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Replies | Post Reply | Shakespeare Queries From Genuinely Interested Students 3.15.97: Top | Help
Hamlet is seeking authenticity: he is willing to kill Claudius, but he wants the act to be his--not merely filial obedience to a patriarchal command, or the dutiful compliance of an acolyte who has received a supernatural injunction. Hamlet is like an actor who refuses to take a line-reading from his director--the reading may be accurate but it isn't his; he didn't discover it for himself; to mimic it would be false, inauthentic and cowardly. Why else does Hamlet stage the play scene if not to find out for himself whether his father was really murdered by his uncle? The Ghost has told him the story, but Hamlet cannot take anything on faith: he has to see for himself, has to recreate before his own eyes the moment of the poisoning. Even when confirmation is given, Hamlet resists the reflexive action of "sweeping to his revenge", if only because that is what anyone else would do, and Hamlet refuses to be anyone else--he must be himself, whoever that is. Perhaps Hamlet spends the entire play trying to fashion an authentic self that can do the deed honestly, truly and personally--not just because his father told him to, or because that is what a proper son should do. Frankly, that is probably how I would feel in his position. Do you do everything that your parents tell you to do, or that is expected of you? Or do you say: "I need to be my own person and find my own way. My way may be wrong, but at least it will be mine"?Posted by Charles Weinstein on April 01, 1997 at 08:20:45
In Reply to "Why did Hamlet hesitate?" posted by Anthony on March 25, 1997 at 19:45:08
Replies | Post Reply | Shakespeare Queries From Genuinely Interested Students 3.15.97: Top | Help