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Hamlet Hamlet is among the most famous tragical heroes in literature. The play was written in XVII century, but even now, reading it, we are amazed by strength and beauty of feelings of the main character. They play is interesting; it attracted attention of plenty of critics, the scientists from different fields of science. Their controversy about the play is still not finished, because William Shakespeare left for us the real puzzle to solve. Nowadays, the play was analyzed from the physiologic point of view and it appeared that we can learn more about the psychology of our ancestor while analyzing the play.
The inside world of Hamlet is shown so deeply, that maybe there is no other hero in the world literature, who had so difficult and deep feelings. The play Hamlet is considered to be a masterpiece of tragical literature. Hamlet did not know that his life would be tragic, was not prepared for that. His life first changed when his Uncle Claudius killed Hamlet's father, the King and Claudius's ome scientists considered Hamlet to be mad. But was it really so? I think that such critics just do not want to look deeper into the soul of the main character to understand his feelings and behavior.
Hamlet was a thoughtful person by nature, he was thinking about the sense of life. He was also sensual, because deeply impacted by his mothers fast marriage. Everybody knows his famous monologue: "To be or not to be-that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And, by opposing, end them. " One question that has puzzled readers is Hamlet's delay. Why does he wait so long to kill Claudius? First Hamlet is determined to fulfill the Ghost's wishes. He already has a plan to punish Claudius.
But, the next time we saw him in the play, which is long after that, he has not yet done the deed. He presumes he may have been deceived by the ghost. Having met with the ghost, every person would think, that it is someone's ominous draw because phantoms do not exists and if they do it is so rare, that so small probability can be considered suspicious miracle. What should Hamlet do? The investigation will take time, and he is short of it. If the performance is played by enemies, they wait for Hamlet with a naked sword every minute, and the God know what is prepared for him in case of his absence!
To present, that he, being in his senses and memory, saw nothing, heard nothing and knows nothing is impossible, because the messenger for certain should already have reported on success of the mission. Was Hamlet frightened? Had he become puzzled? Was afraid? But Hamlet is not the coward that is well-known.
He could not change so in one night? Besides he would have to ask questions which seemed to be strange. At the first sight the situation is desperate. But there is only one way out - to carry out the investigation that was possible only pretending to be a lunatic. Thus, having put themselves on a place of Hamlet the scientists received precise, unequivocal, logic answers to the questions. Hamlet pretends to be a lunatic to explain the seen inactivity hiding the true purpose that is to find out the purposes and intentions of prospective enemies, to camouflage his "strange" questions and acts.
But this explanation is proper if we are sure that Hamlets views on the non-natural phenomena were the same we have in our modern world. Lets analyze his attitude towards that on the base of the text: Bernard and Marcel were the first to have seen the ghost. They were just non-educated guards and Horatio (who studied in the university together with Hamlet) laughed at them: MARCELLUS Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy, And will not let belief take hold of him Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us: Therefore I have entreated him along With us to watch the minutes of this night; That if again this apparition come, He may approve our eyes and speak to it. HORATIO Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.
But when the ghost came and Horatio made sure that it is real he talked to it like to the man: HORATIO What art thou that usurp " st this time of night, Together with that fair and warlike form In which the majesty of buried Denmark Did sometimes march? by heaven I charge thee, speak! He shows, that pretence is revealed what it was useless to continue the game, but the ghost leaves, whether not having wished to speak to Horatio, whether being afraid of final exposure. Night, a lonely place - all these presses on mentality. And the halberd which one of guards tried to strike the ghost, has passed through it, as through an empty place.
Hamlet listens to story Horatio's and promptly starts to ask, as about not very surprising, simply "strange" affair. He is interesting interest in the details which could prove his assumptions that the ghost is somebody wished to play the role of the ghost. HAMLET Arm'd, say you? From top to toe? Then saw you not his face?
What, look'd he frowningly? Pale or red? The ghost says to Hamlet, describing the real reason of his death: "Murder most foul, as in the best it is, But this most foul, strange, and unnatural. " Marcellus says to Horatio after Hamlet follows the ghost the important words: "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. " No matter how ironically the words of Hamlet may have sound: Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd, Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws, To cast thee up again. What may this mean, That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel Revisit " st thus the glimpses of the moon, Making night hideous; and we fools of nature So horridly to shake our disposition With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do? they reflect a true state of affairs - confusion of Hamlet in front of the events. But, having counted all the possible variants, he immediately makes a decision to pretend a lunatic in view of what makes guards and Horatio swear: As 'Well, well, we know, ' or 'We could, an if we would, ' Or 'If we list to speak, ' or 'There be, an if they might, ' Or such ambiguous giving out, to note That you know aught of me: this not to do, So grace and mercy at your most need help you, Swear. Then Hamlet says to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern on his madness: "I am but mad north-north-west.
When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw. " Ophelia describes the state of Hamlet in the following way: My lord, as I was sewing in my closet, Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced; No hat upon his head; his stockings foul'd, Ungarter'd, and down-gyved to his able; Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other; And with a look so piteous in purport As if he had been loosed out of hell To speak of horrors, -- he comes before me. And later: He took me by the wrist and held me hard; Then goes he to the length of all his arm; And, with his other hand thus o'er his brow, He falls to such perusal of my face As he would draw it. Long stay'd he so; At last, a little shaking of mine arm And thrice his head thus waving up and down, He raised a sigh so piteous and profound Having devoted his life to revenge, Hamlet forced himself to forget about everything good he had in life. By chance he killed the father of his beloved and became guilty in her own death.
Of course, after that he has no other end for himself except death but the revenge is still the first. But when Hamlets suspicions were proved he again became normal person and says that he was sorry about some actions. I think that Hamlet was not mad at all but he was shocked. As the most tragic character he lost the belief in everything good because of his fathers death. Here we see that maybe that is no more tragic person than who looses the belief in everything positive and devoted his life to the revenge. Hamlet is a classical figure with very deep world inside, that can be considered the deepest in the world literature.
The tragedy "Hamlet" also has great historical value; it is the "mirror", the annals of a century. In it a print of time in which not only separate persons but whole peoples appeared as though between two fires, feudal attitudes, already in the present and the bourgeois attitudes are coming; superstition, fanaticism are left in the past and freethinking but also omnipotence of gold are in the future. The society became richer, but it also became more poverty. The state in which Danish prince lives, pining from his ulcers and defects, is the invented Denmark. Shakespeare wrote about his contemporary England. Everything in his play: the heroes, ideas, problems, characters - belongs to the society in which Shakespeare lived. "Hamlet" is filled with very deep philosophical maintenance, in the tragedy there are wide picture of the contemporary for Shakespeare life.
The grandiose human characters, ideas and feelings of the writer created in this masterpiece of Shakespearian dramatic art, became close not only to his contemporaries, but also to the people of other historical epoch. Bibliography: Shakespeare Hamlet John A. Hobson, (London: 1995) Patricia Maycrot, Hamlet New York, 1998
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