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COMMENTS |
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INTRODUCTION
The terrifying enigma of death is central to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The play begins on dark battlements with the ambiguous words “Who’s there?” The ‘who’ in question appears to be the ghost of Hamlet’s father but who or what this liminal figure actually represents becomes the source of Hamlet’s anguish and famous procrastination as the play unfolds.¹ Hamlet’s journey into death takes us from the Catholic doctrine of purgatory and hell to a more materialist reflection on the nature of existence and the “base uses” to which one must return. The more deeply Hamlet examines the nature of death, the more dangerous he becomes until unwittingly, he unleashes the torrent of destruction that annihilates everyone he cares about, leaving only Horatio, who must live on in the “harsh world” to tell his story.²
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1. This introduction may seem somewhat unconventional, as it opens with a quote and a point of analysis. However, this a perfectly valid way to begin, provided you maintain a focus on the prompt as we have done here. In fact, this can be an interesting way to open your discussion, especially if you find it difficult to talk about broader themes and ideas as opposed to the meaning of language.
2. The only thing your introduction truly needs to do is show us that you’re responding to the prompt. Beyond that, it’s completely up to you and your writing style!
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PARAGRAPH 1
The ghost’s appearance is as morally troubling as it is strange, challenging the popular Protestant belief that nothing can escape from heaven or hell.³ Thus, Shakespeare conjures an aura of ambiguity around the ghost – the audience is unsure whether to take it at face value as a (presumably Catholic) revenant – one returned from the dead or as a malignant devil bent on disrupting Elsinore’s power structures. When Hamlet addresses the ghost, his language is biblical; the ghost, he thinks, must be either a “spirit of health or goblin damn’d” – a creature of heaven or hell. The ghost’s tale of murder and cry for revenge is also confined within the linguistic trappings of biblical damnation: he speaks of Claudius’s deceitful temptation of Gertrude “in the shape of heaven” and of his life being ended “even in the blossoms of [his] sin.” Further, it directly references the original sin in Genesis, telling Hamlet “the serpent that did sting thy father’s life / Now wears his crown.” Tragic as this story is, the apparition is only ever referred to as ‘ghost,’ even the stage directions never explicitly identify it as ‘Old Hamlet.’ While the ghost’s disembodied voice echoing from “under the stage” (which typically represented hell in the Elizabethan theatre)⁴ corresponds with its account of purgatory, it is also reminiscent of a subterranean devil. While the audience can be pretty certain the ghost speaks the truth about Claudius, the echoes of the question “who’s there?” or rather who was there, linger until the end of the play, reflecting universal human uncertainty about what lies beyond the grave.⁵
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3. Again, this is a very specific topic sentence, but it is also clearly inspired by the direction the prompt hints at, and gives us a sense of where this discussion will lead.
4. This quick little parenthetical aside just serves as evidence that we have done our research into the staging of Shakespearean plays and how conventions and exigencies of the genre informed how he wrote his plays.
5. This is a really powerful paragraph ending that ties together our discussion, and returns to the prompt with a lucid remark about the meaning Shakespeare has constructed.
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PARAGRAPH 2
The appearance of the ghost, and its eerie aftermath, becomes the catalyst for both Hamlet’s introspective disturbance and for the destruction that follows.⁶ Ignored by Ophelia and spied upon by Claudius, Hamlet adopts an “antic disposition,” his ramblings littered with references to death and decay. Even Polonius’s apparently innocent question “will you walk out of the air, my lord?” earns the brief and literal reply “into my grave?” illustrating Hamlet’s sense of death as the only tangible destination.⁷ In his famous “to be or not to be” soliloquy, Hamlet is transfixed by the unknowable nature of death, which he at once dreads and longs for – “a consummation / devoutly to be wish’d”. Here, the language is not overtly religious: he agnostically views death as an “undiscover’d country, from whose bourn / No traveller returns”, a phrase which not only contradicts the ghosts account of “sulph’rous flames” but doubts the apparition’s very existence. While some critics⁸ explain this monologue as merely the archetypal musings of a renaissance man, and therefore unconnected to the ghost, Hamlet’s faith in the spirit continues to wane and he ultimately rejects the possibility of an afterlife. Further, if Hamlet were convinced by the ghost’s word, he would not devise the play within in a play to ascertain his uncle’s guilt.
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6. This topic sentence both bridges the gap between the previous paragraph and this one, and explains where our discussion will lead next.
7. It’s important to carefully select evidence for your essays. Assessors don’t want to see 100 random quotes from the play; they want to see the 10–20 ones that you’ve deemed most relevant and most important in order to mount a case for your interpretation!
8. Here, we’re acknowledging potential alternate interpretations, which is something only high-range essays tend to do! Discussing other plausible views before then providing us with your own (better and stronger!) contention is proof that you understand Shakespeare’s plays are nuanced and can be read in different ways, but also that you can effectively convey your interpretation whilst still being aware that it is just an interpretation.
