Hamlet is regarded as one of the
Shakespeare’s best tragedies. The play falls into the genre of the revenge
tragedy which was very popular in the Jacobean era with its taste for violence
and intrigue. Revenge is the most obvious and one of the main themes of the
play. Besides, the focus of the play is on higher principles of life and
living, death and morality.
Hamlet
is endowed with finer characteristics which raise him above the level of stock
protagonist of the revenge play. He is highly intelligent, introspective young
man. He is witty and entertaining showing a strong sense of humour throughout,
even in the midst of his mental suffering as his life was full of melancholy and
madness. Hamlet is also enriched with the sensitiveness to the values of
personal relationship. The cruelty of violence gives place to intellectual
reflection that dominates the major part of the play.
The playwrights in the Elizabethan
period made extensive use of soliloquy in their plays, which in turn opened
many dramatic opportunities for the development of the theatre. Soliloquy is an
act of speaking one’s thought aloud or regardless of hearers, especially in a
play. Shakespeare’s soliloquies are written in blank verse of unparalleled
variety, invention and rhythmic flexibility. Seven soliloquies do occur in Hamlet
that highlights his mental state; of this we will discuss only two-
·
(a) O that this too too sullied flesh would melt,
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew…
But break my heart;
For I must hold my tongue.
This soliloquy appears in Act I Scene
II. It begins with Hamlet, desiring death when he sees his mother married to
Claudius (his uncle) and completely reconciled to her new state. Hamlet with a
heart full of grief for his father’s death is shocked to see how his mother
disowns his father posthumously and accepts Claudius as her husband. He is
grieving for his father whom he honoured and loved and expected his mother to
share his grief. Whereas; she is celebrating a hasty and unseemly marriage. He
is not only shocked and depressed by the haste with which his mother has
decided to remarry but he is also disguised by the husband she has chosen. As such,
his depression leads to bitterness and disgust towards all women. He says,
Frailty,
thy name is women!
It is the corruption in his mother’s
conduct that makes him feel, ‘too sullied flesh would melt’. It is this frame
of mind that Hamlet reacts to what life in the world of Elinsore offers him. In
fact, he is so disgusted that he wishes to die, even prepared to suicide. This
reveals that Hamlet is feeling melancholic, depressed, grief-stricken, angry,
betrayed, and suicidal. His words indicate the level of negativity to which he
has fallen. He is haunted by his father’s death, tormented by his mother’s
marriage to Claudius and infuriated by his inability to change either event. It
is this soliloquy which has led many psychoanalytical critics to conclude that
Hamlet suffers from ‘Oedipus complex’.
·
(b) O, all you host of heaven!
O earth! What else?...
I have sworn’t.
This soliloquy is spoken by Hamlet in
Act I Scene V after the ghost appears and the suggestions of a possible
treacherous murder have been made to him. The ghost reveals how Claudius had murdered
him. Hamlet is completely overwhelmed by hatred towards his uncle Claudius and
vows to kill him in obedience to his father’s wishes. This soliloquy shows
Hamlet committing himself to avenge his father’s death. The ghost reminds him
to never give up his idea of revenging his murder. As such, Hamlet practices
what psychologists would today term as ‘selective amnesia’. That is
deliberately forgetting everything stored in the memory except one, that is, to
take revenge, to kill Claudius and fulfil the ghost’s (his father) wishes.
Therefore the soliloquy expresses various passions in Hamlet like melancholy,
anger, disgust, grief, faithfulness, love and honour. Also, his excessively
speculative, indecisive and irresolute nature.
Comments
Post a Comment