Overview: As Hamlet is finding out if the Ghost's story is true, he says he will pretend to be mad. (In the Danish source of this 9th-century tale, discussed in Background: Sources, Ambleth pretends to be dim-witted to make the king think he is no threat.) But as we see Shakespeare's Hamlet seeking corroboration, the madness doesn't seem to help his investigation, and we must sometimes wonder whether Hamlet has not become really a bit deranged by his circumstances.
Summary of Part Two
I. Is Hamlet mad? The Court responds to Hamlet's "antic disposition."
II. Is Claudius guilty? Or is the investigation merely a delaying tactic?
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Lecture Part Three of Hamlet
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I. Is Hamlet mad? The Court responds to Hamlet's "antic disposition."
A. The first report of Hamlet's madness comes from Ophelia to her father (2.1).
1. Recall that Ophelia has refused to see him, despite his romantic attentions, on the advice of her brother Laertes and the command of her father Polonius (in 1.3).
2. Hamlet has been upset by his mother's apparent insincerity (1.2) and then the news of her adultery (1.5), and now his own romantic interest appears to spurn him for no reason. Even if his mad behavior is an act, I think his going to Ophelia shows his unconscious concern that Ophelia may be as inconstant as his mother.
B. Claudius and Gertrude seek to find out the cause of Hamlet's madness. They send for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Hamlet's college friends, and ask them in 2.2 to find out what's wrong with him. They question Hamlet, and although he never treats them to the clearly put-on madness he uses with Polonius, he becomes suspicious of their intents:
Hamlet: What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of Fortune, that she sends you to prison hither?
Guildenstern: Prison, my lord!
Hamlet: Denmark's a prison.
Rosencrantz: Then is the world one.
Hamlet: A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one o' the worst.
Rosencrantz: We think not so, my lord.
Hamlet: Why, then 'tis none: to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so; to me it is a prison.
Rosencrantz: Why, then your ambition makes it one; tis too narrow for your mind.
Hamlet: O God! I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.
Guildenstern: Which dreams indeed are ambition, for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.
Hamlet: A dream itself is but a shadow.
Rosencrantz: Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow's shadow.
(2.2.258-81)
It's hard to tell whether Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are setting Hamlet up. They (not Horatio) are sent for by the King and Queen, and they are clearly impressed and eager to help in 2.2. Both of them mention "ambition" to Hamlet, which he denies. Yet when Hamlet presses them to say whether they have been sent for by the King, they hesitate and only reluctantly confess this. That is, they are hardly suave villains intent on betraying a friend for advancement. We need to keep track of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern because their death is important in our assessment of Hamlet.
C. Polonius suspects that Hamlet is mad for love of Ophelia, after she withdraws herself from the relationship on Polonius' orders. After he suggests this to the King and Queen, he suggests that he and Claudius spy upon Ophelia and Hamlet and offers to set that up.
1. Polonius represents conventional wisdom and a diplomat's wariness:
His parting advice to Laertes ("To thine own self be true . . .") is often quoted because it sums up a safe course of action (1.3.64-86).
His advice to Ophelia about Hamlet is similar in content to Laertes'--'don't fall for him because you could get over-involved'-- but he attributes less lofty motives to Hamlet than Laertes does.
He sends Reynaldo to spy on his own son, expecting to find him " a little soil'd I' the working" and "By indirections [to] find directions out" (2.1.46, 73).
2. Hamlet, who values honesty and directness, consistently acts toward Polonius as though he thinks him a fool, and his obviously nutty talk with Polonius does seem to be believed--perhaps because Polonius always expects the worst of everyone.
II. Is Claudius guilty? Or is Hamlet's investigation merely a delaying tactic?
A. At the very end of Act 2, scene 2, Hamlet comes up with the plan to catch Claudius with the re-enactment of his crime, and he hatches the plan within minutes of his welcoming the players:
About, my brain!-- I have heard
That guilty creatures sitting at a play
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaim'd their malefactions;
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle; I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent him to the quick: if he but blench
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil; and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me. I'll have grounds
More relative than this: the play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
Hamlet has heard that people guilty of a crime have proclaimed their guilt when they have seen their murder re-enacted. He will have the players put on a play like the murder of his father by Claudius so that he can observe Claudius' reactions. If Claudius even goes white, Hamlet will take this as confirmation of the Ghost's story. The prince fears that the spirit may be a devil who has assumed his father's shape in order to work on his weakness and melancholy to make Hamlet act (killing Claudius) in a way that would damn him. Hamlet will require grounds for revenge greater than the injunction of a questionable spirit. He will hope to catch the conscience of the king through the play.
