Revenge and the Nobility of the Human Mind

in Shakespeare’s Hamlet

2001년

서강대학교 대학원

영어영문학과

곽 영 미

Revenge and the Nobility of the Human Mind

in Shakespeare’s Hamlet

지도교수 안 선 재

이 논문을 문학석사 학위논문으로 제출함

2002년 7월

서강대학교 대학원

영어영문학과

곽 영 미

논문 인준서

곽영미의 문학석사 학위 논문을 인준함

2002년 7월

주심 이 태 동 (인)

부심 안 선 재 (인)

부심 신 숙 원 (인)

Revenge and the Nobility of the Human Mind

in Shakespeare’s Hamlet

by

Kwak, Young mi

A Thesis Presented

To the Department of English

Graduate School, Sogang University in Partial

Fulfillment of the Requirement for

The Degree of Master of Arts

2002

Acknowledgments

This thesis is a product of everyone that has been with me.

Without his or her help, I would not have finished this thesis.

I would like to give my sincere and wholehearted thanks to

everyone for his(her) encouragement and advice.

Kwak Young mi

July 2002

Table of Contents

국문초록 ……………………………………………………………………….ⅰ

Abstract ………………………………………………………………………….ⅰ

Introduction ……………………………………………………………………….1

Chapter Ⅰ: Hamlet’s Contradictory States of Mind ……………………………10

Chapter Ⅱ: Hamlet’s Delay and Transcendental Freedom ……………………..30

Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………51

Works Cited ……………………………………………………………………...55

- i -

국 문 초 록

잘 알려져 있듯이 셰익스피어는 『햄릿』을 쓸 때 여러 출처의 복

수극에서 소재를 빌려왔다. 『햄릿』 줄거리의 기본 요소인 형제 살해,

근친 상간, 거짓 광기, 그리고 오래 지연된 복수 실행 등이 『햄릿』

출처에 이미 포함되어 있었다. 언뜻 보기에는 햄릿도 왕의 잔혹한 살

인에 분노하면서 복수자로서의 길을 걷는 것처럼 보인다.

그러나 셰익스피어는 『햄릿』을 쓸 때 르네상스의 지적인 시대적

배경에 따라 복수극의 연극적 장치를 비판적으로 재고하고 있다. 『햄

릿』은 이전 시대의 가치들에 대한 의심과 재평가가 이루어지던 르네

상스 시기에 쓰여졌다. 영국은 16세기 중반 이후 경제, 과학, 지리, 인

식론에서 새로운 변화의 물결에 휩싸였다. 특히 새로운 인식은 기존의

가치를 뒤흔들기 시작했다. 갈릴레오의 지동설은 인간이 신과 같은 이

성을 지닌 위대한 존재라는 낙관론을 퍼뜨렸다. 하지만 이와 동시에

캘비니즘과 몽테뉴의 상대주의는 인간의 능력과 이성의 힘을 의심했다.

나중에 등장한 데카르트의 회의주의와 주관주의도 낙관론을 거부하며

인간 세상의 가치에 대한 회의를 부추겼다.

셰익스피어는 『햄릿』에서 르네상스의 회의적 분위기를 반영하고

있다. 복수 자체에 초점을 맞추는 대신, 모든 것이 불확실하고 의심스

러운 시대에 사는 인간 마음의 다양성을 탐구한다. 그는 전통적인 복

- ii -

수극에 등장하는 단호하고 결단력 있는 복수자 대신, 새로운 시대를

대변하는 사람으로서 햄릿이라는 지적인 르네상스 인간을 창출해낸다.

이러한 맥락에서 본 논문은 인간의 근원적인 문제들에 대한 주인

공의 갈등을 통해 『햄릿』이 어떻게 인간 마음의 움직임을 보여주는

지를 살펴본다. 햄릿은 세상에 존재하는 가치와 의미 있는 행동에 대

해 끊임없이 의심하고 깊이 생각한다. 대립되는 가치들과 그로 인한

마음의 갈등 때문에 그는 과감하게 복수를 실행하지 못한다. 하지만

햄릿은 자신의 모순된 마음과 복수 지연에 괴로워하는 “어린 햄릿”에

머물지 않는다. 불확실한 세상에서 제기되는 선과 악, 허구와 실재, 삶

과 죽음 등의 문제들을 끊임없이 생각하면서 햄릿은 마침내 삶에 대한

성숙하고 차분한 지혜를 터득한다.

제 1 장에서는 대조되는 가치와 관련된 햄릿의 모순된 마음 상태

를 살펴본다. 햄릿은 르네상스 시대의 새로운 가치를 배운 대학생이다.

이에 반해 덴마크는 왕을 중심으로 움직이는 보수적인 귀족 사회이다.

두 세계 사이에서 햄릿은 서로 충돌하는 상반된 가치 때문에 번민한다.

어머니의 간통과 삼촌의 형제살해는 인간에 대한 그의 믿음과 삶의 가

치를 뒤흔든다. 절대적인 가치의 부재 속에서, 그는 자신에게 닥치는

온갖 문제들, 현상과 실재, 복수의 의무와 합리적인 사고, 유령의 실체,

열정과 이성에 대해 지속적으로 의심하고 묻는다.

제 2 장에서는 햄릿이 어떻게 의미 있는 행동을 찾아나가고 어떻

게 초월적 자유에 이르게 되는지를 살펴본다. 햄릿은 왕을 죽이는 행

- iii -

위의 정당성을 확신할 수 없어 복수를 계속 지연시킨다. 무엇보다 그

가 고민하는 것은 복수의 문제가 아니라 삶의 무거운 고난이다. 왕을

죽인다 해도 삶의 끔찍한 고난은 사라지지 않으리라는 것을 그는 알고

있다. 햄릿은 의미 있는 행위에 대해 숙고하면서 삶의 의미와 복수 행

위의 도덕적 정당성을 확신할 때까지 기다린다. 그 결과, 5막에서 햄

릿은 그의 생각과 행위에서 전혀 새로운 모습을 보여준다. 해상에서의

체험과 묘지에서의 명상으로부터 햄릿은 죽을 수밖에 없는 인간 삶의

한계와 인간사에서의 신의 섭리를 깨닫는다. 마음을 평정을 찾은 그는

마침내 생각과 행위를 일치시킨다. 그리하여 영혼을 더럽히지 않은 채

왕을 죽이게 되고 고귀한 존재로서 죽음을 맞이한다.

- iv -

Abstract

It is well known that Shakespeare’s Hamlet in part relies upon the sources

of revenge tragedy. The essentials of Shakespeare’s plot such as fratricide, an

incestuous marriage, feigned madness, and the ultimate achievement of a long-

delayed revenge were already present in the sources. At first glance Hamlet

seems to passionately respond to the “unnatural” murder of King and to try to

find his identity in the role of the avenger.

However, Shakespeare reviewed and challenged the theatrical devices of

revenge tragedy in writing Hamlet according to Renaissance intellectual

backgrounds. Hamlet was written in the Renaissance age of doubt and

revaluation. England achieved new prosperity after the mid-sixteenth century,

while science and world exploration were radically expanded. Change also took

place in the epistemology of the age. New perceptions challenged the prevailing

assumptions of contemporary discourses. Galileo Galilei’s new cosmography

gave the Shakespearian age a radiant optimism that a man is no doubt a great

being who has God-like reason. But at the same time, Calvinism and

Montaigne’s relativism questioned the powers of human reason and depreciated

pride in human reason. Besides, Cartesian skepticism and subjectivism brought

about a rejection of the previous optimistic perspectives.

- v -

Shakespeare mirrors the skeptical atmosphere of Renaissance age in Hamlet.

Instead of focusing on revenge itself, Shakespeare explores the varieties of

human mind in an age of doubt. He creates an intellectual Renaissance man who

is different from single-minded avengers found in the conventional revenge

tragedy. In this context, this thesis aims to discuss how Hamlet shows the

operation of the human mind through the protagonist’s conflicts about

fundamental human problems. Hamlet persists in doubting existing theories and

reflecting on meaningful action. He is faced with conflicts caused by

contradictory values. Thus he naturally has difficulty in taking resolute revenge

action. Interestingly, Hamlet does not remain the “young Hamlet,” who suffers

from his antinomic mind and his inactivity. Through unceasing reflection on

fundamental human problems in a world of incertitude, Hamlet at last achieves

mature and sober wisdom.

Chapter Ⅰwill examine Hamlet’s contradictory states of mind concerning

contrary values. Hamlet is a university student who has learned new perceptions,

whereas his Denmark is a royal or conservative aristocratic society. Standing on

the frontier of the two worlds, he is afflicted with the conflicting moods. The

Queen’s adultery and the King’s fratricide shatter him in terms of human faith

and the value of life. He cannot find the absolute truth that he can rely on. So he

constantly doubts and questions all the problems that he is faced with:

appearance and reality, the duty of revenge and reasonable thought, passion and

- vi -

reason.

Chapter Ⅱ will show how Hamlet searches for an understanding of what

meaningful action is and achieves his nobility. Not able to be sure the good and

bad pertaining to any action, Hamlet delays his duty of revenge. Hamlet waits

until he gains certainty as to moral validity of his action, ceaselessly reflecting

on the meaningful action. As a result, the Hamlet of Act Ⅴshows a new aspect

in his thought and action. From his experience of the sea voyage and the

Graveyard scene, he finally recognizes the mortality of human life and the

working of divine providence in human events. Achieving the peace of his mind,

he finally reconciles his thought and action. Therefore he kills Claudius without

dirtying his heart and dies as a noble figure.

