Hamlet: Appearance vs Reality

Appearance and Reality

• The play encourages the audience to question what they see and hear. Appearances can be deceptive.
• The opening line, "Who's there?" establishes this theme.
• The atmosphere is set in the opening scene: "There is something rotten in the state of Denmark".
• 'Seeming' appears 16 times throughout the play.
• The Ghost is the mechanism for the plot, but its true nature questioned by Hamlet: "a spirit of health or goblin damned."
• The duel is an act of murder disguised as a contest.

Imagery/Symbols Associated with Appearance vs Reality

• Painting: Ophelia's make-up hides her true self.
• Cloaking: Polonius hides behind curtains.
• Acting: Shown through the Mousetrap, characters acting, and spying.

Key Quotations on Appearance vs Reality

• "Though yet of Hamlet, our dear brother's death/ The memory be green, and that it us befitted/ To bear our hearts in grief" (I.ii.1-3)
• "Seems, madam? Nay, it is, I know not ‘seems" (I.ii.76)
• "To thine own self be true,/... thou canst not then be false to any man." (I.iii.78-80)
• "The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen." (I.v.46)
• "That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain" (I.v.108)
• "To put an antic disposition on..." (I.v.172)
• "You were sent for – and there is a kind of confession in your [R&G] looks which your modesties have not craft enough to colour" (II.ii.264-266)
• "I have heard of your paintings too, well enough. God hath given you one face and you make yourselves another" (III.i.137-8)
• "And after we will both our judgments join/ In censure of his seeming." (III.ii.76-7)
• "The harlot's cheek, beautified with plastering art, / Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it/ Than is my deed to my most painted word" (III.iii.51-3)
• "This sudden sending him [Hamlet] away must seem/ Deliberate pause." (IV.iii.8-9)
• "A double varnish" (IV.vii.131)

Critical Interpretations

• Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince (1513): a good ruler's ends justify the means; "Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are."
• Maynard Mack (1952): Hamlet is about "the problematic nature of reality and the relation of reality to appearance."
• M.C. Bradbrook (1952): "Madness is a protective ruse...Through this mask Hamlet penetrates the disguises of Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and Claudius."
• Richard D. Altick (1954): Claudius's "cunning and lecherousness... has corrupted the whole kingdom of Denmark."
• Terry Eagleton (1986): Hamlet "riddles and bamboozles his way out of being definitively known" and there’s "no true face behind him."
• Graham Holderness (1989): "Hamlet himself seems to be stranded between two worlds."
• Gregory Doran (2009): The ghost doesn't appear on CCTV in the RSC film version
• Robert Icke's Almeida theatre (2017): CCTV camera footage is used to track the Ghost for the audience.
• Gabriel Josipovici (2016): asks if we see an actor or a character on stage. None of these questions is fully answered by the play's end. Josipovici also asks: "Who is the ghost whose appearance sets the whole action going, Hamlet's father come back from the dead or a malignant spirit come to trick him into perdition?"

Revenge

• Revenge leads Hamlet to seek revenge, (Act 1, Scene 5). Also the Mousetrap scene (Act 3 scene 2). Hamlet kills Polonius (Act 3 Scene 4). Laertes plots revenge (Act 4 Scene 7). Hamlet kills Claudius (Act 5 Scene 2).
• Hamlet is torn between his duty to avenge his father and procrastination
• Destructive Consequences of revenge are demonstrated as Polonius, Ophelia, Gertrude, Laertes, Claudius, and Hamlet die. Cycle of violence leads to chaos in Denmark.
• Laertes serves as a foil, impulsive/decisive, contrasting Hamlet's delay.

Imagery/Symbols:

• Corruption- rot and decay in Denmark.
• The ghost symbolises unresolved issues from the past: "a spirit of health or goblin damned" reflects uncertainty of revenge.

Key Quotations on Revenge

• "Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder" (Act 1 Scene 5)
• "The time is out of joint. O cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right!" (Act 1 Scene 5)
• "O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!" (Act 2 scene 2)
• "The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king." (Act 2 Scene 2)
• "Now might I do it pat, now he is praying; and now I'll do't" (Act 3 Scene 3)
• "How all occasions do inform against me, and spur my dull revenge!" (Act 4 Scene 4)
• "But know, thou noble youth, the serpent that did sting thy father's life now wears his crown" (Act 1 Scene 5)
• "Let come what comes; only I'll be revenged most thoroughly for my father." (Act 4 Scene 7)
• "Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane, drink off this potion" (Act 5 Scene 2)
• "Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe, Osric; I am justly killed with my own treachery." (Act 5 Scene 2)

