Essay on Shakespeare Hamlet

Resource Description

THESIS STATEMENT

Shakespeare’s revenge tragedy, Hamlet, explores transitioning contextual influences on one’s identity and their actions, inducing a deep study of philosophical ideas relating to human existence. Shakespeare’s meticulous control of language, content and construction allows for the dramatic representation of a number of universal conflicts; metaphysical truth and reality, religious and renaissance values, and existential purpose in the face of mortality. I believe Hamlet’s enduring value is cemented in Shakespeare’s ability to expound universal themes and issues relevant to humanity, without delineating a concrete interpretation which allows for numerous re-interpretations that contribute to it’s timeless relevance beyond the confines of one’s context.

Shakespeare characterises Hamlet’s identity as being shaped by Elizabethan paradigms and his relationships with others, highlighting how one’s identity is interdependent and evolving with contextual and societal influences. Shakespeare’s Elizabethan ghost serves as a dramatic device, shaking Hamlet’s disposition, ‘with thoughts beyond the reaches of [his] soul?’, portraying the influence of external occurrences on Hamlet’s psyche which Horatio believes may ‘draw [him] into madness’. Hamlet is also entangled in Denmark’s unstable political situation where his disillusioned metaphor, ‘Denmark’s a prison’, illustrates how his identity is constrained by the court, underlining how human psyche is largely a construct of the relationships surrounding them. In addition, Shakespeare utilises the submissive characterisation of Ophelia to illustrate interdependence of human relationships where Ophelia’s assent, ‘I shall obey you’ portrays her identity as being circumscribed by her male relationships. Her descent into madness due to Polonius’ death are portrayed through sexual innuendos and broken syntax, highlighting Ophelia’s shocking emancipation from her relationships, thus highlighting the impact of relationships on one’s identity. Hamlet’s soliloquies also serve as a dramatic convention juxtaposing Hamlet’s ‘public’ and ‘private’ identities, revealing the distinctions in psyche in reaction to different environments. This highlights the evolving nature of human psyche where for example in the setting of a ‘private room’ with Gertrude, the impetuous murder of Polonius contrasts Hamlet’s deeply ruminative alter persona. Thus, Henry Brown’s statement of Hamlet being a ‘product of his environment’ further reinforces my interpretation of the transformative effect of one’s surroundings on their individual psyche.

Furthermore, Hamlet’s procrastination and existential crisis reflects a struggle between religious duties, Christian virtues and Renaissance values on existential justice. Hamlet portrays the changing Elizabethan epistemology during Shakespeare’s context, revealing how medieval and religious belief systems were disturbed by a significant growth in humanist examination. Hamlet’s awareness of larger moral implications is demonstrated by the rhetorical question, ‘How stand I then?’ which portrays the archetypal Renaissance man, incongruous with his Christian virtues and religious notions of righteousness, hence catalysing his confused psyche. The ghost provokes Hamlet’s torment through imperative diction, ‘revenge his foul and most unnatural murder’, inline with the tradition of medieval religious duty. Hamlet’s promise to murder Claudius in the simile, ‘with wings as swift..as thoughts of love’, highlights how he must ironically become a murderer himself, signifying his defiance of religious convention. The confluence between the medieval code of vengeance and Hamlet’s prolonged contemplation leads to internal crisis where the juxtaposition between  ‘scourge and minister’ metaphorically highlights the conflict between the Christian ethical code and the renaissance values. Further reinforcing this is Hamlet’s tendency to ‘think too precisely on th’ event’ revealing the ambivalence between the contradictory demands of Christianity and Renaissance values. Thus, through Hamlet, we see an examination of a man caught in a period of transition between two philosophies – the medieval Christian values against his own renaissance thinking, embodying the contemplation of any contemporary responder which as Hazlitt states – ‘it is we who are Hamlet’.