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D. Smith (Student Number 1234567)
English 111-C5
Ms. Susan McNeill
November 10, 2006
Comment [S1]: 1” margins
top, bottom, left, and right.
Student and course information in
the upper left corner
The Making of the Tragic Hero: The Graveyard Scene in Hamlet
In William Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Act Five, Scene One,
commonly known as the graveyard scene, marks Hamlet’s reappearance after his interrupted
voyage to England. The Hamlet we see in this scene is very different from the cruel, cynical
prince of Acts III and IV. Most critics attribute this difference to a philosophical change in
Comment [S2]: Remember to
avoid using the first person
plural.. Rephrase as: The Hamlet
seen in this scene is different…
(omit the very)
Hamlet’s attitude towards death. In focusing on the thematic significance of this scene, however,
they neglect its dramatic function: to engage the audience’s sympathy for Hamlet before his
death. Without a change in character, Hamlet would not achieve the stature of a tragic hero,
Comment [S3]: Thesis:
subject
because his death would not arouse he pity, fear, awe, and sense of waste common to
Shakespearean tragedy. The graveyard scene engages our sympathy for Hamlet in three ways: by
using the episode with the gravediggers as a means to shift the audience’s perspective from the
court to a humanized Hamlet; by clarifying Hamlet’s relationship with Ophelia; and by
symbolically foreshadowing the outcome of the duel between Hamlet and Laertes.
Most interpretations of the play fail to consider the dramatic function of the graveyard
scene; instead they focus on its philosophical significance. These interpretations fall into three
main groups: those that see Hamlet coming to a Christian acceptance of death; those that see his
attitude as fatalistic resignation; and those that argue that the scene is a mixture of both these
Comment [S4]: Thesis:
approach
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attitudes (Philias 226). Maynard Mack and Walter King are representatives of those who favour
Comment [S5]: Signal phrase
a Christian interpretation. According to Mack, Hamlet by the last act of the play has “learned,
and accepted, the boundaries in which human action, human judgment are enclosed” (521) and
therefore no longer assumes he must single-handedly set the world to rights. Similarly, King
Comment [S6]: Signal phrase
argues that the graveyard scene presents “affirmation of life and love as a viable center of values
in a God-created and God-centered universe,” but within the contest of a world in which these
values “are perennially in danger of being snuffed out” (146).
The view that Hamlet’s attitude is totally, or at least partially, fatalistic is propounded by
G. Wilson Knight, Richard Levine, and Peter Philias. Knight sees our sympathies as being
divided between the members of the course, who for all their imperfections “assert the
importance of human life,” and Hamlet, whose philosophy is “inevitable, blameless, and
irrefutable,” but whose very existence asserts “the negation of life” (60-1). Far from admitting
that there is a shift in our sympathies during the graveyard scene, he asserts that “Laertes and
Comment [S7]: Reword as:
the reader’s sympathy
Hamlet struggling at Ophelia’s grave are like symbols of life and death contending for the prize
of love” (64). Unlike Knight, Levine sees a change in Hamlet but argues that the change is
negative. In his view, Hamlet’s “tragic flaw, his vacillating and faulty world view,” is resolved
by the prince’s rejection of traditionally religious belief in favour of “an attenuated stoicism”
(539, 543). Peter Philias, while less negative in his assessment of Hamlet, reaches much the same
conclusion. Focusing on the episode with the gravediggers, as most of the other critics do, he
concludes that “the Christian framework of the play is profoundly qualified, though not replaced,
by a strong fatalistic point of view” (226).
While these interpretations give us some insight into the philosophical issues raised by
the play, they do not adequately account for the presence of the gravediggers, Hamlet’s farewell
Comment [S8]: Reword as:
offer insight
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to Ophelia, or the struggle in the grave. Even a critic who calls it “one of the most important
scenes” because it “bring[s] into dramatic focus parts of the lay which are seemingly disparate”
(Bennett 160) fails to account adequately for these elements. The most useful interpretation of
Comment [S9]: Citation
where the author’s name is not
given in a signal phrase.
the scene’s dramatic function is that of B.D. Cheadle. Cheadle asks Coleridge’s question “What
reason does it contain within itself for being as it is and no other?” (89) as a guide to
understanding Hamlet’s confrontation with Laertes at Ophelia’s grave. Asking this question for
the scene as a whole will enable us to see that these elements are explained by their role in
Comment [S10]: Reword as:
enable a reader (or critic) to see
bestowing upon Hamlet the qualities of dignity, courage, and deep feeling that make his death a
waste of potential greatness.
