Gabrielle Cuebas ENG 102 11:45 A.M. – 2:00 P.M. June 8, 2009 Final Exam
Hamlet
Shakespeare’s play Hamlet contains many dynamic characters, Prince
Hamlet being the primary. Hamlet experienced much grief and sorrow from the
chain of events that occurred early in the play. He became especially angry with
his mother, Queen Gertrude, for marrying his father’s brother, Claudius,
immediately after his father, the late king Hamlet’s, death. Not only was Hamlet
distraught by the incestuous nature of their marriage, he was even more furious
when he found out that his uncle Claudius murdered Hamlet’s father to steal his
crown and throne. Two soliloquies in the play have the central theme of death,
either of the suicidal or murderous nature, which demonstrate the emotions of
hatred for the pain the world has brought him and desires for revenge aroused
within Hamlet from the events he experienced.
Hamlet’s first soliloquy in Act I, Scene II, begins on line 129 and ends on
line 159. Here we can see that Hamlet was distressed and possibly
contemplating suicide: “O, that this too too sullied flesh would melt, / Thaw, and
resolve itself into a dew!” (1.2.129-130). He wanted either his troubles to
disappear, or to escape from his troubles. Hamlet was also upset about the fact
that God made suicide a sin, which is expressed in lines 131 and 132: “Or that
the Everlasting had not fix’d / His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter!” Considering that
his father’s murder was soon followed by his mother’s marriage to Claudius, and
that the new king denied Hamlet’s request to return to Wittenberg to further his
studies, one cannot blame Hamlet for feeling this way. Hamlet’s felt that suicide
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Gabrielle Cuebas ENG 102 11:45 A.M. – 2:00 P.M. June 8, 2009 Final Exam
is a better substitute than living in a world that presents him with “weary, stale,
flat, and unprofitable / … uses” (1.2.133-134). Unfortunately, since his Christian
principles forced him to believe that suicide provides for an afterlife of damnation,
and that the land of Denmark is under the new rule of an unjust man, Claudius,
Hamlet cannot find comfort in his religion or his family.
The second soliloquy, which provides further nature of death, is in Act III
Scene III, where Hamlet is spying on Claudius praying in the church. For the
audience, this scene confirms that what the ghost of the late Hamlet told his son
early in the play is true - that Claudius murdered his brother by poison to steal his
wife and throne. Shakespeare creates the image of Claudius standing alone in
the church, where he confesses, to the heavens, his foul deed: “O, my offense is
rank, it smells to heaven; / It hath the primal eldest curse upon ‘t, / A brother’s
murder” (3.3.36-38). After this confession, Claudius kneels, and Hamlet arrives
unseen, giving him perfect opportunity to avenge his father’s death, by killing the
king. Yet once again, religion interferes with Hamlet’s plans for revenge because
he believes that if he murders his enemy amid prayer, that Claudius’s soul will go
straight to heaven. Since Hamlet feels that the murder left his father’s soul
unable to rest, he wants Claudius to experience the same. Lines 89 to 92 tell us
that Hamlet decides to wait for the king to be in the middle of a most sinful act to
cast his revenge: “When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage, / Or in th’ incestuous
pleasure of his bed / … That has no relish of salvation in ‘t.” Hamlet will be
satisfied with his revenge as long as the soul of the king is damned.
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Gabrielle Cuebas ENG 102 11:45 A.M. – 2:00 P.M. June 8, 2009 Final Exam
These two soliloquies provide Hamlet with many conflicting emotions
about death. Life does not seem to be worth living in such a bitter world, yet
suicide cannot provide solace for this because Hamlet’s soul would remain in
purgatory, which leaves Hamlet confused of how to go about his life. He gave up
his opportunity to kill Claudius in the church because he felt that killing him in
prayer would be “hire and salary, not revenge”, so he decided to wait (3.3.79).
But who is to say that Hamlet will ever get another opportunity to avenge his
father’s death? It does not seem that Hamlet will ever be satisfied with any
aspect of life, because all he can think about is ending it, whether it be his own or
someone else’s. As much as he would like to escape from the anguish, he stays
alive to contemplate taking revenge, which seems to leave him in a state of
indecision and uncertainty. While death is the theme of much of Shakespeare’s
play, suicide or murder do not provide solutions to Hamlet’s dilemma within
himself.
Work Cited
Gardner, Janet E. et al, 1st edition. Literature: A Portable Anthology.
Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2004.
Word Count 763
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