1

Introduction

Hamlet is surely one of the most problematic plays ever written by

Shakespeare or any other playwright. The play has been extensively interpreted by

many writers and critics. It is well known that Samuel Johnson defined Hamlet as

“rather an instrument than an agent” (6). Johnson argued that Hamlet makes no

attempt to punish the King and his death is at last effected by an incident that

Hamlet has no part in producing (6). A. C. Bradley, one of the most famous critics

on Shakespeare at the end of the nineteenth century, regarded Hamlet as a

melancholic man who is preoccupied with his “weariness of life or longing for

death” (108). George Wilson Knight also portrayed Hamlet as a figure of nihilism

and “the ambassador of death walking amid life” (requoted from Grene, 54).

Further, psychoanalytic critics have often interpreted Hamlet’s problems as the

result of an “Oedipus complex.” Earnest Jones argued that Hamlet cannot kill the

King because the King is too deeply identified with Hamlet’s own Oedipal

impulse. Even worse, according to T. S. Eliot’s judgment, Hamlet is “most

certainly an artistic failure” (143). Eliot claimed that Shakespeare was unable to

transform the intractable material of the old play and the sources into an

“objective correlative” that provides a means to express “emotion in the form of

art” (143).

2

On the other hand, Romantic writers and thinkers were more positive in

interpreting the character of Hamlet. They thought it true that Hamlet is too

melancholic and hesitates to act, but felt that he has good cause. They described

Hamlet as a deep thinker ensnared in a world of brutal action. Samuel Taylor

Coleridge asserted that Hamlet’s delay derives not from his “cowardice” but from

his “aversion to action” (8). Coleridge judged that Hamlet knows well what he

ought to do, but persists in exploring his mind in search for the right way to do it.

Similarly, A. W. Schlegel in Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature published in

1808 wrote that Hamlet is a “tragedy of thought” (requoted from Edwards, 34).

Schlegel looked upon Hamlet as a restless doubter of uncertain principles. He

interpreted that Hamlet cannot take action because he is unable to be sure of the

value of action in a world of incertitude. John Dover Wilson, who closely

examined the text of Hamlet with Elizabethan eyes, asserted that Hamlet is

Shakespeare’s “most realistic, most modern, tragedy” (52).

The different interpretations of Hamlet and Hamlet’s character show how

difficult it is for us to know what Hamlet is “really” about. At least, in any attempt

to understand Shakespeare’s Hamlet, we surely need to examine the sources of the

play and Renaissance intellectual backgrounds. It is well known that

Shakespeare’s Hamlet in part relies upon the Senecan tradition of revenge tragedy.

According to M. A. Abrams, the materials of the revenge tragedy derived from

Seneca are “murder, revenge, ghosts, mutilation, and carnage” (323). Revenge

3

tragedy was a popular genre on the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage. The reason

for that popularity was partly “the theatrical power of the revenge motif itself”

(Andrews 169). The quest for vengeance satisfied the renaissance audience’s

instinctive wish for portrayals of intrigue and violence. Shakespeare reviewed and

challenged the theatrical devices of revenge tragedy in writing Hamlet.

It is usually estimated that the immediate source of Hamlet is the lost “Ur-

Hamlet.” The ultimate source is the twelfth-century story of Amleth in Saxo

Grannmaticus’ Historiae Danicae. In this story, the essentials of Shakespeare’s

plot such as fratricide, an incestuous marriage, feigned madness, and the ultimate

achievement of a long-delayed revenge were already present. But the story

reached the Elizabethans by way of a French version in Belleforest’s Histoires

Tragiques of 1570. It is often assumed that Thomas Kyd adapted that story for the

stage and then went on to compose The Spanish Tragedy. The latter play is in

many ways a mirror-image of Hamlet, but a far more melodramatic play than

Shakespeare’s reworking of the Hamlet story. Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy

exemplifies the major pattern of conventional revenge tragedies. Jean-Piere

Maquerlot refers to the three-tier Kydian pattern of revenge as follows:

First the crime or its disclosure, which causes an intense emotional shock and

subsequently motivates revenge; then the identification of the guilty party,

either after an investigation conducted by the potential avenger or his allies,

4

or owing to combination of circumstances, fortuitous or provoked; and

finally, the peripeteia attendant upon the revenge proper, possibly with the

murderer’s counter-offensive following the exposure of his guilt and

preceding the simultaneous deaths of the avenger and his adversaries (88).

However, Shakespeare does not blindly follow the Kydian patterns of

revenge tragedy. He differentiates his Hamlet story from the source-narratives in

both structure and theme. First, the crime of Claudius’s regicide takes place before

the play starts. Instead of bloodshed, the opening scene of the play focuses on the

problem of national security and the uncertain atmosphere the Ghost brings about.

Secondly, the nature of the Ghost is ambiguous. Andrea, the Ghost in The Spanish

Tragedy, demands revenge but does not have impact on the plot. Hieronimo’s

revenge satisfies the Ghost, but in his eyes it is done for his son’s death, not

Andrea’s. But the Ghost in Hamlet provokes not only the hero’s fury but also his

doubt and uncertainty about human life.

Thirdly, Hamlet’s delay differentiates Hamlet from the conventional revenge

tragedy. Revenge is performed through an elaborate trick that the avenger

prepares carefully. Hieronimo deceitfully uses a dumb show in order to achieve

his revenge. In Hamlet Claudius contrives a cruel plot to kill Hamlet with the help

of Laertes. Hieronimo and Laertes are the kind of men who believe that “Revenge

should have no bounds”(Ⅳ.ⅶ.126). However, Hamlet refuses reckless action and

5

tries to obtain certainty as to the moral justice of his action. The avenger’s rage

and decisiveness are replaced by his unceasing self-doubt and self-questioning. So,

Hamlet’s delay functions as a theatrical device which challenges the nature of

brutal revenge action. Lastly, in the final act, Shakespeare prepares Hamlet’s deep

recognition of the meaning of his life, instead of a macabre scene of revenge.

Shakespeare’s revision of the source-narratives of revenge tragedy is

associated with Renaissance intellectual backgrounds. Hamlet was written in the

Renaissance age of doubt and revaluation. The notable features of the Elizabethan

world were “complexity and variety, inconsistency and fluidity” (Elton 17).

England achieved new prosperity after the mid-sixteenth century, while science

and world exploration were radically expanded. Change also took place in the

epistemology of the age. New perceptions challenged the prevailing assumptions

of contemporary discourses. Galileo Galilei’s new cosmography gave the

Shakespearian age a radiant optimism that a man is no doubt a great being who

has God-like reason. But at the same time, Calvinism and Montaigne’s relativism

questioned the powers and limits of human reason. The two approaches

depreciated pride in human reason. Besides, Cartesian skepticism and

subjectivism brought about a rejection of the previous optimistic perspectives.

The change of Elizabethan thought affected the climate of English

Renaissance tragedy. The conventional revenge tragedy was usually filled with the

violent and bloody events. In The Spanish Tragedy, Hieronimo performs revenge

6

through passionate and brutal action. Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare’s only

revenge tragedy, presents personal vengeance that accentuates the avenger’s

bloody triumph. The avenger glories in the slaughter he causes. The patterns of

archetypal revenge stories may have been considered outdated in terms of the

intellectual backgrounds of doubt and revaluation. Perhaps they had appeared to

be so cruel or dull to the Elizabethan sophisticated audience. Michael Andrews

asserts that Elizabethan audience regarded revenge as something “barbaric and

unchristian” (168). Moreover, the protagonists of the traditional revenge tragedy

were considered unbelievable or unrealistic. Although they sometimes suffer from

their duty of revenge, they later take decisive and resolute action without

experiencing moral conflicts. In the eyes of Shakespearean audience, they

“imitated humanity so abominably” (Ⅲ.ⅱ.35).

Thus, Shakespeare was following the tendency of the changing Renaissance

spirit in rewriting a popular revenge play. In Hamlet, Shakespeare suggests the

Renaissance theory of drama as an image of actual life:

Be not too tame neither, but let your own dis-

cretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word,

the word to the action, with this special observance,

that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature. For any-

thing so o’erdone is from the purpose of playing,

7

whose end, both at the first and now, was and is to

hold as’ twere the mirror up to nature. (Ⅲ.ⅱ.16-22)

In the above speech, we can assume that Shakespeare refuses the crude histrionics

of the players of popular revenge tragedies. It is true that the acting of revenge

usually relies on turbulent emotion rather than controlled emotion. The tragedy of

passion and blood does not accord with the Elizabethan taste. Such a play

simplifies and even distorts human life and human mind. Shakespeare challenges

the archetypal revenge tragedy that is obsessed with appealing to the human

senses. The play he pursues should hold “a mirror up to nature.” Therefore,

instead of focusing on murderous acting, Shakespeare explores the varieties of

human nature in an age of doubt.

In this context, this thesis aims to discuss how Hamlet shows the operation of

the human mind through the protagonist’s conflicts about how to act. Arthur

Kirsch argues that Hamlet portrays the hero’s “experience of grief, and his

recovery from it” (218). Kirsch’s argument is partly right but too simple. It is true

that Hamlet mourns for the loss of his father and suffers from his inactivity of

revenge. But Shakespeare focuses on Hamlet’s ongoing consciousness rather than

his grief or the revenge action. The writer represents an intellectual atmosphere of

skepticism and relativism, creating the young Hamlet as an intellectual scholar.

The young Hamlet persists in doubting existing theories and reflecting on

8

meaningful action. He is faced with conflicts caused by contradictory values. Thus

he naturally has difficulty in taking resolute revenge action. Interestingly, Hamlet

does not remain the “young Hamlet,” who suffers from his antithetical mind and

his inactivity. Through unceasing reflection on fundamental human problems in a

world of incertitude, Hamlet at last achieves mature and sober wisdom.