Critical Interpretations

• Francis Bacon (1625): Revenge is condemned as "a kind of wild justice."
• Samuel Johnson (1765): "Hamlet is, through the whole play, an instrument rather than an agent."
• Bertholt Brecht (1931): Hamlet is set at a "fracture point" of society, between an older medieval feudal world and a protestant one which rules out revenge."
• H.D.F Kitto (1956): “Claudius, Gertrude and Polonius...(are each)..and embodiment of the general evil.."
• L.C. Knights (1960): “Hamlet...is fascinated by what he condemns"
• Patrick Crutwell (1963): The original Hamlet (Ur-Hamlet) there is no doubt, was almost nothing but an embodiment of Revenge."
• Catherine Belsey (1985): "Revenge exists on a margin between justice and crime."
• Hamlet Production by Franco Ziffereli (1990): Hamlet is not contemplative. Gibson is active, almost stabbing Rosencrantz and demonstrating prowess with swords.
• Andrew Gurrr and Mariko Ichikawa (2000): Audiences might see Fortinbras as the vengeful Ghost.
• Ann Thompson and Neil Taylore (2002): Hamlet is as concerned with taking his own life as killing Claudius. Being a revenger is courting death.
• Hamlet by Gregory Doran (2009): Gertrude seems to realize Claudius' intent and defies him.
• Emma Smith (2015): “Re-venge, like re-membering, takes on the quality of repetition.

Different Interpretations Through the Ages

• 1590s: Ancient Roman code valued family honor, making revenge a son's duty.
• 17th Century: Revenge was condemned by Francis Bacon and the Christian church.
• 1817: William Hazlitt: Hamlet declines revenge if it cannot be perfect.
• 1931: Bertholt Brecht: Hamlet is at a fracture point between medieval and Protestant views on revenge.
• Laurence Olivier (1948): Film begins with "This is the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind."
• Catherine Belsey (1985): Revenge exists on a margin between justice and crime.
• Catherine Belsey (1985): Revenge involves contradiction as it is an act outside the law.
• Richmond (1988): Hamlet envies Fortinbras' ability to act.
• Ann Thompson & Neil Taylor (2000): Hamlet is as concerned with his own death as with killing Claudius.
• Emma Smith (2015): Revenge is repetitive, echoing past images and moments.

Madness

• It is uncertain if Hamlet is actually mad; he may use the appearance of madness. His madness appears only around Polonius, Claudius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern.
• Ophelia's madness after her father's death drives her to suicide. Opheilia sings inappropriately to the court. Feminist oppose this as a form of strength.
• In Shakespeare's time, mad people were thought to be possessed.

Imagery/Symbols:

• Disease: ecstasy, madness, sore distraction
• Nature/chaos: wind, sea

Key Quotations on Madness

• "Put an antic disposition on" (1.1.172)
• "There is method in't" - Polonius about Hamlet's madness (2.2.200-1)
• "Crafty madness" (3.1.8) - Guildenstern reflects that Hamlet seems mad when they try to find the reason for his melancholy.
• Ophelia thinks Hamlet is "Blasted with ecstasy [madness]" and pities his "o'erthrown" "noble mind" (3.1).
• "My wit's diseased" - Hamlet about himself to Rosencrantz (3.2.291)
• "I essentially am not in madness/ But mad in craft" (3.4.183)
• "Mad as the sea and wind" (4.1.8)
• "Her speech is nothing" (4.5)- comment on mad Ophelia's speech being chaotic.
• "Fit of madness" - Hamlet admits his madness forced him to kill Polonius to Laertes in the graveyard (5.1.204)
• "I am punished/ With a sore distraction" - (5.2.201-2) - Hamlet tells it seriously, in verse.

Critical Interpretations of Madness

• Jeremy Collier (1698): Ophelia's misbehaviour is a misrepresentation violence to their native modesty, and a misrepresentation of their sex.
• George Stubbes (1736): Ophelia's madness is shocking.
• William Hazlitt (1817): Hamlet is full of weakness and melancholy.
• Bradley (1904): Hamlet's melancholy is because of his mother's nature.
• T.S. Eliot (1919): Hamlet's madness is less than madness and more than feigned.
• Maynard Mack (1952): Hamlet's world is a world of riddles.
• Harry Levin (1959): Hamlet's shifts between prose and poetry isolate him.
• David Leverentz (1978): Ophelia's madness has many voices. None are her own.
• Elaine Showalter (1985): The mad woman is a heroine who opposes gender stereotypes.
• Kenneth Branagh's (1996): Hamlet version displays a sane Hamlet and an Ophelia in a straitjacket.

Gender and Madness

• Madness is used to contrast Hamlet and Ophelia.
• Hamlet is to evade scrutiny and pursue revenge.
• Hamlet - intellectual and moral struggles = masculine
• Ophelia's madness is passive, caused by emotional fragility resulting for pressure from men in her life. Madness through songs and gestures suggests female madness = innocence and vulnerability.