The graveyard scene opens not with Hamlet’s entrance but with the conversation between
the gravediggers. This opening allows for a gradual shift in sympathy from the court to Hamlet
and humanizes the prince by making death a personal rather than a metaphysical concern. The
shift in perspective has to be gradual because we have seen little to admire in Hamlet since the
early scenes of the play. In the scenes preceding his exile, as Knight points out, Hamlet “is cruel
to Ophelia and his mother”; “exults in tormenting the King by the murder of Gonzago” and
“takes a demoniac pleasure in the thought of preserving his life for a more damning death”;
“murders Polonius in error” and then makes disgusting, callous comments to Claudius about the
body (55-6). Furthermore, the three scenes from which Hamlet is absent focus on Laertes’ grief
and anger over his father’s death and on Ophelia’s madness and suicide. If we are to mourn the
death of a man who has caused such suffering, we need to see him in a more favourable light.
Comment [S11]: Reword as:
If Shakespeare intends for readers
to mourn the death of a man who
has caused such suffering, he
must be seen in a more favourable
light.
The gravediggers serve as a means of detaching our sympathies from the court and
Comment [S12]: Approach #1
transferring them to Hamlet. The dramatic goings-on and highly charged language of the court
scenes seem excessive when contrasted with the matter-of-fact way in which the gravediggers go
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about their work. Emotional indulgence, like Christian burial for a suicide, seems a privilege
accorded only to those of high social position (MacDonald 312). When Hamlet enters, however,
his first comment is a criticism of the first gravediggers’ singing at his work. His next is an
Comment [S13]: Paraphrase.
This is awkward, though, because
the reader doesn’t know what part
of this sentence is paraphrased. In
general, try to avoid paraphrasing.
assertion of the finer feelings of those with higher status: “The hand of little employment hath
the daintier sense” (V.i.66). This exchange encourages us to forget Hamlet’s earlier callousness
and cynicism and to see him as a person of fine sensibility. These few lines initiate what Michael
Cohen sees as “two competing subtexts in the scene, one that argues that death is the ultimate
leveller of all class distinctions, another that argues, with almost equal persuasiveness, that class
distinctions continue even after death” (78).
But the graveyard scene does not merely shift the point of view from the court to Hamlet.
Comment [S14]: Good
paragraph transition.
It also humanizes Hamlet by making death a personal rather than a metaphysical concern. The
gravediggers’ debate over Ophelia’s burial, as Philias points out, shifts attention away from the
religious questions of salvation and damnation that were so powerful when Hamlet himself was
considering suicide to the social issues of power and status (231). The reduction of death from a
metaphysical to a human concern is further emphasized by the gravedigger’s actions as he tosses
skulls about and sings about the human cycle of love, age, and death.
Even more important in engaging our sympathy for Hamlet, however, is the dramatic
Comment [S15]: Approach #2
tension created by his not knowing that the grave is for Ophelia. Although the discovery of
Yorick’s skull momentarily shows us Hamlet’s deeper feelings and allows us to identify with the
mixture of fond memory, revulsions, and jest in his response to this physical reminder of
mortality, his ignorance of Ophelia’s death allows him to remain witty and self-possessed. As a
result, our image of Hamlet at the end of the episode is that of a person who is neither morbidly
preoccupied with death (as he was at the beginning of the play) nor overly sentimental about it
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(as Laertes appears in the next part of the scene). Instead he as accepted its reality. The episode
with the gravediggers thus prepares us to see the burial of Ophelia from Hamlet’s point of view.
The second half of the scene increases our sympathy for Hamlet by revealing the depth of
his feeling for Ophelia and by bringing him face to face with the man we know will be the
instrument of his death. The simplicity of Hamlet’s “I loved Ophelia” (V.i.256) dispels the
Comment [S16]: Approach #2
leading into Approach #3
mystery surrounding their relationship. Although we hear from Ophelia of her suitor’s wild dress
and melancholy behaviour when his attentions are forbidden, we are not sure whether his actions
are motivated by “mock-madness” or, as Knight maintains, by blighted love (53). The only two
times we see Hamlet and Ophelia together—when she is acting as decoy for her father and
Claudius in III.i. and when both attend the play-within-a-play in the following scene—Hamlet
treats her with such contempt and cruelty that we question his regard for her. To establish the
depth of Hamlet’s love, Cheadle suggests, his leap into the grave should be staged so that he says
“this is I” (V.i.244) as “an avowal to the death Ophelia that had she lived and had things been
different, she would have been Queen to the Dane” (87). When a few lines later Hamlet says “I
loved Ophelia,” the past tense marks not only Hamlet’s acceptance of the end of the relationship
but also his acceptance of the death of love, a fact he could not accept in his mother’s remarriage.
