery open to debate. As mentioned earlier, one of the outward signs of this transformation is the way the ghost first appears dressed, in “(…) the very armour he had on, When he the ambitious Norway combated,”, whereas when he appears later on, in the Queen’s chamber he is said to be “in his habits as he lived”. This sharp contrast from combat garments to a night-gown adds to the ghost’s humanity and adds to the sense of realism. The first act is full of references to the king’s armour, which has a great impact on all those who see it; he is described as having a “martial stalk” and “portentous figure” a detail the characters seem to look upon astonished and bewildered. Young Hamlet also becomes increasingly worried when seeing his father’s spirit fully dressed in armour “My father’s spirit, in arms, all is not well”.

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According to common religious beliefs, in Elizabethan times there were three different perceptions or possibilities to justify a ghost’s presence. Most people would have often seen it as a genuine departed spirit. It could also have been interpreted as a devil in disguise trying to trap you and drag your soul into the condemning flames of hell; or they could simply be the product of someone’s imagination, a mere hallucination, which could also had been provoked by an extreme state of melancholy. We could easily relate this last elucidation to Hamlet, as he seems to be deeply troubled and depressed ...

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