Honors English IV
Hamlet – Your Questions
· Critical Theory – We discussed Freudian and Feminist Critical Theories alongside Hamlet. Both work to help us understand what the text “really means”, but neither are “in the text”. They’re things that we bring to the text to enhance our understanding. They’re tools. One focuses on what almost misogynist messages the text contains about women and how the text itself has shaped the treatment of women outside of its fictional world. The other deals with how the text can be illuminated by Freud’s ideas (and how the text even helped manage to shape them).
o Feminist Critical Theory
§ What is it?
· A way to approach literature that focuses on women’s issues
§ What are the three branches, and what’s their deal?
· American – Focuses on rediscovering texts, analyzing what works written by men can tell us about how women were perceived/treated in the era, and what works written by women have to tell us about their experiences (when we look at Frankenstein, this will be a key approach we take)
· French –
o Language/Thought is binary in nature, and hierarchical. Within these hierarchies there is always a masculine and feminine component. The masculine component is always privileged, therefore most language/thought is masculine and works to reinforce man’s perceived superiority and women’s inferiority. We say it’s “phallocentric”.
§ French Feminists believe that a “feminine” language is possible, though they admit this language would come across as madness to those indoctrinated into phallocentric modes of thought. Nonetheless, they think this alternative language would be liberating for all involved.
· English – Primarily concerned with history and politics. The Ophelia article which tracked the way her character was represented on stage aligns with this approach.
§ Gender in Hamlet?
· Femininity seems to be associated with weakness. Laertes specifically speaks of weakness and tears in feminine terms after the death of his father and sister.
o Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,
And therefore I forbid my tears; but yet
It is our trick, Nature her custom holds
Let shame say what it will; when these are gone
The woman will be out. Adieu, my lord,
I have a speech a’fire that fain would blaze,
But that this folly drowns it.
· Some speculate that Hamlet is only able to act after Ophelia’s death because she represented his own feminine weakness. Symbolically, her passing makes him more of a man.
§ Ophelia?
· She is weak, and this wouldn’t thrill feminist critics. There are few strong women in Shakespeare that would.
· In general, feminist critical theorists would take interest in the idea that she could potentially upset some traditional binary stereotypes. She dresses like a virgin yet deflowers herself. This behavior draws attention to the fact that both labels, virgin and whore, are largely constructions and not concrete realities. However, even though she stands to trouble these binaries, most productions seem to pigeon hole her into one of the roles anyway.
· French Feminist Critical theorists might take interest in her language once she’s “gone mad”. Is it genuine madness? Or does it only appear to be madness because Shakespeare’s thinking (as well as our own) Is largely phallocentric?
· English Feminist Critical theorists would be interested in how she has been portrayed historically, and how those portrayals in their given eras reflected on women. They are also likely interested in how her madness helped to define what it meant to be a woman and mad. Clinicians, even Freud, based their understanding of feminine madness on Ophelia, a fictional character. To base any part of our understanding of reality on art seems deeply troubling.
§ Gertrude
· Feminists might be interested in portrayals of her sexuality, how negative they are, and why society characterizes her behavior so negatively. She’s a grown up after all. She should be able to sleep with whomever she wants. It’s certainly not her sons business.
· Determining her larger complicity is also potentially relevant. We’ve seen her portrayed largely as an ignorant victim who dies of her own stupidity as well as someone who clearly understands what is going on around her and even sacrifices her life to save her son. Unlike Ophelia, there is potential to portray Gertrude as a very strong woman who knows what she wants and how to get it.
§ I don’t understand French Feminism
· You’ve been indoctrinated into phallocentric thinking, so of course you don’t.
o Linguists argue that there is no essential difference between masculine and feminine language.
§ Linguists have been indoctrinated into phallocentric thinking, so of course they perceive the argument as nonsense.
· Closed System!
o Freud
§ Id, Ego, Superego (who represents what)
§ Oedipal Desire and Violence
· What’s up with the Skull scene?
o I see Hamlet as being fixated on the equality possible in death. Earlier he talks about how a king might work his way through the bowls of a beggar, here he talks about how Caesar and Alexander might become the putty that clogs a crack in the wall or that stops a bunghole. What motivates this fascination I am less sure of? Maybe he’s concerned because of what will happen to his father, maybe he sees his own death coming. He also seems ambivalent about class. He points out how mouthy the gravedigger is with him and recognizes this as a violation of social decorum. Is he bothered? Does he resent the class system? Would he have married Ophelia had his own station not made it impossible, married her despite it? These are issues that might concern a Marxist.
o The skull is Yorick’s skull. He was court jester when Hamlet was a kid. Hamlet played with him. Just another corpse in Hamlet’s morbid life, another dead father figure.
· Did Shakespeare have mommy issues? Why is it all about sex?
o We don’t have enough information in regards to the mommy thing. Though we do know Shakespeare married a woman ten years his senior when he was only in his late teens. They married because she was pregnant. If he likes older women, could that hint towards mommy issues?
o In regards to sex, it may be my fault that it’s all about sex. Maybe I fixate on it and explore those angles to the exclusion of others. Looking back, it could just as easily all have been about death. What else could it have been about? Power? Revenge? Familial loyalties?
§ It could all be about sex.
· Othello will be about sex and race
o But mainly sex
· Why did Hamlet say he loved Ophelia once?
o Maybe he did? Or thought he did? My Hamlet is so self-absorbed that he could only ever really love himself, and he only sees others as extensions of his own person. Horatio doesn’t even have the right to die because he has to tell Hamlet’s story. Still, that doesn’t mean he didn’t believe that he loved Ophelia. It just might not be love as you would define it.
o Your Hamlet can be different. Reference the Tennant version of the character that seems to be pushing Ophelia away when he tells her to “get to a nunnery”. Branagh would seem to be sending her there because she’s a woman, a whore like all women. Tennant’s gestures seem to suggest that he wishes to save her from all that is coming.
