The plot in Hamletmachine is very scattered, does not make much sense and is all over the place and thus is not complete, nor serious. The characters do not have a certain magnitude: Hamlet is not a perfect person, nor is Ophelia and the audience certainly couldn’t relate to them as people which rejects conforming to Aristotle’s Poetics.
According to Aristotle’s Poetics, there are three types of action that without we would not have tragedy and Hamlet does appear to conform to them. The first is ‘recognition’ (a change from ignorance to knowledge) and this can be seen in ‘Hamlet’ when the play within the play is staged for the king. The play is a re-enactment of what Hamlet believes happened to his father. His uncle is so upset and flustered by the play that he runs from the room. This action indicates to Hamlet that his suspicions were correct and his uncle is indeed responsible for King Hamlet's death. The second is ‘reversal’ (taking a person in one situation and them ending up in another situation) and this is shown in ‘Hamlet’ by Hamlet’s descent into madness after finding out about the murder. The third is ‘scenes of suffering’ (in Oedipus this would be him plucking out his eyes) and although Hamlet does not inflict suffering upon himself in a physical sense, he inflicts psychological suffering upon Ophelia by rejecting her.
There are some aspects of Poetics that Shakespeare does not follow. For instance, Aristotle states that in a great tragedy, there should be unity of time, place, and action. By this he means that the action of the play should take place in the amount of time it takes to perform it. It should occur in one setting, and there should be one main plot or action. Hamlet breaks all of these rules, for example, the play spans over a significant period of time, although the actions do occur in chronological order, giving it a linear flow. However, it is questionable on whether or not the appearances of the Ghost and the short play that Hamlet wrote drag the time backwards as they both explain things that have happened previously.
The setting in Hamlet also does not strictly conform to the unity of place because we know that the play occurs in various settings ranging from Elsinore to a plain in Denmark, although the fact that most of the play takes place in Elsinore suggests that it does loosely follow some of Aristotle’s conventions. Finally, there are several plots taking place simultaneously, which break the unity of action. For example, while Hamlet is suffering with the death of his father, Ophelia is going mad because Hamlet is not returning her love. Other events also defer from the main revenge plot: the scene with Hamlet and the skull for example.
Another (possible) unity that Aristotle may have intended is unity of character, and Hamlet’s character is consistent, but not all of the time. He keeps on changing his mind whether or not he is going to avenge his father, and it is possible that Hamlet feigns his madness. Thus, unity of character is another ‘rule’ that Hamlet follows, but only loosely.
Hamletmachine, however, seems to challenge all of the conventions of Aristotle’s Poetics as it evades understanding and rejects all aspects of what Aristotle thinks makes a tragedy. For instance, Hamletmachine has no unity of character whatsoever as the character does not even know who he is and constantly contradicts himself: ‘I was Hamlet’, ‘I’m not Hamlet’, ‘I was MacBeth’. Also, there does not actually seem to be a clear distinction between the ‘characters’ and Heiner Müller himself as the whole plays has an autobiographical feel as he seems to be using ‘Hamlet’ to demonstrate his own views.
There is no unity of action in Hamletmachine as the plot evades understanding and is extremely hard to follow. Like Hamlet, there is a sub-plot in Hamletmachine also which detracts from the main action (IV PEST IN BUDA/BATTLE FOR GREENLAND) and does not conform to Aristotle’s ideas set out in his Poetics.
The setting in Hamletmachine ranges from ‘an enormous room’/‘space 2’ to ‘the deep sea’. Each scene is set in a different place; rejecting Aristotle’s theory of unity of place even more so than Hamlet does. There also appears to be no real unity of time in Hamletmachine as the plot is so confusing as it goes from one extreme scenario to the other.
Aristotle believes that in order for a tragedy to be effective, it must convey pity and fear: he defines pity as a felling that is aroused by “unmerited misfortune”. Hamlet undoubtedly suffers pity and unmerited misfortune - he did nothing to cause his father's death. To make Hamlet’s situation more painful, his mother married his uncle who he believe to have killed his father and these circumstances bring about pity from the audience. The fear of coming evil is also prevalent in the play and as it progresses, it becomes clear that the king is planning to kill Hamlet and Hamlet is planning to kill the king.
Aristotle also stresses that diction is important to make the tragedy believable. Hamlet uses diction perfectly and everything that the characters say is appropriate for them to say: the king speaks like a king. There is an obvious difference between the ways the king speaks and the way the gravediggers speak because the gravediggers are common men and therefore, speak as though they are common men. Hamletmachine does not use diction: for instance, Ophelia does not speak like a ‘lady’ ought to speak and Hamlet certainly does not speak like a Prince should. This is a blatant rejection of Aristotle’s ideas on what makes an effective tragedy.
Aristotle’s Poetics is considered the guide to a well written tragedy. In Aristotle’s opinion, plot is the most important aspect of the tragedy, all other parts such as character, diction, and thought stem from the plot. Aristotle defines a tragedy as “an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions”. Shakespeare’s Hamlet follows this definition for the most part, and even though it is not always in agreement with Aristotle’s guidelines, it is still an effective tragedy.
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