The ending of the Ophelia subplot in this manner introduces, in a way sympathetic to Hamlet, the
sense of wasted lives and lost possibilities that will become more pronounced in the final scene.
Interwoven with the burial of Ophelia is the confrontation between Hamlet and Laertes.
Although their behaviour seems strange and inappropriate as an expression of grief for a woman
they both loved, it makes a very powerful dramatic impact when considered as a prelude to, and
symbolic foreshadowing of, their duel and deaths. Hamlet’s dignity is enhanced by his initial
self-control, a deliberate contrast, as Cheadle point out, to Laertes’ “ranting” (89). Furthermore,
Comment [S17]: Re-stating
Approach #2 and why it is
important
Comment [S18]: Approach #3
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Hamlet’s announcing himself as “Hamlet the Dane” is both “an assertion of identity and
purpose” and a direct challenge to Claudius, since only the King has the right to call himself “the
Dane” (86). Claudius’ plot against Hamlet makes Laertes not only Ophelia’s grief-stricken
brother but also the King’s champion. The impact of the final fuel would be much less, however,
if we saw Laertes only as Claudius’ instrument. It is dramatically necessary for Shakespeare to
bring together Hamlet and Laertes, both of whom have avowed to avenge a father’s death, so that
each recognizes the justice in the other’s actions and can “exchange forgiveness,” as the dying
Laertes requests in the final scene. Their struggle in Ophelia’s grave thus foreshadows the death
blows they will deal each other and the sense of wasted nobility we will feel at their deaths.
This sense of waste, and the feelings of pity, fear, and awe that accompany it, would not
be so pronounced at the end of the plays without the graveyard scene to engage our sympathies.
Interpretations of the scene’s philosophical significance tend to overlook the dramatic impact of
Comment [S19]: Conclusion
that begins by explaining why the
thesis (that the graveyard scene
builds our sympathy for Hamlet)
is important for analyzing the
play.
the gravedigger episode, of Hamlet’s farewell to Ophelia, and of the struggle between Hamlet
and Laertes. These critics forget, perhaps, that our response to the play, like Hamlet’s to death, is
personal as well as metaphysical, and equally shaped by the dramatist’s art.
Word Count: 1887
Comment [S20]: Re-stating
main points/approaches taken in
this analysis of the play.
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Works Cited
Bennett, William E. “The Gravedigger’s Scene: A Unifying Thread in Hamlet.” Upstart Crow 5
(Fall 1984): 160-5.
Cheadle, B.D. “Hamlet at the Graveside: A Leap into Hermeneutics.” English Studies in Africa
22.2 (1979): 83-90.
Cohen, Michael. “‘To what base uses may we return’: Class and Mortality in Hamlet (5.1).”
Hamlet Studies 9.1-2 (1987): 78-85.
King, Walter N. Hamlet’s Search for Meaning. Athens, GA: U of Georgia P, 1982.
Knight, G. Wilson. “The Embassy of Death: An Essay on Hamlet.” The Wheel of Fire. 4th ed.
London: Methuen, 1949. 17-46.
Levine, Richard A. “The Tragedy of Hamlet’s World View.” College English 23.7 (1962): 53946.
MacDonald, Michael. “Ophelia’s Maimèd Rites.” Shakespeare Quarterly 37.3 (1962): 539-46.
Mack, Maynard. “The World of Hamlet.” Yale Review 41.1 ( 1952): 502-23.
Philias, Peter E. “Hamlet and the Grave-Maker.” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 3
(1964): 226-34.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Jerome Beaty et al. 8th
ed. New York: Norton, 2002. 1670-1769.
(Note: This essay was published as a sample research paper in Essay Writing for Canadian Students. 5th ed. Eds.
Kay Stewart, Chris Bullock, and Marian Allen. Toronto: Pearson, 2004. 362-6.)
Comment [S21]: Texts are
listed alphabetically by the last
name of the author.