Shakespeare's Hamlet

This study will examine the theme, characters, and plot of Shakespeare's Hamlet, focusing on ways that the playwright uses these elements in developing the tragedy of the work. Specifically, the study will concentrate on Hamlet as the heart and soul of the tragedy, and the ways that the other literary factors of the play grow out of his character. The tragedy of Hamlet and his society is the tragedy of the corruption of the human condition. Aside from the character of Fortinbras, there is little in the play which is not thoroughly corrupted and degraded.

At the same time, it is clear that Shakespeare is trying to say something special, something mysterious with such a strange character as Hamlet. It is too easy and very misleading to simply say that Hamlet thought too much and did not take the necessary action as soon as he should have.

The play is about the damage that is done when the people and the society live by lies rather than by truth, when they live with self-interest as the guiding light and refuse to recognize the corruption in their hearts and all around them in society and government. The characters of Hamlet and the others, aside from Fortinbras, the theme of human and social corruption, and the plot of murder and deception---all these factors are rooted in lies.

As Germaine Greer writes, even the attempts of Hamlet to fully and completely expose Claudius as the killer of his father, attempts to expose the lies and proclaim the truth, are themselves mir

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the amiable qualities of his mind serve but to aggravate his distress and to perplex his conduct (Bradley 91-92). In other words, it is not Hamlet's corruption which creates the tragedy, but rather his goodness which leads him to delay taking the action which, ironically, extends, intensifies and deepens the tragedy and its fatal consequences. Had Hamlet killed Claudius immediately after the visit from the Ghost, the tragedy would have been shorter, to be sure, but it still would have been tragic. What makes the play special is the fact of Hamlet's goodness as he wrestles with the evil which is consuming him and his world. Bradley is compelling in arguing that Hamlet is finally a mystery precisely because that is the way Shakespeare wants him to be: We may be baffled because [Shakespeare] has illustrated in [Hamlet's character] certain strange facts of human nature, which he had noticed but of which we are ignorant. . . . What is meant is that Shakespeare intended [Hamlet] to be [unintelligible], because he himself was feeling strongly, and wished his audience to feel strongly, what a mystery life is, and how impossible it is for us to understand it (Bradley 93). As good as Hamlet may be, as mysterious and even unint

Category: Literature - S