Chapter Ⅰwill examine Hamlet’s contradictory states of mind concerning

contrary values. The Renaissance age was marked by doubt and revaluation. The

new cosmography and the cultural relativism gave rise to conflict between

traditional views and newer views. Hamlet is a university student who has learned

new perceptions, whereas his Denmark is a royal or conservative aristocratic

society. Standing on the frontier of the two worlds, he persistently doubts and

questions extant assumptions and authorities. The revelation of the Ghost

strengthens Hamlet’s conflict between old values and new values. Although he

admires his father’s heroic achievements, he cannot completely follow his old-

fashioned heroic code. His intellectual spirit makes him doubt the nature of the

Ghost and the truth of its disclosure. Further, Hamlet’s doubt proceeds to

challenge human reason. Claudius’ fratricide and Gertrude’s adultery shatter his

belief in human nature. He cannot be sure of the spiritual dignity of man and

cannot find absolute truth in a world where everything is so changeable. Therefore

his mind is at war with itself. Shakespeare focuses on the contradictory states of

mind of the hero, not the issue of revenge, by showing Hamlet’s endless self-

9

doubt and reflection about antithetical values in a world of full of incertitude.

Through an analysis of Hamlet’s contradictory states of mind, Chapter Ⅱ

will show how Hamlet searches for an understanding of what meaningful action is

and achieves his nobility. Hamlet’s divided and ambivalent consciousness brings

about a delay in his revenge. Hamlet’s delay is different from that found in

conventional revenge tragedies. Some critics regard Hamlet’s delay as his excuse

for the inactivity of revenge. But his delay functions as a theatrical device which

questions the nature of the conventionally unhesitating revenge action. Not able to

be sure of the good and bad pertaining to any action, he waits until he gains

certainty as to the moral validity of his action. As a result, the Hamlet of Act Ⅴ

shows a new aspect in his thought and action unlike the typical avenger. From his

experience of the sea voyage and the Graveyard scene, he recognizes the mortality

of human life and the working of divine providence in human events. His ultimate

recognition of “let it be” makes him understand what meaningful action is and

frees him from the burden of life. In the end, his killing of Claudius is clearly an

act of justice, without any of the ugly gloating at the shedding of blood found at

the end of The Spanish Tragedy. Hamlet dies as a noble man.

10

Chapter Ⅰ Hamlet’s Contradictory States of Mind

Hamlet focuses on a young character who is persistently assailed by the duty

of revenge. At the start of the play, Hamlet mourns for his dead father and is

melancholic because of his mother’s overhasty marriage with his uncle. His

suffering is intensified when he hears from the Ghost that his uncle murdered his

father. At first glance Hamlet seems to passionately respond to the “unnatural”

murder and to try to find his identity in the role of the avenger. However, he does

not follow the path of a typical revenger found in the conventional revenge

tragedy. Instead of focusing on revenge itself, Shakespeare shows in Hamlet “an

array of standard Renaissance tragic conflicts” that undercut the audience’s

expectation (Watson 325). The Renaissance age in which Hamlet was written was

marked by doubt and revaluation. Montaigne’s depreciation of human reason and

pride expressed the relativity of perception. Later, towards the mid-seventeenth

century, Cartesian dualism would mirror the conflicts of values of an individual

character. Cartesian skepticism and subjectivism encouraged a rejection of

previous perspectives.

Shakespeare represents in Hamlet an intellectual atmosphere of skepticism

and relativism, by creating the young Hamlet as a Renaissance intellectual.

Hamlet’s characterization as an undergraduate at Wittenberg University includes

11

the implications of Renaissance culture. Wittenberg University was the center of

radical Protestant belief in providence. However, Hamlet’s Elsinore is a medieval

or conservative aristocratic society. C. S. Lewis described Hamlet as “a haunted

man with his mind on the frontier of two worlds,” unable either to reject or to

accept the supernatural (requoted from Grene, 62). Standing on the frontier of two

worlds, Hamlet is afflicted by the conflicts between his individual desire and the

claims of the community. The different values of two worlds always come into

collision in his inner mind. His mind is divided and antithetical because of

contradictory values.

The divided and ambivalent consciousness is Hamlet’s remarkable

characteristic. Unlike the single-minded avenger of the conventional revenge

tragedy, Hamlet is never to be committed to any stance or attitude. As an

intellectual man who has learned new perceptions, he unceasingly doubts and

questions existing assumptions and authorities. First of all, he challenges

Claudius’s Stoic balance because it appears too temperate and inhuman. And then,

he reflects on the loss of Medieval values such as love, fidelity, justice, and

morality. The commandment of the Ghost strengthens his conflict the duty of

revenge and reasonable thought. Though he admires his father’s glorious

achievement, he does not completely follow the old-fashioned heroic code. His

intellectual disposition prevents him from accepting without doubt the Ghost’s

revelation. Further, his doubt proceeds to challenge to human reason. Claudius’s

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fratricide and Gertrude’s betrayal lead him to question the spiritual dignity of man.

In a world where everything is uncertain, he is not able to find the absolute truth

he can depend on. Shakespeare focuses on the dilemma of the hero, not the issue

of revenge, by showing Hamlet’s self-doubt and questioning about contrary values.

This chapter aims to examine Hamlet’s contradictory states of mind about

appearance and reality, the duty of revenge and reasonable thoughts, the nature of

the Ghost and human reason.

Hamlet’s contradictory mind is already displayed before old Hamlet’s Ghost

reveals Claudius’s murder. The young Hamlet first appears in the second scene,

wearing black in mourning for his dead father. Unlike the splendor of the royal

council, Hamlet seems more than a little depressed and melancholic. When his

mother reproves him for his particular show of grief, Hamlet draws attention to

the contrast between ‘show’ and ‘reality’:

Queen. Why seems it so particular with thee?

Hamlet. Seems, madam! Nay, it is; I know not seems.

‘Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother

Nor customary suits of solemn black,

Nor windy suspiration of forc’d breath,

No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,

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Nor the dejected haviour of the visage,

Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,

That can denote me truly. These, indeed, seem;

For they are actions that a man might play;

But I have that within passes show,

These but the trapping and the suits of woe. (Ⅰ.ⅱ.74-86).

In the above speech, Hamlet alludes to the hollowness of others’ grief. He thinks

that his grief is fundamentally different from grief displayed merely for show. His

sorrow is real not assumed, unlike the emotions of the people around him. His

outburst on show and reality is “against all seeming, against imputations of

hypocrisy” (Mercer 144). It seems that Hamlet has something in him that goes

beyond his external woe. According to Jean-Piere Marqueriot, Hamlet’s speech on

the deceptiveness of appearance shows “the irresistible emergence of different

viewpoints in Hamlet’s consciousness which accounts for his bifurcations of

thought and behavior” (99). Marqueriot’s insistence is surely right. Hamlet lives

in a world where he is unable to freely express varied responses to experience.

Everyone in the court except for Hamlet seems to live a normal and ordinary

domestic life. Only Hamlet is still silent and dresses in black as a sign of his

continued mourning. His grief over his father’s death is unwelcome in the court,

to his uncle, even to his own mother. The people of the court reject Hamlet’s

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sorrow as an unavailing woe.

In attempting to admonish Hamlet, the new King invokes contemporary

thoughts about sorrow and reason. The King insists that although it is natural that

a son should mourn for his father’s death, overflowing sorrow is “a fault to heaven,

/ a fault against the dead, a fault to nature, / To reason most absurd” (Ⅰ.ⅱ.101-3).

The King’s attitude echoes attitudes connected with stoicism. Stoicism

recommended self-control and condemned the expression of immoderate

emotions. Renaissance physicians and preachers commonly thought that fear and

grief could brings about mental disorder. The excessive grief was seen as

“particularly dangerous” and the controlled sorrow was considered “a safeguard

against madness” (Findlay 145). Accordingly, as Mark Matheson points out, the

King’s discourse implies that the Stoic ideology of self-control is “a conservative

ideology of obedience to the existing order” (387). However, Hamlet does not

accept the ideology because Claudius’ Stoic balance appears too temperate and

even inhuman. His “knighted colour” and his “dejected haviour” are against the

“show of reason and normality that Claudius has so carefully sustained” (Mercer

141).

In addition, Hamlet’s speech on appearance and reality implies the problem

of the limits of language and gesture. Although Hamlet exposes his sorrow over

his father’s death, there is another truth in his grief. His outward mourning does

not completely express what he really feels. The show of grief is nothing but “the

15

trappings and the suits of woe” (Ⅰ.ⅱ.86). But Hamlet does not expose his real

heart because the people of the court are insensible to his emotion and it is too

dangerous to reveal it. In his first soliloquy Hamlet at last reveals his hidden true

grief. The soliloquy begins with his death wish. He has no wish to continue living,

but divine law forbids suicide. To him all the uses of the world seem “weary, stale

flat, and unprofitable” and the world is like an “unweeded garden” (Ⅰ.ⅱ.133-5).

We do not yet exactly know what has plunged Hamlet into the depths of despair.

Only at the end of the soliloquy, Hamlet unmasks his horrified reaction to his

mother’s overhasty remarriage with his uncle: “Within a month, /…O most

wicked speed! To post / With such dexterity to incestuous sheets” (Ⅰ.ⅱ.153-7).

The brevity of her mother’s mourning devastates him and makes him

question the nature of man. To Hamlet, his mother seems to be an amoral woman

who is lower than a wild animal: “O God! A beast that wants discourse of reason /

Would have mourn’d longer” (Ⅰ.ⅱ.151-2). The Queen’s betrayal of love and of

memory shatters Hamlet’s belief in human faith. He calls in question the

constancy of all women: “Frailty, thy name is woman” (Ⅰ.ⅱ.146). Arthur Kirsch

argues that the frailty of Hamlet’s mother’s is what represents “a rankness and

grossness in nature itself” (212). Thus Hamlet’s state of mind is filled with despair

and confusion. Hamlet cannot be sure of the human reason and faculty of memory

that distinguish man from the beasts. Everything around him is unceasingly

changing. Yet, those around him are insensible to the betrayal of love and memory.

