A perspective on the Character of Hamlet
Hamlet is a deep and thoughtful comic figure who exists and develops within a tragic milieu [situation]1. Hamlet initially appears as a rebellious step-son and nephew with a taste for black humour. He expresses his dark dissent in sultry puns. The word ‘sun’ is a sarcastic metaphor for the King’s self-important grandeur and is combined with a caustic reference to Hamlet’s new status as step-son instead of nephew. There is a hard edge of humour within his depression. / 1. Hamlet [Aside] A little more than kin and less than kind.
King How is it that the clouds still hang on you? Hamlet Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun…
…But I have that within which passeth show; these but the trappings and the suits of woe.
2. In the graveyard scene we learn of the formative influence of the court jester Yorick on his life. Yorick was probably a father figure who instilled in Hamlet a love of drama and comic detachment. / 2. Hamlet Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest… Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know I not how oft. Where be your gibes now? … your flashes of merriment
3. In his first conversation with his school-friends-turned-spies, Hamlet tells Rosencranz and Guildenstern that he has mysteriously lost his ebullient or funny nature. He is depressed. / 3. Hamlet I have of late--but
wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth… And yet, to me,
what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me: no, nor woman neither
4. In the exposition scene, Act 1 sc 2, Hamlet’s comic self is so stressed that he is suicidal, all due to the reverses he has experienced within his family. Hamlet turns his eyes on Denmark, and sees it as corrupt and uncontrolled. He deeply resents the rotten and unsophisticated king. / 4. Hamlet O, that this too too solid flesh would melt thaw and resolve itself into a dew! …
'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature possess it merely
5. Hamlet jokes darkly to the audience that Claudius is devoted to physical accomplishments rather than intellectual pursuits. Hamlet is more a jester than man of physical strength. / 5. Hamlet My father's brother, but no more like my father than I to Hercules
6. Hamlet switches between the extremes of depression and merriment. He sarcastically laments the festive atmosphere that has dominated court lifestyle since Claudius’ coronation. Both his father’s death and his time in the reformation university of Wittenberg have altered him and made him into a serious moral barometer for his times, no longer detached. / 6. Hamlet [greeting Horatio] We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart… Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables…
The time is out of joint!
7. Hamlet suspects that Claudius has committed evil to gain the throne. He doesn’t yet use his comic side to escape from his reality. He begins to realise he will have to be the reforming influence. / 7. Hamlet foul deeds will rise, though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes…
It is not nor it cannot come to good…
8. Hamlet is so disillusioned that at times he loses interest in his own life—though he retains his sense of humour. / 8. Hamlet I do not set my life at a pin's fee
9. Hamlet soon finds himself appointed as an instrument of the supernatural and of fate. He impulsively accepts the ghost’s command to kill the usurper. He is assigned a duty which makes him hold back his funny nature. Fate, revenge, thinking and love lead him to shed his comic detachment from life. / 9. Hamlet…My fate cries out…
Ghost Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder
Hamlet with wings as swift as
meditation or the thoughts of love may sweep to my revenge
10. Hamlet’s response to living in a corrupt milieu is to don a comic mask; ‘wild and whirling words’ & an ‘antic disposition’. He instantly mocks the ghost. His first response to a crisis is darkly comic—but with a heavy heart. / 10. Hamlet art thou there,
truepenny? Come on--you hear this fellow in the cellarage… Well said, old mole! canst work i' the earth so fast?
11. Events force him to tackle his world from a moral perspective. Hamlet’s situation is grim and grave. He is marked out for a tragic destiny as an avenger in a politically insecure world. / 11. Hamlet The time is out of joint: O cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right!
12. Hamlet reveals his mischievous wit. He jokes that as R & G live neither on the cap of Fortune [fate] nor at her toes, they live in her private parts. This type of smutty banter shows Hamlet the joker. But he lacks the light hearted nature he once had. In his disillusionment, he develops the lewd image by calling Fortune a prostitute—suggesting that fate is unpredictable. / 12. Hamlet In the secret parts of fortune? O, most true; she is a strumpet.
