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Could Hamlet Be the "Other Shakespeare?" (4)
What does Shakespeare seem to be telling us about life in this tale?
A conventional view of the play (or at least, one that was conventional when I was in school) is that Hamlet, like all tragic heroes, suffers from a "tragic flaw"--in his case, indecisiveness. It is suggested (although usually in a somewhat vague way) that instead of reflecting so carefully on the evidence of his father's death and the proper conditions of his vengeance, he should go out and "do something."
But stating exactly what this might be tends to be problematic, beginning with details like Hamlet's uncle following the standard monarchial procedure of usually being attended by armed guards. If direct, physical action would be unlikely to succeed, should Hamlet perhaps attempt to start an insurrection? By quoting the accusations of a ghost? When he is already considered mad?
Bah! the traditionalists might say. Unnecessary and irrelevant questions! Hamlet has an opportunity while the king is kneeling for prayer, and he passes it up.
But to doubt Hamlet's own words about his motivation is probably to outsmart ourselves. In the final analysis, it is inconsistent to claim that Hamlet should accept the supernatural phenomenon of his father's ghost unquestioningly, and then assert that, in the prayer scene, he should pay less attention to what were then almost universally accepted ideas about unabsolved sins as they related to the supernatural phenomenon of the afterlife.
Hamlet has also been called indecisive for staging the play to confirm the ghost's story. But this criticism fails to take into account that Hamlet is by no means the only character in the play with a penchant for confirming his evidence via a second source. His uncle does it repeatedly in the course of checking up on him. Polonius also does it to confirm the nature of Hamlet's feelings for his daughter, even though his daughter has shown him a love letter from Hamlet. Virtually the only person who doesn't exercise this kind of caution is Laertes--and his credulity sets him up to be the king's hapless stooge.
Hamlet's world, which exerts such a powerful influence on the action that it is almost a character in its own right, is a particularly treacherous royal court. In an environment like this (as many of us who spend our days in the corporate milieu know), a degree of circumspection can simply be part of the standard survival kit.
(c) COPYRIGHT 1992 ROBERT WINTER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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