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PARAGRAPH 3
Even when convinced of Claudius’s guilt,⁹ Hamlet remains unable to kill – until his spontaneous accidental killing of Polonius transforms him into an agent of death. Much critical discourse¹⁰ has centred on Hamlet’s decision not to kill Claudius in Act 3 – and whether it is indeed his belief in an afterlife that halts his sword. While he appears to show real anguish that he might “this same villain send / To heaven”, the halting, repetitive syntax of his speech – “now I might do it pat... And now I’ll do’t” – hints at a broader uncertainty about his own ability to kill – he falters, prolonging the deed, before he even considers heaven and hell. By contrast, Hamlet’s murder of Polonius takes place in a moment of passion, when he is already inflamed by his anger towards Gertrude.¹¹ His demeanour in this scene is marked by a certain callousness typical of traditional revenge plays: he casually remarks “I’ll lug the guts into the neighbour room” – crude and without remorse. Interestingly, this scene also marks the only other appearance of the ghost, reaffirming its command to kill as the root of all destruction in the play. However, Gertrude’s inability to see the ghost suggests that this apparition could merely be Hamlet’s madness, a phantom representation of his guilt at his “blunted purpose.” Whatever the nature of the visitation, this “rash and bloody deed” frees Hamlet from his conscience; after arranging the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, he tells Horatio “they are not near my conscience, their defeat / Does by their own insinuation grow,” belying his own paranoia and descent into madness.
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9. Again, this topic sentence establishes a link with the previous discussion, thereby aiding essay fluency and cohesion.
10. When you are unpacking particularly meaningful scenes, monologues, or quotes, you may find it useful to state that this evidence has been subject to much analysis and scrutiny, or even delve into multiple interpretations, so that you don’t risk oversimplifying these highly important moments.
11. Here, we’re contrasting different examples within the play to tease out noteworthy similarities and differences.
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PARAGRAPH 4
The Hamlet of Act 5¹² is almost wholly transformed from the melancholy intellectual of earlier acts: his view of death is materialist and almost nihilistic. The image of Hamlet holding Yorick’s skull, a primal symbol of mortality, is one of the most enduring in the play, as he contemplates the earthy reality of death. Even “Imperious Caesar” is merely earth that “might stop a hole to keep the wind away” and any possibility of an afterlife seems remote. Where in comedies like Twelfth Night the fool provides commentary on the nature of life and death,¹³ Yorick’s “flashes of merriment” were silenced before the play even began, forcing Hamlet and the audience to confront their mortality alone. Hamlet’s language is prosaic when he remarks that “Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth to dust,” as if he no longer wants to disguise death’s inevitability with poetry. As the play accelerates towards its devastating conclusion, Hamlet’s frustrated search for the true nature of death gives way to an acceptance of his inability to know. Of his own death, he simply says “if it be now, ‘tis not to come”, no longer fearing an afterlife he cannot believe in. Despite this passive and accepting position, Hamlet’s newfound fatalism makes him the locus of death in the final scene, destroying everyone including himself. He acts as a foil for Laertes, who adopts the active role of revenger which he once occupied. Hamlet’s own revenge, however, seems almost incidental: Gertrude’s death is an accident, Claudius is killed by his own poison and the ghost, implicitly banished into a non-existent hell, does not reappear to watch Hamlet avenge it.¹⁴ Further, the text is ambiguous as to whether Hamlet deliberately switches the rapiers or whether, as the stage direction suggests, it is merely haphazard. In either case, Laertes’ death is more wanton destruction than premeditated murder on Hamlet’s part.
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12. If you intend to analyse the journey a character takes and the extent to which they change over the course of the play, the last few body paragraphs are a good place to do that, as by now you should have established points of reference about Hamlet’s downfall that will make it easier for you to pass judgements about his trajectory.
13. Although you should always be careful to maintain your focus on the set text, making occasionally passing references to other Shakespearean plays, or any other intertextual references and allusions can be good ways to augment your analysis.
14. This is an interesting interpretation of Hamlet’s character and the notion of tragic hamartia and the desire for vengeance.
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CONCLUSION
As one who has looked too long and too closely on death, Hamlet becomes motiveless, the unwitting architect of his own destruction and thus is his “noble mind” “o’erthrown.”¹⁵ His final words “the rest is silence” pun on the word “rest,” hint at both his deep exhaustion with life and at the “rest” of his existence, in which he sees only oblivion.¹⁶ Through Hamlet’s tragedy, Shakespeare warns his audience against contemplating death for too long, intimating that a deeper awareness of one’s own mortality will only bring destruction.¹⁷ The catalyst, however, for Hamlet’s spiral into death, remains unknown – the ghost’s spectral figure is absent from the resolution and yet still we wonder who was there.
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15. Firstly, this conclusion neatly summarises Hamlet’s character, and effectively answers the essay question.
16. Next, we expand on our interpretation of Hamlet’s oblivion by briefly analysing the play’s end.
17. Finally, we comment on Shakespeare’s meaning and intent, before ending with a remark about one of the fundamental ambiguities of the play and the impact this has on the audience.
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