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In the reality of unceasing change, Hamlet is deeply engulfed in uncertainty about

what the world is and his own self is. As Peter Mercer points out, Hamlet’s real

conflict is “the loss of a certainty” (154).

Hamlet’s loss of a certainty is also associated with the memory of his dead

father. In the opening scene of the play, the old King’s ghost is described as a “fair

and warlike form” (Ⅰ.ⅱ.50). The martial image of the dead King is given by

Horatio’s specific recollection:

Such was the very armour he had on

When he th’ambitious Norway combated

So frown’d he once when, in an angry parle,

He smote the sledded Ploacks on the ice. (Ⅰ.ⅰ.63-66)

For Hamlet, the old King is also remembered as not only a great king but also a

valiant soldier. Hamlet’s exclamation “Must I remember” (Ⅰ.ⅱ.143) plays an

important part in his ability of memory. The old King he remembers was a heroic

and faithful man, who conquered Norway and loved his wife very much. The past

where his father was alive is remembered as the time that human love and moral

values still existed. The old King represents “the symbolic projection of a past”

which was disrupted by the adultery between his mother and his uncle (Grene 41).

And the dead King implies a symbol of “human dignity and worth, a memento of

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the time” before the world decays (Rose 119).

However, the world in which Hamlet must now strive is not his father’s.

Contrary to old Hamlet’s majestic beauty, Claudius, the new King, looks very

secular like a satyr: “So excellent a King, that was to this / Hyperion to satyr” (Ⅰ.

ⅱ.139-40). The image of Claudius’ court is an “unweeded garden, / That grows to

seed” (Ⅰ.ⅱ.135-6). Hamlet feels that Denmark lacks the traditional and moral

values because Claudius does not have brotherhood and his mother forgot her

conjugal affection. Their acts are “the undermining of an ideal of the person

enshrined in antiquity and law” (Edwards 42). To Hamlet the present reality of

Denmark is secular, unheroic and uncertain. The archaic values he aspires to such

as love, fidelity, and justice disappeared with his father’s death. There is no

absolute truth on which he can rely.

The revelation of the Ghost strengthens Hamlet’s dilemma between the duty

of revenge and reasonable thought. The Ghost who resembles his dead father

informs Hamlet of extraordinary murder and adultery, and commands him to take

immediate revenge: “Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder” (Ⅰ.ⅴ.25).

The disclosure of the Ghost leads Hamlet to fierce anger and hostility toward

Claudius and his mother. No doubt fratricide and regicide are such “nightmarish”

acts that can bind a man to furious vengeance (Rose 119). So, with extreme

excitement, Hamlet immediately vows to concentrate on his duty of revenge:

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Yea, from the table of my memory

I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records,

All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past

That youth and observation copied there,

And thy commandment all alone shall live

Within the book and volume of my brain,

Unmix’d with baser matter. (Ⅰ.ⅴ.98-104)

At this point Hamlet shows himself as a typical avenger presented in traditional

revenge tragedies. It seems that all his doubt is changed into certainty. He seems

to be transformed from a figure of despair to a pitiless avenger.

However, Hamlet does not follow the steps of an archetypal avenger. Above

all, the nature of the Ghost in Hamlet is ambiguous in comparison with other

ghosts of the conventional revenge tragedy. Firstly, the Ghost gives rise to

Hamlet’s compassion. The traditional Ghost is mostly described as a fearsome and

horrible figure. On the other hand, the Ghost in Hamlet arouses sympathy. Before

the Ghost reveals the “unnatural” murder and adultery, it explains that it must

soon return to “sulph’rous and tormenting flames” (Ⅰ.ⅴ.3). Hamlet feels pity,

not horror or fear: “Alas, poor ghost! (Ⅰ.ⅴ.4). It is certain that revenge is

fundamentally an act of cold-blooded feeling. As Peter Mercer puts it, however,

the emotion of pity has least to do with revenge that needs the most ruthless

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human feeling (165).

Secondly, the Ghost makes Hamlet contemplate the moral problems of

human existence. The Ghost’s injunctions after the command of revenge are very

strange: “Taint not thy mind nor let thy soul contrive / Against thy mother aught.

Leave her to heaven” (Ⅰ.ⅴ.85-6). If Shakespeare had focused on revenge itself,

the Ghost’s latter words would not have been necessary. It is almost impossible

for man to kill his enemy without tainting his mind because revenge demands the

merciless and ruthless action. Some critics claim that the Ghost’s commands

concerning Gertrude enjoin Hamlet to avoid ignoble passion. Philip Edwards

regards the Ghost’s latter words as “not the pursuit of personal satisfaction but the

existence of a world beyond the human world responsible for justice in the human

world” (43). This point is different from the traditional revenge tragedy. In The

Spanish Tragedy, the motive of Hieronimo’s revenge has nothing to do with the

ghost of Andrea although it serves a choric function throughout the play.

Hieronimo’s revenge is associated with his son’s death. Likewise, Andrugio’s

ghost, in Antonio’s Revenge, does not provoke the moral problems but merely

commands his son to devise some horrible trick of vengeance.

Thirdly, the Ghost leads Hamlet to recall the medieval justice and order

rather than revenge itself. The Ghost is irritated by the contamination of the state

by an undeserving usurper: “the whole ear of Denmark / Is by a forged process of

my death / Rankly abus’d” (Ⅰ.ⅴ.36-38): Let not the royal bed of Denmark be / A

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couch for luxury and damned incest” (82-3). It is evident that the Ghost of

Hamlet’s father displays a moral justice. After the Ghost disappears, Hamlet

adopts the Ghost’s parting words as his motto: “Now to my word. / It is ‘Adieu,

adieu! Remember me.’ / I have sworn’t” (Ⅰ.ⅴ.110-12). Some critics assert that

to remember has something to do with the medieval justice. Kerrigan argues that

the Ghost makes Hamlet question the medieval values like “honour, warrior

identity, seeking of justice, and knighthood” (154). In fact, to Hamlet, the present

Denmark is disordered and rotten because it is under the rule of a villain, who

killed his brother and married his sister-in-law. Thus Hamlet desires to restore the

values of the past and to set the disjointed world right:

The time is out of joint: O curse spite,

That ever I was born to set it right (Ⅰ.ⅴ. 196-7).

Hamlet regards his task as the restoration of society that has fallen to pieces. He

faces the burden of the responsibilities that he imposes on himself.

However, cleansing the corrupted world is difficult because Hamlet cannot

kill Claudius without reasonable thought. Although Hamlet admires his father’s

heroic and resolute actions, he cannot unconditionally follow them. Young Hamlet

and old Hamlet are crucially different in nature and values. As Harold Bloom puts

it, King Hamlet is a warrior representing “the Archaic Age,” whereas the prince is

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a university intellectual representing “the High Renaissance” (387). Ophelia

portrays Hamlet as having been the consummate Renaissance prince, combining

intellectual with martial and courtly characteristics:

The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword,

Th’expectation and rose of the fair state,

The glass of fashion and the mould of form,

Th’ observ’d of all observes. . . (Ⅲ.ⅰ.151-4)

Hamlet, who stands between the two worlds, has no such confidence as his

father’s glorious military achievements. He is temperamentally inclined towards

thought rather than action. His intellectual spirit prohibits him from accepting

without doubt the medieval heroic code because the code is related to unhesitating

action. Richard Hillman asserts that “Hamlet’s alienation from the heroic ethic is

part of his feeling of inadequacy in the face of his task” (222).

Therefore Hamlet is destined to fall into a dilemma concerning revenge. In

his response to the Pyrrhus speech, Hamlet reproaches his inaction for the duty of

revenge. What most strikes him about the Pyrrhus speech is not the revenger’s

behavior but the passion of the player about the fictitious sorrows of Hecuba

(Keyishan 177). Hamlet feels that he apparently lacks passion or real sorrow and a

motive for revenge. He asks himself “What would he (the player) do, / Had he the

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motive and the cue for passion / That I have? (Ⅱ.ⅱ. 554-6). Interestingly, Hamlet

does not ask what he should do. This implies that Hamlet cannot act in the way in

which the player can act (Mercer 193). The player would “drown the stage with

tears, / And cleave the general ear with horrid speech, / Make mad the guilty and

appal the free” if he had the reality in which his father was murdered and his

mother betrayed her husband (Ⅱ.ⅱ.556-8). But the player’s extreme language

and action are nothing but performance that Hamlet cannot imitate in the real

world. Thus his inability to have the passion of the player brings him deeper

despair:

Yet I,

A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,

Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,

And can say nothing—no, not for a king,

Upon whose property and most dear life

A damn’d defeat was made. Am I a coward? (Ⅱ.ⅱ. 561-566).

However, Hamlet is not a dull-spirited man who does not feel the player’s

anguish and does not know his bitter words. He knows them very well, but they

are something that only a player can act. Of course, the player’s artificial anger

arouses Hamlet’s fury upon the hated Claudius: “Bloody, bawdy villain! /

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Remorseless treacherous, lecherous kindles villain!” (Ⅱ.ⅱ.576-8). And he then

vigorously blames himself for his inability to take revenge, conscious that he calls

himself an “ass” or a “whore” that unpacks his heart with only words. After

explosion of passion and self-denunciation, however, Hamlet’s mood turns from

primitive passion as an avenger to reason as an intellectual Renaissance man.

Barbara Everett argues that Hamlet sees in the Players “a struggle or conflict in

human existence that is deeper and more permanent than the revenge-system

which is resembles” (26). Actually, Hamlet comes to think that drama has the

power to reveal the guilty people’s conscience. So he determines to have the

players act out a version of his father’s murder before the King in order to “catch

the conscience of the King” (Ⅱ.ⅱ.601).

