HAMLET by William Shakespeare

My thesis will analyse the causes and consequences of Hamlet’s lack of subjectivity in relation to the time the play was written. ‘’Hamlet’’ by William Shakespeare is a tragedy considered a literature universal classic. It was written in 1660 and it tells the story of a man in a conflict presented without solution which is at the same time a reflection of its time, which was a transition between the Elizabethan era, The Renaissance, when the drama was used as a medium of philosophical reflection; and The Early Modern Period, when it was born a modern sense of selfhood.

@meyonbook

This conflict is caused by the appearance of Hamlet’s father, the old king, as a ghost asking him revenge because he was murdered by the new king. But whatever Hamlet will do, it will be wrong; he must decide a position, to be the dutiful son or to kill Claudius, the new head of the State. This interior conflict between obeying his father order of revenge or obeying the new king has no good ending because any decision has bad consequences. In this sense we can understand Hamlet tentative for a new definition of identity.  The best reflection of this is the most known soliloquy of Hamlet: ‘’To be, or not to be – that is the question. Whether this 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?’’. (III, ii, 59-61, p.239-240)

While he decides what position he will take, he decides to act as if he was mad, during all the play this will be the only decision he will take on his own. By playing this socially marginal role, he will be protecting his subjectivity. In addition, at that time being mad was threatening. Moreover, there is a threat because the rebellion against the new father is at the same time the revolt against the king and the government of the time, thus the body politic imposed by the Providentialism which was a hierarchical organization of the society in which the king was chosen by God, he was the source of power, authority, order and justice. So, in this society, identity was defined externally, by his position and not internally. For this reason, Hamlet’s research for subjectivity is unreachable because it was too early, that notion didn’t exist when it was written, yet.

Going back to the main topic, a historically premature search for ‘interiority’ Hamlet describe himself: ‘’I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?’’ (III, ii, 327 (pp. 267-8)), through this metaphor, he wants to show he is full of music as a flute, but he can’t make it sound. As Barker says: “At the centre of Hamlet, in the interior of his mystery, there is ... nothing”. (Barker, 163-4). He speaks too much, but he is empty as a flute. He can’t talk about subjectivity, it is too early, this is a modern notion of identity that will not appear until after the Restoration. Neither in the end and in the whole play, he never finds his idea of subjectivity. Finally, he stops acting mad, returns to the body politic and decides to obey the new king. So, he loses his subjectivity, although it was an empty subjectivity, and even though he kills Claudius, he doesn’t own this action, he is obeying his father order of revenge. And when he dies, it dies with him and this ‘’subjectivity’’ is replaced by a new one of Fortimbras ‘’But I do prophesy th’election lights/On Fortimbras. He has my dying voice. […] – the rest is silence’’ (V, ii, 309-311, p.352).

In conclusion, due to the appearance of the ghost Hamlet starts questioning this new idea of subjectivity and that brings him to a tragic end and an unfulfilled research as Coddon says and with whom I agree “[Hamlet]’s death [is] the extinction of a problematic subjectivity” (Coddon 1994: 391-99). To this extent, Hamlet’s interiority remains unfulfilled and he is replaced by the soldier-prince Fortimbras; considering that as been said before, maybe it was too early to talk about subjectivity.

Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Edited by G. R. Hibbard, Oxford world’s classics, 1987.

Barker, Francis. Inside New Historicicism and Renaissance Drama. Longman, 1992