Laertes, another character to lose his father and his sister, who are both related to Hamlet in one way or another, deals with his feelings for seeking revenge in a very different way to Hamlet.
Although at first Laertes believes that Claudius killed his father, his reaction to his father’s death differs greatly. Laertes does not care about morals very much: To hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devil! Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!’ He is prepared to go to Hell to get revenge for his father’s death. He then continues to say.
‘I dare damnation. To this point I stand.
That both the worlds give to negligence, let come what comes; only I’ll be reveng’d,
Most throughly for my father.
Laertes is saying that he does not care what the consequences are, he will seek revenge even if he has to damn his soul to get it.
Laertes decides that he will murder Hamlet, by poisoning the dagger he will be fighting him with. This, he knows, will definitely lead to Hamlets death. Laertes makes a decision and sticks with it, unlike Hamlet who is considered insane around the time he is thinking about killing Claudius. Hamlet is even considering taking his own life; therefore Laertes would appear to be the more stable of the two. However, much of Hamlet’s procrastination lies in the fact that he intellectualizes the moral issues involved in life and death, good and evil. Both characters end up with the same fate; death. Laertes behaves like a typical hero of a revenge tragedy, rushing headlong into revenge and his own death without pausing to weigh the consequences of his actions.
When old Hamlet appears, Hamlet questions whether or not to believe it is his father. Hamlet is in a very emotional state, he is thinking of suicide due to his father’s death, and now he has appeared before him, it is little wonder that he is shaken up. Hamlet’s indecisiveness as to whether the ghost is really his father, is seen when he says ‘I’ll call thee Hamlet, King Father, royal Dane’, until he hears otherwise. He is wary because it was believed at the time that ghosts brought evil and were not good however, because the ghost so resembles his father and because Hamlet mourns him, he is prepared to believe that it is an honest ghost.
The ghost confirms his identity, to Hamlet by saying ‘I am thy Father’s spirit, Doom’d for a certain term to walk the night, And for the day confin’d to fast in fires, Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature Are burn’t and purg’d away’. Once again, the audience learns something about Jacobean religious views and beliefs. Old Hamlet is telling us that due his being murdered so quickly, he did not have time to repent his sins, and therefore he is stuck in purgatory the place between Heaven and Hell until God forgives them.
However Hamlet and Horatio are both men with high academic achievements, and both scholars, therefore it would be unlikely they would imagine such a thing. Both of them see the ghost on the battlement as do Barnado, Francisco and also Marcellus who sees its appearance as a sign that something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Although Gertrude never sees the Ghost, its validity and existence is proven by the fact that both Hamlet and Horatio have seen it. The fact that Gertrude has an inability to see the Ghost might suggest the fact that she had nothing to do with the murder of old Hamlet or that she is too insensitive to see it - an idea born out by her insensitively speedy marriage to Claudius. This also appears to be the case in MACBETH another of Shakespeare’s plays, in the banquet scene, when the guilty Macbeth sees the ghost of Banquo but no one else does.
As a result of the information Hamlet receives from his father about his death, and his mother’s behavior, Hamlet feels that life in Denmark is worthless. He feels now with the death of his father, and the incestuous he feels relationship between his mother and Claudius, that his life is also meaningless and worthless thus he discusses committing suicide. ‘O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew’. He then describes how distraught he is that his father was only dead a month when his mother got married to Claudius, and how he must ‘hold his tongue’. In spite of this he cannot kill himself because God gave him his life, therefore he has no right to take it. ‘The Everlasting ‘has’ ‘fixed / His canon gainst self-slaughter’.
‘To be, or not to be-that is the question’, Hamlet wonders whether to live or die. He gives a second reason for not doing so which links in with eternal damnation.
‘But that the dread of something after death-
The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns- puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?’
This shows Hamlets view on life and death. He is saying that he thinks that most people would kill themselves if they were not so scared of the afterlife. Of all Hamlet’s reasons for not killing himself, I find this one to be the most credible as I think even a present day audience could relate to these feelings about death. In Shakespeare’s time, the audience would have recognized that he is referring to the unknown terrors of Hell.