Further, Hamlet hopes to obtain the proof of the Ghost’s veracity and

reliability of his judgment through the play within the play. He claims that he

wants to know whether the Ghost has told him the truth, or is really a devil and

deceived him:

The spirit that I have seen

May be a devil, and the devil hath power

T’assume a pleasing shape, yea, and perhaps,

Out of my weakness and my melancholy,

As he is very potent with such spirits,

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Abuses me to damn me. (Ⅱ.ⅱ. 598-599)

Hamlet’s sudden doubt about the nature of the Ghost reflects various Renaissance

theological views concerning the spirit-world. That ghosts were the spirits of the

dead was the traditional view from classical times. And this view was reinforced

by the Catholic doctrine of purgatory. On the other hand, Protestants disputed the

view and regarded the Ghost as a devil. Hamlet, who is aware of the two contrary

views, cannot but question the authenticity of the Ghost. His intellectual spirit

requires more convincing evidence than the Ghost’s revelation. At this point,

Hamlet shows different aspects from the heroes of the earlier revenge tragedies. In

The Spanish Tragedy and Titus Andronicus, the protagonists’ distress and misery

occur when they are ignorant of their true situation. Once they perceive who their

enemies are, they set about planning the job of revenge vigorously and efficiently.

They do not experience moral conflicts like Hamlet. To Hamlet, however,

knowing the facts cannot be enough reason to take the swift and ruthless action.

It’s because he does not want to be such a man that is “the puppet of his

circumstances, and the prisoner of his own passion” (Rosa 123).

Hamlet’s hesitation to perform passionate action is eminently associated with

his questioning about human reason. The Copernican new astronomy gave the

Shakespearian age a radiant optimism that a man is no doubt a great being who

has God-like reason, unlike beasts. Hamlet has the Renaissance point of view

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toward human being. When he meets his schoolfellows Rosencrantz and

Guildenstern, he speaks of the greatness of human reason:

What a piece of work is a man,

how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form

and moving how express and admirable, in action

how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god:

the beauty of the word, the paragon of animals— (Ⅱ.ⅱ.303-7)

But at the same time Hamlet is skeptical of the prominence of human reason. If a

man is really a sensible and reasonable being, the dirty and vile aspects of

Claudius and Gertrude cannot be explained. He is able to share the beautiful

optimism any longer. To him the universe is nothing but “a foul and pestilent

congregation of vapours” and man is “quintessence of dust” (Ⅱ.ⅱ.302-3, 308).

Hamlet’s skepticism about human nature corresponds to Montaigne’s opinion of

Renaissance times. Montaigne demolished man’s image that placed him above the

animals, depreciating human reason and soul (Elton 25). He was skeptical of

human dignity and doubted the absoluteness and certainty of truth. Hamlet cannot

find the dignity in man and beauty in the world.

Rather, what Hamlet finds in his reflections on human being is the

inevitability of change. The Murder of Gonzago that Hamlet plans to ascertain the

26

King’s guilt remarkably shows his uncertainty about human reason. The dialogue

of the Player King and Queen presents an image of man’s swiftly forgotten faith.

The Player Queen earnestly protests that she will never remarry even if her

husband dies. But the Player King says that human purpose is not reliable because

it is subject to memory and passion:

But what we do determine, oft we break.

Purpose is but the slave to memory,

Of violent birth but poor validity,

Which now, the fruit unripe, sticks on the tree,

But fall unshaken when they mellow be.

Most necessary’tis that we forget

To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt.

What to ourselves in passion we propose,

The passion ending, doth the purpose lose” (Ⅲ.ⅱ.182-9).

Here, what the Player King emphasizes is the inevitability of change and failure of

purpose. The words do not necessarily agree with the deeds. Hamlet is well aware

that man can break his faith because he easily forgets his resolution no matter how

strongly he may promise. The discord between words and deeds brings about “the

phenomenon of uncertain identity” (McAlindon 114). Hamlet is tormented by the

27

uselessness of all words. This attitude of Hamlet echoes Montaigne’s skepticism.

Montaigne in his essay wrote about the unreliability of human reason:

There is no constant existence, neither of our being, nor of the

objects……Thus can nothing be certainly established, nor of the one, nor of

the other; both the judgeing and judged being in continual alteration and

motion. We have no communication with being; for every humane nature is

ever in the middle between being borne and dying; giving nothing of itself

but an obscure appearance and shadow, and an uncertaine and weake opinion

(requoted from Brother Anthony, 4).

Many critics assume that Prince Hamlet read Montaigne at the new university at

Wittenberg. Hamlet shares Montigne’s skepticism and cannot be sure of the

spiritual dignity of man or find absolute truth in a world where everything

changes. He is engulfed in the paradox of human nature. The instability of human

mentality is the “tragic condition under which Hamlet must pursue his revenge”

(Keyishan 179).

In spite of his doubt about human reason, what Hamlet ultimately pursues is

the harmony between passion and reason. He finds an the image of a well-

balanced man in Horatio, who does not suffer from “Fortune’s buffet” and is “not

passion’s slave” (Ⅲ.ⅱ.67, 72). What is important in Hamlet’s thinking is

28

“constancy” (McAlindon 108). The emphasis on a balance between passion and

reason is also presented in Hamlet’s recommendation to the actors before the

playing of The Murder of Gonzago. Concerned about the danger of excessive

passion, he asks the actors to perform with temperance and smoothness:

Nor do not saw the air too much with

your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very

torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of

your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance

that may give it smoothness. (Ⅲ.ⅱ.4-8).

Hamlet’s distain for the unruly performance of the players suggests how far he is

from the passionate revenger who depends on the fierce passion. The conventional

revenger, Hieronimo or Titus Andronicus, responds mechanically to circumstances,

beating his breast in grief and crying for revenge. But Hamlet refuses to the

turbulent expression of passion because it is very offensive to him. What he really

wants is the balance of “blood and judgement” that forbids him to be “a pipe for

Fortune’s finger / To sound what stop she please” (Ⅲ.ⅱ.69-72).

Hamlet’s approval of discretion and temperance accords with the Elizabethan

taste. The ideal man of Renaissance is a person who keeps the balance through the

harmony between emotion and reason, soul and body, heart and head. From this

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thought of Renaissance, Hamlet elevates reason to the head list of noble motives.

But the temperance he pursues is dissimilar to the Stoic self-control Claudius

emphasized. As we had already seen, Claudius’ Stoic balance somewhat

disregards human feeling. On the other hand what Hamlet aspires to achieve is the

ideal harmony of reason and passion, which does not lose humanity. But it is very

difficult for him to attain the harmony. The fact that he is a prince with a

Renaissance thought causes a conflict between the passionate and reasonable

action. The two contrary attitudes are not easy to reconcile. When they coexist in

the same mind, they “create a profound mental disturbance and conflict which

cannot be solved by the easy application of moral formulas” (Alexander 8). It

seems that there is no absolute standard of values on which Hamlet can depend. In

the absence of absolute truth, Hamlet cannot but delay his duty of revenge while

he reflects rationally.

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Chapter Ⅱ Hamlet’s Delay and Transcendent Freedom

We saw in Chapter ⅠHamlet’s contradictory states of mind in terms of

appearance and reality, the duty of revenge and reasonable thought, the nature of

the Ghost, and human reason. Hamlet is ceaselessly faced with the conflicts

caused by contradictory values. His divided and ambivalent consciousness gives

rise to his delay in his revenge. An avenger must be cold-blooded and determined

in order to accomplish his dangerous task of revenge. But Hamlet is “a man of

shifting ideas” who restlessly questions what values are meaningful (Marqueriot

97). In a world where everything is uncertain, Hamlet has difficulty in taking

resolute action to kill the King. He is preoccupied with his delay and the issue of

the relationship between thought and action.

Delays are quite conventional in Elizabethan tragedy. But the function of

Hamlet’s delay is somewhat different from that found in an archetypal revenge

tragedy. Nigel Alexander argues that Hamlet’s delay is “a dramatic device which

allows the dramatist to question the nature of the act of revenge” (10). There are a

series of fundamental human problems such as good and evil, passion and reason,

life and death, and so on. None of the problems can be solved through killing his

avenger. Shakespeare’s Hamlet focuses on the multiple thought of the human

mind rather than the murderous action of a typical revenge tragedy. Hamlet

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endlessly reflects upon the value of action. He cannot be sure of the good and bad

pertaining to any action. Thus Hamlet cannot take decisive action until he gains

certainty as to moral validity of action. Hamlet’s delay plays a key role in showing

his ongoing consciousness associated with meaningful action. .

What is striking in Hamlet is that the protagonist finally reaches mature and

sober wisdom through unceasing reflection on how to act. In Act Ⅴ, Shakespeare

completely departs from the convention of revenge tragedy. Shakespeare focuses

on Hamlet’s recognition as a figure of learning rather than his triumph of revenge.

Hamlet in the final Act no longer suffers from melancholy and incessant moral

conflicts. Harold Bloom argues that the Hamlet of Act Ⅴ is “mature rather than

youthful, certainly quieter” (“Introduction” 1). Hamlet’s ultimate recognition is of

the transience of human life and the working of divine providence in human

events. Through that realization, Hamlet finally reaches a quiet and disinterested

mood. Unlike the conventional avenger, he achieves his revenge without tainting

his heart and dies as a noble man. This chapter is designed to show how Hamlet

searches for an understanding of what meaningful action is and achieves

transcendent freedom.

Hamlet’s strategy of delay is first shown in his feigned madness. After

encountering the Ghost, Hamlet informs Horatio and Marcellus of his decision “to

put an antic disposition on” (Ⅰ.ⅴ.180). Throughout Act Ⅱ, Hamlet takes no

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positive action that might bring him nearer to his revenge. All he does is to hide

his real heart or to leak out false clues. Polonius diagnoses Hamlet’s

transformation as frustration in love: “This is the very ecstasy of love” (Ⅱ.