B. Hamlet's self-accusation. These lines come at the end of a speech in which Hamlet accuses himself of inexcusable delay in carrying out his promise to the Ghost. Is Hamlet correct or overly critical in accusing himself of cowardice?
1. The players arrive: Hamlet has their leader perform a speech describing how the Greek warrior Pyrrhus cut down his enemy Priam, King of Troy, and the mourning for that slaughter by Priam's wife, Hecuba. Note that this scene reflects what Hamlet wishes had happened when his father was slain: wicked younger man kills defenseless old man who is mourned by faithful, sexually past-it wife.
2. Plans devised: Although the Priam speech occasions Hamlet's self-accusation in soliloquy, in the meantime he asks Polonius to give welcome to the players and arranges to have "The Murder of Gonzago" performed with an extra speech of some 12-16 lines (564, 567).
3. In the soliloquy, he compares himself unfavorably to the player who has seemed on the verge of tears for Hecuba. Notice that we see the mind in motion--in the process of thought as Hamlet turns and twists with his emotions and rationality:
O! what a rogue and peasant slave am I:
1a) Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his whole conceit
That from her working all his visage wann'd,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in 's aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing!
For Hecuba!
What's Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba
That he should weep for her?
1b) What would he do
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears,
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty and appall the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears.
2) Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing: no, not for a king,
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward?
3) Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face!
Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i' the throat
As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this? [All stage actions vs. a coward]
4) Ha! 'S wounds! I should take it, for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-liver'd, and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites [scavenger birds]
With this slave's offal [innards].
5) Bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless [unnatural] villain!
O! vengeance!
6) Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murder'd,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,
A scullion!
Fie upon 't! foh! About, my brain!
I think that Hamlet would like to act and, according to the obligations of nature, wants to revenge his father's murder, but he is also a rational and moral person (who does not want to kill mistakenly and does not like murder even when justified). His prudence wins out, but therefore he accuses himself of cowardice. (There is no mention here of the concern for a public show which he voices to Horatio as he lays dying in 5.2.)
1) At first he compares himself unfavorably to the actor who assumes the appearance of woe for a queen long dead. In 1b, he thinks the player would really rant and rave if he had the motive for passionate speech that Hamlet has.
2) Yet Hamlet says nothing despite the murder of his king, and he questions whether he is a coward.
3) Yet who calls him coward for this? And Hamlet goes on to describe how this accusation would be delivered on a stage.
4) If accused, Hamlet would have to acknowledge the justice of the charge because it must be he is cowardly or he would have already killed Claudius and left his guts for the birds to pick.
5) He proceeds to accuse Claudius in the manner he has imagined the player using in 1b.
6) He realizes he is a fool to think that shouting words is useful, and begins to use his brains for action.
C. Whether we accuse Hamlet of cowardice or not depends on the timetable we imagine from the Ghost's appearance to Hamlet's plan to trap Claudius. Because I think Hamlet unjustly accuses himself of cowardice and delay, I think only a few days have passed from the Ghost's call for revenge to the "Mousetrap" play.
From a diplomatic point of view, in that time,
This amount of activity is not unusual considering Shakespeare's frequent use of a double clock (presenting time passing but including events that are unlikely to have all occurred within the presented time frame).
In that time, according to Hamlet's point of view, he
In other words, within a matter of days, Hamlet has improvised an effective plan for exposing the guilt of the reigning King. Let's look at the parts of the timetable we have not yet discussed:
D. Reflection after planning and before action. Hamlet has a habit of reflecting, not just about the specific situation in hand, but also in the abstract. We see that in two important speeches: "To be or not to be" in 3.1 and the "not passion's slave" speech in 3.2 before the "Mousetrap."
1. In the "To be or not to be" speech, as in the "rogue and peasant slave" speech of 2.2, we see Hamlet's mind in action rather than hearing the conclusion he has reached. Notice the turns and twists here, too (at least according to my interpretation):
1) To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 't is nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?
2) To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 't is a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
3) To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
4) For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
5) Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
1) Should I live or die? Is it nobler to suffer the injuries of fortune or to take action against an overwhelming collection of troubles ("a sea") and by opposing those troubles, end them--not necessarily through victory, but because I will die in the attempt.
2) Dying is like sleeping, which is nice, because it stops the heartaches and problems of life--a nice ending ("consummation devoutly to be wished")
3) In sleep there are dreams (both good and bad), and perhaps in this sleep/death parallel there is something like dreams--and not knowing whether those will be happy dreams or nightmares makes us pause in our rush to the happy consummation of death and makes us put up with unhappiness in life for so long.
