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My edition has a gloss that "conscience" can also be read as "consciousness" in the soliloquy containing the line "Thus conscience does make cowards of us all." Hamlet has a heightened awareness of the situation in the kingdom as a result of his communication (we might also read as "communion") with his father's spirit. The rotten fault is one that transcends family matters to include the corruption of the whole political system. His father is a spirit from hell who intimates to Hamlet that the poison in the system "would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood...," etc. Upon Hamlet's shoulders rests the weight of this new consciousness, or this raising of his awareness by several degrees. The way I see it is that he has, in his state of creative meloncholia (see the Durer print), been allowed such a glimpse into the nature of reality and human experience that this young Wittenberg scholar is cast into a state bordering closely on madness. His immediate response is to return to his "former reality" with the father spirit still working through him, full of resolve. But soon the aftershocks begin to hit him in waves of self-doubt and the consequent violently conflicting emotions. This seems to be the natural result of such a profound revelation as he's been granted. And while he institutes his plan that includes feigned madness, it soon spins out of control because his emotions come into conflict with his reason. I think the source of his conflict is his desire to be a good son and avenge his father, but his new consciousness, read either "awareness" or "conscience," that forbids him this desire. So he is in a state of temporary paralysis until he awakens from his fever, as he says in Act V to Horatio, to "a kind of fighting/That would not let me sleep" in time to initiate actions that will allow him to return to his homeland and to face his fate. No, I don't think he's a coward anymore than anyone is who lives among barbarians and finds himself unable to act as they.Posted by Mel on April 11, 1997 at 06:29:17
In Reply to "Was Hamlet a compassionate human or a sniveling coward? What do you think?" posted by Michelle on April 10, 1997 at 02:04:31
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