ⅰ.102). Hamlet also assumes the role of a despairing lover when he meets

Polonius. The reason Hamlet pretends to be lunatic is, apparently, to avoid the

suspicion of the court. He cannot speak freely the horrible facts that he heard from

the Ghost of his father. So he expresses his thoughts indirectly or enigmatically.

Ironically, Hamlet’s “antic disposition” startles and baffles his opponents,

awakening rather than calming their suspicions. Especially, Claudius is extremely

uneasy and very desirous to discover Hamlet’s “real” state of mind. Thus he sends

for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, so as to find out the mystery of Hamlet’s

madness.

The effect of madness in Hamlet is different from that of madness shown in

conventional revenge tragedies. In The Spanish Tragedy, Hieronimo’s

extraordinary action and violent threat arouse neither suspicion nor fear. The

people of the court regard his strange behavior as a sorry lunatic. So, he can

prepare the spectacular performance of the final act with ingenious cruelty. In

Marston’s The Malcontent, no one suspects Malevole’s feigned madness. As a

result, the hero succeeds in his revenge and takes up his place again.

But Hamlet’s pretended madness hardly serves to revenge action. Rather, it

takes Hamlet steadily farther from his goal. A. C. Bradley claims that the Hamlet

33

of Act Ⅱ sinks into “fruitless brooding” (109). But Hamlet’s disguise of

madness should rather be seen as Shakespeare’s “aesthetics of calculated

negligence” (Marqueriot 93). Revenge is deeply related to swift and decisive

action. But an intellectual man like Hamlet cannot take murderous action without

more cogent evidence than the Ghost’s revelation. So he decides to use the play to

“catch” the guilt of the King. In addition, Hamlet is struggling with contradictory

values. In such a conflicting mood, it is not easy for man to take resolute action.

Time to reach certainty is necessary to Hamlet. Accordingly, it seems that the

ultimate goal of Hamlet’s transformation is allow him time in terms of when to act.

The soliloquy “to be or not to be” plays a crucial role in suggesting the

fundamental reason of Hamlet’s delay. It seems that the soliloquy is indifferent to

the problem of killing the King. However, the issue is implicitly included because

it belongs to a part of Hamlet’s deeper conflict. At first glance, Hamlet is thinking

of suicide as in his first soliloquy. A. C. Bradley interprets the direct cause of

Hamlet’s inaction lies in his “weariness of life of longing for death” (108). Yet,

Hamlet’s meditation on “To be or not to be” is centered on the question about

noble action:

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

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And by opposing end them. (Ⅲ.ⅰ.57-60)

The word ‘nobler’ is very important because it shows the moral perspective from

which Hamlet compares the alternatives. The first alternative ‘to be’ suggests to

go on living and to suffer. In other words, this question is a matter of endurance of

bitter grief and fortune’s outrages. On the other hand, the second alternative ‘not

to be’ suggests to die by taking “arms against the sea of troubles.” According to

the Stoic value, endurance is associated with “not suicide” but the “passionate and

conclusive action” (Mercer 202). If so, the question of “to be or not to be” is

whether to endure nobly or to act heroically. No wonder the heroic action is

associated with the killing of the King.

But Hamlet cannot take bloody action because his deeper dilemma is the

inescapability of suffering. Whether he kills Claudius or not, “Th’oppressor’s

wrong, the proud man’s contumely, / The pangs of dispriz’d love, the law’s delay”

still remain (Ⅲ. ⅰ.71-2). Hamlet affirms that he has to bear the intolerable

burden of life. He can choose to take his own life with a dagger. But “the dread of

something after death” keeps him from killing himself (78). He is unable to either

to commit suicide or to take revenge because he is at strife within himself. The

most important reason of his conflict is “conscience”:

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

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And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pitch and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action. (Ⅲ.ⅰ. 83-8)

These lines exactly describe Hamlet’s real dilemma. It is certain that conscience

divests Hamlet of “the name of action.” No doubt to kill oneself requires

resolution. But Hamlet’s moral consciousness does not allow him to accept any

simplifying or unpremeditated action. As Dieter Mehl has noted, Hamlet’s

dilemma derives not from his “cowardice, feeble will-power, or an over developed

sensibility,” but from “a most sensitive consciousness of omnipresent danger,

deception and infectious corruption” (44).

This aspect of Hamlet is so different from the archetypal avengers. Both

Hieronimo and Antonio long for their death and suffer from their task of revenge.

But neither of them shows the conflict about an ethical problem. They hardly

think about an act of justice rationally. All they express is release from their sharp

griefs and the burden of their task. Thus out of their hesitation to act, they later

return to the path of revenge. They are at last transformed from weeping men to

resolute avengers. In contrast with them, Hamlet’s will is “sicklied o’er with the

pale cast of thought.” His mind is at war with itself because he is not sure of his

36

beliefs and values. Accordingly, he persists in trying to find the right answers

about how to act.

Hamlet’s hesitation to take action is evidently shown in his refusal to kill the

King in the prayer scene. At the end of The Murder of Gonzago, Hamlet seems to

have reached certainty that the King has murdered his father. At this point, he

shows himself as a confident revenger. He says to Horatio that “I will take the

Ghost’s word for a thousand pound” (Ⅲ.ⅱ.2 80-1). In the fifth soliloquy, he

suddenly turns himself into a ferocious and passionate avenger:

Now could I drink hot blood,

And do such bitter business as the day

Would quake to look on. (Ⅲ.ⅱ.381-3).

Hamlet now looks like a hero-villain, ready for some complete cruelty. He

pompously addresses his “firm bosom” (385), exhorting himself to remember the

Ghost’s instructions. His mind is filled with hatred to destroy his enemy.

But Hamlet’s raging words remain just words. In the conventional revenge

tragedy, words usually correspond to deeds. In Antonio’s Revenge, Antonio puts

his bloody rhetoric into action. After immoderate announcement to revenge, he

actually kills the villain’s helpless child. But Hamlet does not deliver his harsh

words into action. After addressing fierce hyperbole of revenge, he tries to soften

37

his mood. When he turns to the problem of his mother, he says as follows:

Soft, now to my mother.

O heart, lose not thy nature. Let not ever

The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom;

I will speak daggers to her, but use none.

My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites

How in my words somever she shent

To give them seals never my soul consent. (Ⅲ.ⅱ.383-390).

Hamlet does not want to lose his humanity or taint his heart. Thus he says that he

does not put his atrocious words into action but “seals” them. His words are

subjunctive rather than imperative. Unlike the conventional revenge tragedy, the

furious words of revenge in Hamlet are “nothing but metaphors” (Mercer 214).

As a result, Hamlet does not kill the King when he has an unexpected

opportunity to do so. The reason for his inaction is that Claudius is praying to God,

kneeling. Hamlet thinks that to kill a man at prayer is “hire and salary, not

revenge” (Ⅲ.ⅲ.79) because his soul may go to heaven. He cannot bear to think

that Claudius’s soul might be saved, whereas his father still suffers from his

crimes. To his thought, revenge requires a more satisfying opportunity when there

is “no relish of salvation” (Ⅲ.ⅲ.92). A. C. Bradley describes the attitude of

38

Hamlet as “an unconscious excuse for delay” (113). Bradley argues that although

Hamlet could safely have killed the King, he did not act on pretense that Claudius’

soul is purged.

However, there are more complicated reasons behind Hamlet’s refusal to kill

the King. The man who struggles to repent his crime cannot be a villain. If he is

not a bad person, to kill him is not revenge but a kind of crime. That is the first

reason why Hamlet cannot kill Claudius. Second, the stealthy murder is unjust.

Hamlet’s conscience makes him question whether murder is good or not. The

deepest reason Hamlet does not kill Claudius is his uncertainty about meaningful

action. Whether he kills the King or not, the situation will never be changed. His

father’s death and his mother’s adultery cannot be undone. And the terrible burden

of life will be going on. As Stanley Well indicates, no primitive action “can

assuage his grief” (208). Hamlet’s tragic dilemma with regard to meaningful

action is not easily resolved.

Despite his doubts about the usefulness of action, Hamlet suddenly comes to

take explosive action. He kills Polonius behind the arras in Gertrude’s chamber. It

is a very “rash and bloody deed” (Ⅲ.ⅲ.26). Hamlet for the first time shows

“decisive and unpremeditated action” in killing Polonius (Mehl 48). The swift

deed is strongly contrasted with his hesitation in the prayer scene. But Hamlet’s

behavior is different from the pattern of the avenger of the traditional revenge

tragedy. His deed is not calculated but incidental. Hamlet does not know what he

39

has done: “I know not” (Ⅲ.ⅳ.25). When he discovers that he has killed Polonius,

not the King, he proposes a new sense of “fate”:

Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!

I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune;

Thou find’st to be too busy is some danger. (Ⅲ.ⅳ.31-3)

The above words show that Hamlet does not kill Polonius with the evil purpose.

No matter how much rash and bloody it may be, Hamlet’s deed is his mistake. It is

clear that his deed lacks the wicked calculation that is later shown in Claudius’s

scheme to kill him. Although Hamlet acts passionately, he thinks that the accident

was brought about by “fortune” rather than his intentional plan. Therefore it is

hard to regard Hamlet’s action as revenge action. Peter Mercer argues that

Hamlet’s killing of Polonius comes near to “not revenge but fate” (217). In

admitting his great blunder, Hamlet suggests the will of heaven again: “I do

repent; but heaven hath pleas’d it so,” (Ⅲ.ⅳ.175). But he understands that he will

be punished for his savage and passionate deed: “To punish me with this and this

with me” (Ⅲ.ⅳ.176).