4) Who would put up with hardship and injustice (time's ravages, oppression, the scorn of the proud, despised love, etc.) when he could kill himself? Who would bear burdens, except that the dread of the unknown after death paralyzes the will and makes us put up with what we have rather than facing the unknown.
5) Thus, reflection robs us of our courage and thought undermines the resolve to act so that great enterprises are diverted from surging currents of action and dribble away in inaction.
Ok, there is some consideration of suicide here, but he has rejected suicide in 1.2 though he wished he were dead. Here, too, inaction and death look comforting at first, even as he awaits decisive action in the "Mousetrap" that will tip his hand to Claudius. As he thinks, he considers how doubt undermines action, but this doesn't appear to me to apply to the case at hand. That is, Hamlet thinks in the abstract, sometimes getting away from his immediate problem in his thoughts, but not in his actions.
2. In the same way, after the confrontation with Ophelia and before the play, Hamlet philosophizes on his ideal of manly action in the form of a compliment to Horatio. His speech functions as a reminder to himself of what he hopes to be:
Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice
And could of men distinguish, her election
Hath seal'd thee for herself; for thou hast been
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing,
A man that fortune's buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks: and bless'd are those
Whose blood and judgement are so well commeddled
That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee.
Hamlet has chosen Horatio as his friend because he is stoical--that is, he does not seem to suffer in times of affliction. He takes both the difficulties and rewards brought by fortune with equal thanks. His emotion and judgment are so mixed together that fortune cannot play on him the way someone would play on a pipe (such as a flute or recorder), making one sound in misfortune and another in joy. Hamlet honors and befriends a man who is not the slave of passion.
E. Hamlet is so eager to revenge his father's murder that he rages out of control at Claudius when spied upon with Ophelia. Critics and directors disagree about this scene: does Hamlet realize the setup from the beginning? never? at line 112--"Are you honest?" or at line 141--"Where's your father?" I think he realizes the setup when he asks where her father is.
Remember that Ophelia has spurned him for no apparent reason, yet here Hamlet admits he loved her and then denies it. Seeing everything as sullied, he warns her against all men, himself included:
Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better by mother had not borne me. I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father?
To me, Hamlet is solicitous of Ophelia here, urging her to leave a sullied world in which she can only be a victim. Yet when he suspects her father is spying, he is stung again by her treachery. He turns bitter, seeing her as a deceiver rather than as a victim. And though he puts on a mask of madness ("It hath made me mad," line 159), he cannot stop himself from an out-of-control threat that only a spying Claudius would get: "I say we will have no more marriage. Those that are married already, all but one, shall live. The rest shall keep as they are" (3.1.159-61). (See Staging1 for excerpts from several productions.)
F. The "Mousetrap"--some questions to consider:
1. "The play's the thing wherein to catch the conscience of the king!" because the Murder of Gonzago re-enacts a murder very similar to the Ghost's story about Claudius killing him. King Hamlet was murdered by his brother who then married his wife, but the play shows the ruler being murdered by his nephew who then marries the widow. Notice that the parallels are somewhat like the Ghost's story but also anticipate what Hamlet intends (killing his uncle Claudius) and, according to Freudians, what he subconsciously wishes (marrying his mother). (For a Freudian slip that emphasizes this parallel, see the 1969 version with Nicoll Williamson below.)
2. One problem comes from the dumb show (which summarizes the action in pantomime) preceding the conversation between the sick ruler and his wife. Why does Claudius not respond to the story in the dumb show? Notice how this problem is handled in the three excerpts available below.
3. Although the main purpose of the play is supposed to be the discovery of Claudius' guilt, the main purpose of the scene between the Player King and Queen seems to be to insult Queen Gertrude regarding her speedy remarriage. Are these the additional lines that Hamlet asked the Player to include?
4. Does King Claudius reveal his guilt? If so, who realizes this? Only Hamlet? Does Horatio see it too? Would the Court, having heard Horatio's story after the play ends, accept his reaction as proof of his guilt (or would they think he was stopping the insult to himself and the Queen, or stopping the world from seeing the extent of Hamlet's craziness)?
Consider the decisions the director has made in the excerpts from three different productions:
the 1969 film with Nicoll Williamson as Hamlet (Click below to see an excerpt.)
the 1980 TV version with Derek Jacobi
and the 1991 film version with Mel Gibson
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Part Three
Last updated: 12 May 1998 by Jonathan Edwards
copyright 1997 Helen J. Schwartz