Patriarchal Control and Male Authority

• Claudius/Polonius exercise authority for power. They shape social/familial structures and use Ophelia to get information on Hamlet.
• Makeup/painting face: Women are perceived deceitful
• Hamlet "God hath Givenchy you one face, and you make yourself another".

Imagery/Symbols:

• Flowers and Ophelia's Madness- Symbolize Ophelia's innocence and the distribution of symbolic flowers.
• "Nunnery"- conflicting views of femininity and purity

Key Quotations:

• "Frailty, thy name is woman!" (Act I, Scene 2) Line 146
• "I shall obey, my lord." (Act I, Scene 3) Line 136
• "Do not ... show me the steep and thorny way to heaven / Whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine, / Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads." (Act I, Scene 3) Line 47-49
• "O most pernicious woman!" (Act I, Scene 5) Line105
• "Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words" (Act II, Scene 2) Line 584
• "God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another." (Act III, Scene 1) Line 144
• "Get thee to a nunnery," (Act III, Scene 1) Line 130
• "I will speak daggers to her, but use none." (Act III, Scene 2) Line 396
• 'The lady doth protest too much, methinks.' (Act III, Scene 2) Line 230
• "She is so conjunctive to my life and soul, / That, as the star moves not but in his sphere, / I could not but by her.' (Act IV, Scene 7) Line 14-16

Critical Interpretations

• Traditional Gender Views and Patriarchal Society (18th-19th Century) Saw Ophelia were often seen as secondary and innocent, and Gertrude as a woman with compromised remarriage.
• Romanticism and the Idealization of Ophelia (19th Century) Romantic critics idealised Ophelia as a symbol of purity, innocence, and tragic femininity and of the "fallen woman" trope.
• Freudian Interpretations and the Oedipal Complex (Early 20th Century) Introduced the Oedipal complex, with Hamlet's hostility toward Gertrude's remarriage.
• Gender in Political and Historical Context (Late 20th Century) Productions staged with emphasis toward female characters and with broader political oppression.
• Postmodern and Intersectional Feminist Readings (21st Century) Modernfeminist critiques examined power, class, and mental health in Hamlet, exploring Ophelia's madness and Gertrude's.

Corruption

• Hamlet hates Claudius' "incestuous" marriage/mother = sexual corruption.
• Hamlet and Ophelia sexual corruption, her purity corrupted by Hamlet.
• Moral corruption in Polonius and Claudius (spying/betrayal).
• Decay represents corruption with rotten Denmark
• Poison shows corruption/underhanded tactics

Imagery/Symbols:

• Corruption: Body Politics/Claudius corrupt centre, weeds/overgrown gardens show corruption from Old Hamlet's murder
• Ears/hearing: Old Hamlet was betrayed/murder

Key Quotations:

• ""She married. O, most wicked speed, to post/ With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!"Act 1 Scene 2 lines (156-157)
• "That rots itself in ease on Lethe wharf/ Wouldst thou not stir in this." Act 1 Scene 5 lines (33-34)
• "Tis an unweeded garden/ That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature" Act 1 Scene 5 lines (135-156)
• "Thou mixture rank/ of midnight weeds collected, With Hecate's ban thrice blasted/ thrice infected, Thy natural magic and dire property/ On wholesome life usurp immediately." Act 3 Scene 2 lines (233-236)
• "In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed," Act 3 Scene 4 "Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love/ Over the nasty sty!" Act 3 Scene 4 lines (93-94)
• "And for that purpose I'll anoint my sword" Act 4 Scene 7 line (139)
• "There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds/ Clamb'ring to hang, an envious sliver broke/ When down her weedy trophies and herself/ Fell in the weeping brook" Act 4 Scene 7 lines (172-175)
• "No, no! the drink, the drink! O my dear Hamlet!/ The drink, the drink! I am poison'd." Act 5 Scene 2 lines (289-290)
• "Here, thou incestuous, murd'rous, damned Dane/ Drink off this potion! Is thy union here?/ Follow my mother. King dies." Act 5 Scene 2 lines (304-306)

Critical Interpretations

• Caroline Spurgeon (1935): Sickness, disease, blemishes of the body = unwholesome condition of Denmark morally.
• G. Wilson Knight (1949): Hamlet is inhuman/poison/evil.
• Richard D Altick (1954): Claudius' evil has corrupted Denmark.
• David Leverenz (1978): Gertrude's diseased doubleness in everyone accommodates social role
• Rebecca Smith (1980): Gertrude is sensual+deceitful.
• Arnold Kettle(1988): Polonius simply as a clown, a machiavel, a fishmonger
• Kiernan Ryan (2015): Killing Claudius purchase complicity, clone, righteous crime.