13. With a touch of black humour, Hamlet states that universal honesty is a sign of the end of the world. He comments ironically on his milieu. / 13. Rosencranz the world's grown honest.
Hamlet Then is doomsday near…
14. The reality of Hamlet’s situation depresses him. He claims to have a mind that could overcome any physical limitation, but reality depresses him. It is obvious that Hamlet hates the destiny that put him at odds with his surroundings. At heart he is a witty philosopher, an intellectual. But his mission to avenge his father’s murder utterly changes his place in his world. His own vision is comic, but he has to perform actions that have inevitable tragic consequences. / 14. Hamlet I could be bounded in a nut shell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams
15. Hamlet makes it clear that he has no ambition for power in Denmark. He is focused on his own mind, not his society. He regards ambition as worldly but he is more of a philosopher. It is his mission of revenge in a corrupted world that transforms him. / 15. Hamlet I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow's shadow
16. The influence of the hired court performer Yorick on the child Hamlet is evident in adult Hamlet’s highly developed taste for subtle stage drama. / 16. Hamlet …set down with as much
modesty as cunning…
17. Hamlet mocks Polonius’ failure to appreciate the Player’s recital—more evidence of Yorick’s influence on Hamlet / 17. Polonius This is too long Hamlet …he's for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps:
18. Hamlet’s ploy to force an admission of guilt from Claudius by theatrical re-enactment of his crime further proves that Hamlet is essentially a comedian. He wishes to live by the use of his wit. / 18. Hamlet the play 's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king
19. Hamlet’s comic sense of life has been so jolted that he hates his former self. He becomes suicidal again. / 19. Hamlet O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I! …
To be, or not to be: that is the question
20. Hamlet’s way of showing his emotional hurt towards Ophelia is through cruel black humour, typical of a man who has lost his mirth. He mocks the ‘frailty’ of female sexuality. Bitter over his ‘seeming virtuous’ mother’s betrayal of her marriage to his father, Hamlet taunts Ophelia by saying she will never control her lust or keep her ‘chaste’ reputation. His cruel sarcasm shows that his natural mirth has been twisted by the circumstances of his life. / 20. Hamlet …why wouldst thou be a
breeder of sinners?
…God has given you one face, and you make yourselves another…
To a nunnery, go.
21. Hamlet’s natural comic inclination causes him to use cruel puns to humiliate Ophelia.
22. He likewise uses humour as a weapon against Polonius. He gets Polonius to contradict himself on the shape of a cloud.
23. He even uses black humour as a veiled way of threatening Claudius. / 21. Hamlet Lady, shall I lie in your lap? … Do you think I meant country matters?
22. Pol ‘tis like a camel indee d. Hamlet Methinks it is like a weasel Pol It is backed like a weasel.
23. Hamlet a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar
24. Hamlet is forced to radically change who he is. He has to give up ‘antics’ and being a thinker and become more like Hercules—a man of action he ridicules twice in the play. He begins to realise that thought is a ‘cast’ or mask that infects or sickens the healthy complexion of action. Hamlet knows he thinks too much. / 24. Hamlet the native hue of resolution is sicklie d o'er with the pale cast of thought Hamlet some craven scruple of thinking too precisely on the event
25. The corruption of the state of Denmark forced Hamlet to take responsibility and focus on political concerns. He left his flippant and philosophical sides behind and realised he had to place is responsibility to the throne above his love of drama and philosophy. / 25. Hamlet How stand I then, that have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd, excitements of my reason and my blood, and let all sleep? …This is I Hamlet the Dane.
26. Hamlet’s transformation is complete when he nominates Fortinbras to the throne and ensures the future stability of the Danish state. To prevent uncertainty and future strife he cleverly turns Denmark’s main rival into its monarch. / 26. Hamlet the election lights on Fortinbras: he has my dying voice