It is notable that Hamlet’s action enters upon a new phase after the terrible

error he made in killing Polonius. Hamlet finds a new goal: awaken his mother’s

remorse. Moved by sudden passion, he violently assaults Gertrude’s shameful

40

behavior. The accusation amazes her and finally pricks her conscience. Hamlet’s

accusation toward his mother functions as a kind of emotional purgation. From the

beginning of the play, Hamlet has been afflicted with his mother’s incestuous

adultery. The Queen’s betrayal has broken his belief in human faith. But Hamlet is

free from “the burden of disgust and outage” that has most troubled him, by

making his mother realizing her shameless behavior (Mercer 227).

In this closet scene, the reappearance of the Ghost changes Hamlet’s violent

temper. Hamlet feels that the Ghost has returned to remind him of his neglected

duty as a revenger:

Do you not come your tardy son to chide

That, laps’d in time and passion, lets go by

Th’important acting of your dread command? (Ⅲ.ⅳ.107-9).

But the Ghost’s message is very ambiguous. The Ghost at first says that he came

again to sharpen Hamlet’s “almost blunted purpose” (111). Next, he commands

Hamlet to protect the Queen from her bewilderment and inner struggle. The

second message of the Ghost softens Hamlet’s excitement rather than encouraging

his task of revenge. In Antonio’s Revenge, the appearance of the Ghost leads the

hero to a thought of bloody action. Andrugio’s Ghost returns when Antonio begins

to feel pity for the Piero’s son. The Ghost unambiguously demands ruthless

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revenge. So Antonio is forced into his first bloody deed. However, the

intervention of the Ghost in Hamlet makes Hamlet gain and keep control over his

conscience. This point shows that Hamlet does not so much focus on the

passionate action of revenge as on the hero’s consciousness concerning how to act.

Hamlet’s question about meaningful action is most intensified by the

encounter with the army of the Fortinbras. Hamlet comes to be banished from

Denmark because of Claudius’ fear of Hamlet’s revenge. When he is on his way to

England, he happens to meet the army of Fortinbras. They are going to make war

against Poland for “a little patch of ground” (Ⅳ.ⅳ.18). Contrary to the skeptical

Hamlet, Fortinbras follows the heroic code of the past. In the final soliloquy,

Hamlet feels anxiety because of his inactivity compared with the young

Fortinbras’ behavior. What inspires him is Fortinbras’ unthinking determination.

There is no “discourse, / looking before or after” in Fortinbras’ action (Ⅳ.ⅳ.36-7).

Hamlet accuses himself of cowardice and envies the resolute action of Fortinbras,

who for a straw is ready to sacrifice 20,000 lives.

Hamlet’s mind, however, is antithetical when he reflects on the behavior of

Fortinbras. His mood is very rational. Hamlet finds in the behavior of Fortinbras’

army “fresh food for thought and self-exhortation” (Milward 47). Fortinbras’

expedition makes him contemplate what right action must be spurred by. It is true

that he has “cause, and will, and strength, and means” to revenge (50). But he

wonders why he must take bloody action. To act like Fortinbras may be greatly

42

heroic but it is also evidently irrational. To intellectual Hamlet, Fortinbras’ simple

code of honor is nothing but “fantasy and trick of fame” which inspires men to

fight for “an eggshell” (Ⅳ.ⅳ. 61,53). He admires Fortinbras’ heroic action, but at

the same time questions if the cause is worth dying.

Hamlet’s reflection on heroic action shows his power of thought rather than

the passionate force of an avenger. Hamlet is already aware of the absurdity of

heroic but thoughtless bravery. He believes that the action must be performed

through the harmony between passion and reason. Thus it is difficult for him to

act like Fortinbras. At the end of the last soliloquy, Hamlet ends his speech with a

passionate affirmation of his revenger’s task: “O, from this time / My thought be

bloody or be nothing worth” (Ⅳ.ⅳ.65-6). It seems that this assertion stems from

his concession that excessive reason may have caused his delay: “whether it be

bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple of thinking too precisely” (39-41). But his

passionate utterance is completely futile. Hamlet is on way to England with no

immediate prospect of returning to Denmark. Therefore his bloody thoughts can

have no influence on Claudius. Once more his intense pledge stays in the range of

words.

In Act Ⅴ, Hamlet’s thought and action show completely new phases. Unlike

the conventional revenge tragedy, the Act V of Hamlet does not focus on a

macabre murder scene of revenge. In The Spanish Tragedy, Hieronimo devises the

play within the play in order to kill his enemies. His revenge is successfully

43

performed. Under the guise of play-acting, Hieronimo stabs Lorenzo while Bel-

Imperia stabs Balthazar and then herself. After revealing the reasons for the

multiple deaths, Hieronimo bites out his own tongue, and then kills Lorenzo’s

father and himself. The play closes with Andrea’s Ghost gleefully planning joys

for his dead friends and an “endless tragedy” for the dead villains. The last act of

The Spanish Tragedy is filled with brutal action. There is neither justice nor

humanity in Hieronimo’s action.

However, Shakespeare in the last act highlights Hamlet’s recognition as a

figure of learning rather than the triumph of an avenger. During a long period

Hamlet is absent from the stage. Through his letter to Horatio, we hear that he

encountered the pirates and was saved by them. Shakespeare does not describe in

detail Hamlet’s experience with the world of the pirates. But the absence of

Hamlet in Act Ⅳ implies that he may have an opportunity to go through diverse

experiences. Actually, when Hamlet comes back to Elsinore, we can observe a

certain change in him. He no longer suffers from longing for death or a response

to the Ghost. And he does not show the conflicting mood that has been brought

about by the divided and antithetical values. It seems that he forgot his father’s

Ghost and his duty of revenge. Hamlet in Act Ⅴis quiet and sober unlike in the

former Acts.

First of all Hamlet’s change is seen in the gravedigger scene. The skull of

Yorick, who was the old King’s jester, makes Hamlet meditate on the meaning of

44

death. What he finds in death is “the vanity and transience of human life”

(Milward 49). He realizes that even the greatest of men will descend to earth and

dust:

Imperious Caesar, dead and turn’d to clay,

Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.

O that that earth which kept the world in awe

Would patch a wall t’expel the winter’s flaw. (Ⅴ.ⅰ.206-9)

For Hamlet, death does not mean an extinction of being. Rather he accepts death

as a part of life. And death makes all the people equal irrespective of their social

status. This insight into death makes Hamlet come to know that the medieval

values like honor and heroic action are vain and that private revenge may be

useless. His recognition of human mortality somewhat liberates Hamlet from the

duty of revenge which has bound him. Maurice Charney argues that Hamlet’s

speculation about death leads him out of the labyrinth of revenge in which he was

caught earlier (72).

Therefore, Hamlet shows his emotional release in Ophelia’s funeral

ceremony. For the first time he identifies himself with a royal figure, leaping into

the Ophelia’s grave: “This is I, / Hamlet the Dane” (Ⅴ.ⅰ.251-2). Hamlet’s

affirmation of personal identity demonstrates his maturity. In the former Acts,

45

Hamlet pretends to be insane and plays a sarcastic role in front of the court. But

he now presents himself just as he is. In dealing with Ophelia, Hamlet also shows

a completely different attitude. He had rejected Ophelia before. But he now

admits that he loved her: “I lov’d Ophelia” (Ⅴ.ⅰ.264). Stanley Well asserts that

Hamlet’s acceptance of Ophelia gives him “cue for passion” (210). The reason is

that once he discloses his emotion, he no more hides his real heart to other people.

Contrary to the Hamlet of the former Acts, the Hamlet of Act Ⅴ does not play

any sardonic role.

Hamlet’s change is also shown in his new motive for his revenge on the King.

Through the conversation with Horatio, Hamlet narrates the events of the voyage

and the King’s attempt to murder him. The King commands Rosencranz and

Guildenstern to bear his commission in which there are contents to kill Hamlet

just when Hamlet arrives in England. Hamlet forges the King’s letter and leads his

two friends into death. Interestingly, Hamlet does not regret the fate of

Rosencranz and Guildenstern, unlike his repentance for killing Polonius. He tells

Horatio that “their defeats” was brought about by “their own insinuation” (Ⅴ.

ⅱ.59-9). Thus they do not torture his conscience. This does not mean that Hamlet

has lost his conscience. Rather, Hamlet suggests the question of conscience and

damnation as to the killing of in the King:

He(the King) that hath kill’d my king and whor’d my mother,

46

Popp’d in between th’ election and my hopes,

Thrown out his angle for my proper life

And with such coz’nage—is’t not perfect conscience

To quit him with this arm? And is’t not to be damn’d,

To let this canker of our nature come

In further evil? (Ⅴ.ⅱ.67-70)

Hamlet thinks that his revenge is right because Claudius represents the

fundamental flaws of human nature. This thought shows that his revenge is

developed from a private hatred to a moral decision. To kill Claudius is not simply

revenge for his father’s death, but the eradication of a canker of human nature.

Hamlet now sees that he must undertake “a surgical operation to remove a cancer

from human society” (Edwards 58). This attitude corresponds to his former

conviction that he was born to set right the times that are out of joint.

Hamlet, however, does not rashly act to murder the King. Instead, he puts his

trust in divine providence beyond human planning: “There is a divinity that

shapes our ends, / Rough-hew them how we will” (Ⅴ.ⅱ.10-11). This recognition

does not come to Hamlet all of sudden. He had already told Horatio that there

seems to be another power in human events: “there are more things in heaven and

earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy” (Ⅰ.ⅴ.74-5). And the player King in

the Murder of Gonzago asserted the working of external chance: “our thoughts are

47

ours, their end none of our own” (Ⅲ.ⅱ.213). The Hamlet of Act Ⅴ at last comes

to recognize the divine purpose in the universe he had previously failed to find.

Hillman insists that Hamlet’s recognition of divinity exposes “the despairing

reality beneath the illusion of commitment” (227).