· Why? Why Hamlet? Why the Articles? Why six weeks of my life?
o Why Hamlet?
§ History and Culture – In the world of Jersey Shore, where you’re saturated in entertainment with no depth, being exposed to something with almost infinite depth seems a healthy necessity. It’s also part of our cultural history and important to what we’ll call “cultural literacy”. For example, I had nine years of parochial schooling, now I’m not even a believer, but I don’t resent the acquisition of that knowledge because it has utility in our culture. It benefits me to have a thorough understanding of what the majority believe. Whether you’re aware of it or not, Hamlet is also central to our cultural experience. Psychology has utility; Psychology has Freud as its modern father. Freud based part of his understanding of the human psyche on Hamlet. You kids enjoy the Lion King? No Hamlet, no Lion King. Why not know how the puzzle pieces fit together. Otherwise all you’re doing is consuming media. Hamlet argues if all you do is consume, specifically, if all you do is eat and sleep and tend to your baser urges, then you’re just an animal. I want to be more than an animal. I want to understand the origins of the things I consume.
§ Learning how to learn – say you took a computer science course instead, good chance that anything you learned in that course would either already be obsolete or would be obsolete by the time you got a job in the field. But you’ve learned how to learn it. That’s the real skill.
§ Inventing the Human – As an occasional believer in social construction, I entertain the idea that humans were not widespread capable of meta-cognition (thinking about thinking) before Shakespeare provided a model of meta-cognition in his works. Evidence for this is a lack of characters in literature/journals who reflected the same way his characters did. Through seeing his characters think out loud, people then internalized a similar practice. I would argue that these meta-cognitive processes are part of what make us human. How we developed them matters to me.
§ Reading Strategies – Shakespeare’s rough. You’ll read other rough things. You need to develop reading strategies to digest them. Could be your college textbooks, could be the Chilton you reference when trying to repair your transmission, could be your tax paperwork.
o Why the articles?
§ It’s the authentic college experience I’m familiar with. You may never study a literary text ever again, but most disciplines have their equivalent of these articles as they apply to their schools of thought.
· Personally, I received A’s in all my honors high school English classes. As one of those “first in the family to go to college” types it was part of what steered me to choose my major. Yet, when I got to the U of I, I was expected to already know all this kind of stuff. I’d never seen any of it, had no strategies for dealing with it, etc. Even if you only have to take a survey course or two as a gen. ed., I want you to be better prepared than I was.
§ Discourse Communities – As you begin to write in this style yourself, it’s the first step in learning how to engage with your peers in the language particular to your own eventually fields.
§ Reading Strategies again.
§ They provide a deeper understanding of the text in words beyond what I’m capable of spontaneously articulating to you.
§ Non-Fiction – The Common Core Standards advocate moving away from fiction towards non-fiction. These articles are non-fiction.
· Can we have popcorn with the next movie?
o Probably not. I’m still sore about all the spilt paint buckets at float building. My intuition tells me that if someone knocked over a bowl of popcorn they’d just walk away from that too and pretend like it didn’t happen.
· Why is Fortinbras entitled to the crown?
o His father once controlled these lands and lost them to Old King Hamlet
o Hamlet has given him “his vote” or endorsement
o Everyone else is dead
o It’s another story of a son avenging his father, and this one goes fairly smoothly.
§ Action is privileged over thought
· Men act, women think
· Why does my side of the classroom get ignored?
o The other side has bigger personalities. These personalities likely developed because these students crave attention in a manner that generally your side of the classroom does not. They need my attention to validate them. You know you’re smart. Your side is largely content with quietly being clever.
· Why does Claudius concoct such an elaborate plot? Why not just stab Hamlet?
o Which Hamlet? Either way, Claudius is a master politician and manipulator. He understands the consequences of directly killing either Hamlet. Instead he has his machinations. Look at the way he turns Laertes into his weapon. Claudius is clever. From a plot standpoint, this too helps to establish that perhaps Prince Hamlet is more like his uncle than his father.
· Was there really a ghost?
o I’m going to go with yes, at least initially, as both the guards and Horatio saw it. Though I suppose we could also go with some kind of mass hysteria. But personally. I think the early appearances of the ghost are “real” as they have corroborating witnesses. When the ghost later appears to Hamlet in his mothers bedroom, and only Hamlet can see the ghost, this ghost may now be a hallucination in the mind of the young prince.
o In the early appearances, I think we can also accept that the ghost is the ghost of old King Hamlet and not a demonic presence trying to cause destruction. I base this on Claudius’ signs of guilt and later behavior, using poison again, etc. He even admits to the murder in his soliloquy.
· Did Ophelia kill herself?
o She certainly didn’t save herself. Anything else is up to your interpretation.
· Why does Gertrude drink?
o She’s dumb
o She’s dumb and she wants to spite her husband, “you can’t tell me what to do!”
o She’s bright and she wants to spite her husband.
o She’s bright and she wants to spite her husband and save her son.
o She’s bright and she wants to spite her husband and save her son because she feels guilty about marrying Claudius
o She’s bright and she wants to spite her husband and save her son because she feels guilty about the role she played in the death of her first husband
· Other applicable critical theories?
o With a little research, almost any could apply. Marxist class based issues seem to readily present themselves. Formalist concerns are also present, symbolism, irony, ambiguity; the play is ripe with that stuff. Deconstruction could be used to deal with broader issues that have no social agenda. Is the ghost real? Then deconstructing the binary between delusion and reality.