Shakespeare's Hamlet: The Tragedy of Knowing Thyself

Poet T. S. Eliot (1920) maintained that ôHamlet is the Mona Lisa of literatureö (1). Eliot makes such a comparison because ShakespeareÆs Hamlet is as immune to absolute analysis as is DaVinciÆs immortal portrait of Mona Lisa. Such a dilemma might also apply to knowing oneÆs self, as brilliantly expressed in the play by Shakespeare. In his review of John LeeÆs ShakespeareÆs Hamlet and the Controversies of the Self, Arthur F. Kinney (2002) argues that ôhis study confronts the problem of defining the self, of establishing a sense of interiority in the protagonist that is in keeping with the thought of late Elizabethan and early Stuart timesö (88). It is exactly the difficulty in establishing such an interiority that is HamletÆs tragedy. Human beings are thought capable, by their cognitive abilities and ration, to add meaning to the unpredictability and indifference that are often the stuff of life. However, Hamlet is preoccupied throughout the play with trying to determine if such meaning is possible in the face of his or anyone elseÆs circumstances. The difficulty in making such a determination immobilizes Hamlet for a majority of the play, unable to take action until he has fully deliberated upon the events within the play. This analysis will demonstrate HamletÆs awareness that to know thyself is often a futile preoccupation, one that is fraught with errors and hampered by the limitations of human understanding.

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let, can escape paying a price for making a mistake against nature. Hamlet wrongly kills Polonius, believing instead he was Claudius. Eventually he will come to the realization that he will also be punished for this act as he must punish Claudius for the death of his father. As he says while pointing to PoloniusÆ body after repenting his rash action that took the manÆs life, ôHeaven hath please it so / To punish me with this, and this with me, / That I must be their scourge and ministerö (Shakespeare 1975, III.iv. 180-182). In his critique of this aspect of the play, Marvin Hinter (2004) reveals the tragedy of Hamlet representing not only the minister of justice for his father and Denmark but also, like Oedipus, of his own crimes. As Hinter (2004) maintains, ôHamlet is the agent of heaven for punishment, even upon himself. Polonius has been punished by the stabbing; Hamlet is being punished by the guilt of killing Poloniusö (70). Hamlet is a reflecting pool of thought and of Denmark, and something in the state is rotten. HamletÆs treatment of Ophelia demonstrates this. He is acutely aware that words are meaningless, and, at best, only a verbalization of what is already dead in the heart, a futile attempt at meaning in a me
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Approximate Word count = 3216
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page)

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