Contemporary views on suicide are demonstrated through the Gravedigger’s Scene. ‘Is she to be buried in Christian burial when she willfully seeks her own salvation?’ The clown is questioning whether or not Ophelia deserves to be given a Christian burial given that she took her own life that God gave her. The disapproval of Ophelia receiving a Christian burial is demonstrated in Hamlet’s words at her funeral saying
‘Who is this they follow?
And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken
The corse they follow did with desperate hand
Fordo it own life. ‘Twas of some estate.
Couch we awhile and mark’.
Hamlet wonders who is being buried because the funeral rites are incomplete. He then goes on to say that the person must have committed suicide. This shows the audience that because Ophelia committed suicide, she only deserved a low-key funeral, thus the audience sees that suicide in Shakespearean times was a highly disreputable act. In modern days this would be considered to be strange as everyone no matter how they died have the same rights to a funeral.
Hamlet’s behavior towards his mother can be interpreted as apparently incestuous, but it must be understood why he is so angry with her. ‘Mother you have my father much offended’, immediately it is clear that Hamlet is so annoyed with his mother because she has greatly offended his father even in death.
‘Such an act
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty;
Calls virtue hypocrite; takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love,
And sets a blister there; makes marriage- vows
As false as dicers’ oaths.
Hamlet is talking about his mother’s sex life with Claudius. This could lead people to think that they have an incestuous relationship since Hamlet is so obsessed by it that he seems almost jealous. Hamlet tells his mother that she is behaving like a convicted prostitute. Again Hamlet discusses her sex life with Claudius by saying ‘O shame! Where is thy blush?’ Hamlet is horrified a woman of his mother’s age should have sexual urges that would lead her to sin.
Hamlet’s language towards his mother is very crude and bestial, again suggesting the fact that he appears jealous therefore suggesting incest.
‘Nay but to live
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
Stwe’d in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty!’
Hamlet is being extremely crude about his mother’s sex life, which modern day audiences often interpret as being the result of an incestuous relationship. Although if you read on I would think this not to be the case.
‘Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul’.
Hamlet is discussing his mother’s soul; he is trying to save her soul from Claudius. ‘O, throw away the worser part of it, And live the purer with the other half. (‘It’ being his mother’s heart). Both of these quotations show that Hamlet is really concerned about his mother’s soul, therefore I don’t believe his relationship with his mother is incestuous. I just think he wants to really make her understand what she is doing. ‘Hamlet sees Getrude’s sexual misconduct as the source of the moral pollution that has tarnished his relationship with Ophelia’. This according to critics is another reason for Hamlet being furious with his mother and constantly discussing her sexual acts.
Hamlet's revenge turns out very differently to what he anticipates. The death he planned results in the death of four people through no fault of his own. In theory Hamlet’s soul should go to Hell because he murdered Polonius. Claudius would also in theory go to Hell, as he killed old Hamlet, and accidentally killed Gertrude. Laertes would also go to Hell as he killed Hamlet. The only one who should go to Heaven depending on whether she prayed sometime near her death would be Gertrude as she had no involvement in any of the murders. Hamlet has fulfilled his father's wishes in reeking revenge on Claudius, but his mother is murdered accidentally in the process, something which old Hamlet does not want. His success is therefore only partial. In addition because he, Hamlet, dies at Laertes’ hands, Denmark is left without a native heir, as is bequethed by Hamlet to the foreigner Fortinbras. The consequence of all these deaths is therefore very serious. Ophelia is seen as a character not worthy of a proper Christian burial because she killed herself. Personally I feel that Claudius is the character who is least worthy of such a burial as he is the instigator of everyone’s problems. In addition he is the cause of Gertrude, Hamlet and Laertes’ deaths, as it his idea to stage the sword fight and poison the chalice from which Gertrude inadvertently sips.
Having looked at all the critics’ comments and from my own understanding of the play, I would sum up Hamlet’s attitude to death and the afterlife, as being that of a religious man. He believes that many people would commit suicide if they were not so scared of the consequences of their actions in the afterlife because he also believes that God gave us our lives therefore they are not our own to take away. His conflicting concerns not to offend God and carry out the will of his dead father are what make this such a complex and interesting play.
Ann Thompson + Neil Taylor