Religion, philosophy, free will/fate

• Ophelia's fate suicide? Gravediggers discuss Christian burial.
• Elizabethan England officially Protestant citizens adhered to Catholicism.
• Ghost of old king Hamlet- Purgatory.
• Hamlet's existenial soliloquies- to be or not to be
• Blaming Polonius' death- heaven hath pleased it so.

Symbolic Imagery

• Ghost- religion
• religious= fate/existence
• Yorrick's skull- mortality
• play=Hamlet controls fate

Key Quotations:

• 'All that lives must die,/ Passing through nature to eternity' (1,2,72) G
• 'The Everlasting had not fixed/ His canon 'gainst self-slaughter' (1,2,131/132) Η
• 'Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night' (1,5,10) OH
• 'Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature/Are burnt and purg'd away' (1,5,12) ОН
• 'O cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right!' (1,5,189) Η
• 'To be or not to be' (3,1,56) Η
• 'Our wills and fates do so contrary run... Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own' (3,2,193) PK
• 'O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven' (3,3,36) C
• 'I do repent, but heaven hath pleased it so' (3,4,174) Η
• 'Is she to be buried in Christian burial when she wilfully seeks her own salvation?' (5,1,1) GD
• 'There's a divinity that shapes our ends,/ Rough-hew them how we will' (5,2,110) Η
• 'We defy augury: there's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow' (5,2,121) Η

Critical Interpretations

• George Stubbes (1736): Desire harm is not justify
• August Von Schlegal (1808): Fate not equal
• G.H. Lewes (1855): Most philosophies
• Bertholt Brecht (1931): Fracture Society
• Ernest Jones (1949): Hate does not want to carry
• G. Wilson Knight (1949): "elusive
• L.C. Knights (1960): How can I live
• John Holloway (1961): See Chance
• Jan Kott (1965): Represents absurdity decided
• Jay L.Halio (1966): Christ revenge God
• Margot Heinemann (1985): Has choice
• Alan Sinfield (1992): Characters represents succumb with will.

Family

• Hamlet strains the bond especially cause Claudius, uncle marries
• Claudius Kills and marries corrupted
• Laeretes and Ophelia strong bond some suggestive tensions in play
• Polonius with his child- political gain priorites

Corruption

• Royal family imagery decay unweeded of nature.
• Disease moral to Denmark

Key Quotations:

• O, Speed cheat with sheet -Act 2
• The serpent Crowns - Act 2
• Seems Madams - Act 2
• father unhercules - 1
• "Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister"-
• Something is rotten

Critical Interpretations :

• John Holloway (1961): Domestic Not political
• Ernest Jones (1949): Steal mother by sight (Claudius)
• Fredu (1889): Man claims power

Acting and Theatre

• On Hamlet first he says he denying it ,
• the Act is is filled with scenes
• He will see the Audience
• Shakespeare acting obsessing .
• Exchanges wit Rosencrantz.

Key Quotations:

• "lines 84-85They Are act "
• 5-93 (Lines) you thy ghost?
• Act is 2 scene eyes of ears. (Is 51).
• And 55.
• Lenten entrainment.

Critical Interpretations

• Samuel Johnson (1765) : Feigned Madness no adeuqaute cause
• With Shelegl the view tragic with chaotic.
• Play it is so sufferings altered.
• is no with Shakespreare.

The Self: Identity & Introspection

• Hamlet struggles due to his classification madness, a prince, a murders. Through interactions in raw. The audience watches critical attempt to act father in the end he becomes a murderer
• Deaths fifth act conveying inside pretend , lament. when confronts admits truly. the he benefiting
• Breakdown drives is The a to guilt.

Imagery/Symbols:

• death The is to his has a he is and between .

Key Quotations

• Who's there
• To be or not to be the Question
• This I, Dane

Critical Interpretations

• MacKenzie shows
• Von strength canno bear.
• Barker (1987) outer Selves.

Actions and Procrastination:

• contemplation/moral & political asks kill/mother throne
• out revenge of question/morality
• therefore revenge is the the conscience and for actions if rights.

Symbolics:

• ghost;duty
• Denmark; internal
• "the players the thing/with unconcertinety

Quotes:

• "The time joint"
• "The sea would dew"
• "Rogue peasent".

Interpertations different of plays:

• Smollett: absurd his 1719
• Wilham hazlitt: by 1818 thought of action
• L.C Knights: doesn't take for self
• Ernist jones 1949 =doesn't task
• • Rex=tragety
• =souly = con

Death, Grief and Mortality

• Overcome with grief
• Time and death of father & his his anger ignite the the with
• Driven as a the.
• Hamlet for answer and.
• Ophelia death/grief with sister grief from leads rage
• The & grief that his her drive to his revenge
• the After skull
• Human and body
• 1 .2-24100 etc
• 2.5-166

Critic and Production Interpretations

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