But Hamlet’s recognition of divinity implies that he got out of his

contradictory mind and his duty of revenge. His sense of providential involvement

in events makes him realize that the time for action is not created by him but

created by higher will (McAlindon 124). All he has to do is to wait. Hamlet tells

Horatio the decisive change of his spirit:

Not a whit. We defy augury: there is special provi–

dence in the fall of sparrow. If it be now, ‘tis not to

come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not

now, yet it will come. The readiness is all. Since no

man, of aught he leave, knows aught, what is’t to

leave betimes? Let be. (Ⅴ.ⅱ.215-220)

At first glance Hamlet seems to let himself be cast into the sea of fortunes. A. C.

Bradley views Hamlet’s acceptance of providence as a kind of “religious

resignation” that “deserves the name of fatalism rather than of faith in

Providence” (122). It is possible that the Hamlet of the Act Ⅴ seems to deposit

48

his duty with some other power rather than his own will. His statement of “let it

be” can sound nihilistic and fatalistic.

However, Hamlet’s acceptance of God’s providence is not simple fatalism

but his achieved awareness. Until Act Ⅳ Hamlet had been torn by the divided

and ambivalent consciousness. His state of mind was by no means free from the

duty of revenge. And he endlessly questioned on the existing assumptions and

reflected on how to act. But the Hamlet of the Act Ⅴ is mature and quiet. He can

now accept his place in the mortal world and the fact there is no absolute truth in a

world of uncertainty. He is reconciled to the inescapable coexistence between

good and evil, passion and reason, life and death. His mind becomes at peace.

Hamlet’s recognition of “let it be” results from his persistent questioning about

fundamental human problems. As Harold Bloom indicates, Hamlet’s final

realization of “Let be” is “a setting aside, neither denial nor affirmation” (422).

Hamlet in the long run comes to see life as it is and acquires his transcendent

freedom.

As a result, Hamlet no longer hesitates to accept the fencing-match with

Laertes. It is probable that Hamlet senses the plot of the King even if he could

hardly expect how fatal it is. Nevertheless he exposes himself to the danger,

because he realizes the time has come for action. There is something noble in

Hamlet’s final action. Hamlet at last accomplishes his task of revenge. But his

deed does not arise from an evil purpose or a private hatred. He does not attack

49

Claudius until he hears Laertes’ disclosure of the atrocious device of the King.

When he kills the King, he makes no reference to his father or to the fulfillment of

his task. He merely calls Claudius: “thou incestuous, murd’rous, damned Dane”

(Ⅴ.ⅱ.330). This attitude has something to do with the eradication of a canker of

human nature. What leads Hamlet to act is not a sense of private revenge but a

sense of justice. To root the King out is to remove a deadly ill. Thus Hamlet feels

free of the guilt of killing Claudius.

Hamlet’s nobility in his final action is also shown in his reconciliation with

Laertes. Before the fencing-match, Hamlet asks Laertes to forgive his wrong deed

to kill Polonius. And at his death he responds to Laertes’wish for forgiveness as

follows: “Heaven make thee free of it!” (Ⅴ.ⅱ.337). McAlindon insists that the

exchange of forgiveness between Hamlet and Laertes shows “the reconciliation of

opposites and the re-affirmation of unity and integrity” (204). By reconciling

himself with the avenger, Hamlet becomes a man of forgiveness and again gains

inner peace.

The thing Hamlet now cares about is his posthumous reputation. He prevents

Horatio’s suicide and asks him to report his own story:

O God, Horatio! What a wounded name,

Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me.

If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,

50

Absent thee from felicity awhile,

And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,

To tell my story. (Ⅴ.ⅱ.349-354)

Hamlet is not passionate even when he commands Horatio not to kill himself. He

does not put a stop to Horatio’s suicide, not for his pleasure but his concern about

his “wounded name.” He does not think that his story will be reported accurately.

The reason Hamlet assigns Horatio the task of story-teller is that Horatio alone

knows all his stories and loves him most. Unlike Rosencrantz and Guildenstern,

Horatio always remains a faithful friend of Hamlet. Thus Hamlet believes that

Horatio can deliver truly all the stories without any prejudice.

We hear Hamlet’s greatness through Horatio’s lips: “Now cracks a noble

heart. Good night, sweet prince,” (Ⅴ.ⅱ.364). Horatio says that Hamlet died

deserving a singing escort to heaven. Hamlet’s successor Fortinbras grants him

burial rites of a soldier and a king. And yet the greatness of Hamlet lies not in the

recovery of his royal identity but in his accomplished maturity. Through his

ceaseless self-questioning, Hamlet transforms his own self. And in the long run he

achieves transcendent freedom and keeps his noble heart at death. Shakespeare

greatly shows the plentitude of the human mind, by revising the conventional

revenge tragedy. Therefore he creates a human Hamlet as a mirror of human mind.

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Conclusion

Shakespeare’s Hamlet describes the protagonist’s self-fulfillment at the end

of a long pilgrimage through persistent doubt and questions about uncertain

values. Hamlet is struggling against not only the world around him but also his

divided and ambivalent consciousness. In fact, Hamlet’s dilemma is not limited to

his own self. Although we do not live in the world Hamlet lived in, the play leads

us to think about a series of fundamental human problems such as good and evil,

passion and reason, meaningful action, and life and death.

Shakespeare presents Hamlet as a free consciousness in a world of

incertitude. Hamlet is completely different from the avenger shown in the

conventional revenge tragedy. We remember Hieronimo as a frustrated father,

whom grief drives to madness and inhumanity. Hamlet is an equally hurt son and

is ordered to take revenge, but does not impair his mental balance and moral

integrity. His intellectual disposition makes him endlessly doubt and question

existing assumptions and what meaningful action is. The questions he asks

concern not so much the nature of revenge as the nature of being human. Through

reflecting on human problems, he gains transcendent freedom and eventually

accomplishes his revenge without dirtying his soul. By revising the stories and

convention of revenge tragedy, Shakespeare modernizes his play and makes it

52

more appealing. He explores the manifold thoughts of the human mind, instead of

focusing on revenge itself. Therefore, he greatly mirrors the operation of the

human mind in Hamlet.

As seen in Chapter one, Shakespeare shows Hamlet’s contradictory states of

mind concerning contrary values. The Renaissance age was a transitional age

marked by doubt and revaluation. The cultural atmosphere challenged

conventional assumptions about human life. Hamlet is an intellectual Renaissance

man who has learned new perceptions, whereas the world around him belongs to a

medieval royal or conservative aristocratic society. Standing on the frontier of two

worlds, he is afflicted with the conflicting mood. The Queen’s adultery and the

King’s fratricide shatter him in terms of human faith and the value of life. He

cannot find the absolute truth that he can rely on. He constantly doubts and

questions all the problems that he is faced with: appearance and reality, the duty of

revenge and reasonable thought, passion and reason. Hamlet’s intellectual

reflection shows not only the Renaissance cultural atmosphere of skepticism and

relativism, but also an individual’s ability to infer. It is difficult for man to take

resolute action in a world where everything is uncertain. If so, all that man can do

is to try to think rationally and to explore his mind. Although Hamlet cannot

always answer the questions he asks, he does not stop his efforts to find a right

answer. Therefore his ongoing consciousness suggests the power of thought.

As shown in Chapter Ⅱ, Hamlet succeeds in liberating himself and gains his

53

nobility through his unceasing reflection on how to act. His divided and

ambivalent consciousness brings about a delay in his revenge. His delay plays a

role as a dramatic device that questions and challenges the nature of the

conventionally unhesitating revenge action. His rational spirit constantly prevents

him from passionate and bloody action. What he shrinks from is not the act of

vengeance but whole burden of life. He knows that the terrible burden of life will

go on after he kills the King. Not able to be sure of the good and bad concerning

any action, he constantly thinks and waits until he gains certainty as to the moral

validity of his action. As a result, in Act Ⅴ, Hamlet shows a new phase in his

thought and action. Shakespeare in the last act highlights Hamlet’s recognition of

the inevitability of death and divine providence in human events rather than

revenge itself. Through that realization Hamlet finally reaches a quiet and

disinterested mood.

Hamlet’s final recognition of “Let it be” and “Readiness is all” is not a

passive fatalism but his achieved awareness. Hamlet has endlessly doubted and

questioned what values are useful and reflected on what meaningful action is. His

ultimate recognition results from that unceasing consciousness. “Let it be” is not

complete denial or complete affirmation. It suggests the condition of human life.

The contrary values such as good and evil, passion and reason, life and death

inescapably coexist. The mature Hamlet of Act Ⅴat last accepts life as it is and

the world as a duel. Achieving the peace of his mind, he finally reconciles his

54

thought and action. Unlike Hieronimo, he kills Claudius without tainting his heart

because his revenge motif is beyond a private hatred. He also keeps his humanity

through reconciliation with the avenger, Laertes.

Therefore Hamlet at last becomes an agent of justice rather than an

instrument of revenge. And he becomes a master of his own self rather than a

passive fatalist. The reason we are attracted to Hamlet is his transformation from

the young Hamlet to the mature Hamlet. Although we do not live in the same

world as Prince Hamlet, we also live in a world where everything is constantly

changing and uncertain. We sometimes or often experience the conflicts caused by

contradictory values like Hamlet. In fact, it is easy for man to suffer from his

divided and antithetical mind, but never easy to attain his recognition about

himself and human life. We can find a noble human dignity in Hamlet’s growth.

That is the reason why we can love him as a contemporary audience. By revising

the conventional revenge tragedy, Shakespeare greatly creates a noble figure in

whom thought and action are finally reconciled, not an avenger.

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Works Cited

Abrams, M. H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. New York: Harcourt Brace

Jovanovich College Publisher, 1993.

Alexander, Nigel. Poison, Play, and Duel. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,

1971.

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