It has always mystified me why for so many years Prince Hamlet was the schoolmaster's cliche for a vacillating weakling, the very embodiment of indecisiveness and inscrutability when Shakespeare presents the case for a much simpler interpretation: Hamlet, an intelligent and sensitive young man, shocked by the death of his beloved father falls into emotional turmoil as he is led to contemplate MURDER! To proceed from such murderous feelings in the mind and present them as deeds before the eyes of the world would be an irreversible, weighty act beyond the power of most people and one that would give even the most resolute person pause. Hamlet's decision to go through with his design results in a chain of events that, tragically, will cost the lives of many people including his own. Perhaps Tony Blair, had he had Shakespeare's insight into the law of unintended consequences, might have learned from the story of Hamlet and avoided the fateful decision to go to war with Bush and the Pentagon that would leave vastly more corpses in the Middle East and around the world as collateral-damage from the metastasizing cancer of terrorism than lie strewn on the stage as the curtain falls to end the play.
As well as that, I think, he's a Renaissance man (university educated, friends from other places, wider interests generally) returned to a a feudal court where revenge, murder and armed invasions are part of the lexicon. To encompass this he would have to change himself; double back on his own progress: the 'dithering' is surely the crisis most of us would face in that situation. It's suddenly struck me that going back to the parents (for Christmas, say), when you've established yourself elsewhere is often difficult enough at the best of times, and without seeing your mother suddenly married to the uncle you hate - and all that follows.
Hamlet's "dithering" is, as some point out, a natural reaction to his predicament, but I wanted to stress the word "murder", which is calling a spade a spade rather than use euphemistic words, beloved of academics, like "revenge" that downplay the enormity of depriving a person of his life. In this context of contemplating taking a life "dithering" might not be the most appropriate term. "Teetering in terror on the edge of the abyss, once struck by the finality of the deed and its life-altering consequences" perhaps describes Hamlet's frame of mind more realistically, reflecting Shakespeare's shrewd assessment of his hero's mental agony.
I find this most interesting how easy it is to down play the enormity of a subject and use words totally out of context; just recently there was an article in the paper about one of the stowaways that fell out of the wheel arch of an international flight, and the journalist wrote it seems they (Snuck away) in one of the wheels, and nothing about the enormity of why they might be risking a zero chance of surviving ? I'm sure they never gave any thoughts on to be or not to be; they just needed to escape the tyranny of living. Back to the Bard himself he was a Genius and the English language owes him a great debt!! Actors: how they interpret the meaning of his lines will always determine on how successful they will become; clever ones do a little plagiarizing of successful Actors before them.
The trouble with Hamlet is that he has no sense of humour, and has lost all sense of perspective. That is also what makes him great, teetering on the edge of suicidal madness, rage and despair. Genius, coward.....or madman - probably all three, just like Shakespeare himself really. Well, come to think of it, I probably wouldn't have much of a sense of humour either, if I were ripped away from my university because my father had just died and my mother had immediately married his brother. Not to mention then being confronted by my father's ghost who tells me his brother murdered him too. Given that, Hamlet does find a gallow's humour later in the play, with the gravedigger; makes puns as a defence against horror generally; and his warm, welcoming reaction to the Players and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern shows his true personality as it was before these somewhat unamusing events. Not genius, coward, or madman, but a man driven by the actions of those around him and the expectations of the feudal court to which he's returned, to a situation almost beyond bearing.
I also have to agree that Shakespeare's worshippers can be doctrinaire and excessive in their praise. They also seem to fetishize the poetry and get hung up on English language exceptionalism, and ignore the universal appeal of the stories and characters. My own favourite Shakespeare film of all time is Kozintsev's Hamlet (Gamlet in Russian) with Innokenty Smoktunovsky in the title role (his To-Be-or-Not-to-Be-voice-over is probably the best solution I've ever seen)--it makes Olivier look like a mincing self-absorbed fool. Every time I mention that, you can cue the usual crap--oh, but it's in Russian! the horror! all the poetry is lost! But for an 11-year-old Portuguese boy, watching that film (in Russian with Portuguese subtitles on TV many eons ago) did more to ignite a love of the theatre and old Shakey himself than anything else could have. Kurosawa's "Throne of Blood" and "Ran" go even further--zero of the original dialogue, significant plot adjustments, but the universal power of the story and characters comes through loud and clear.
NB: All the pictures taken by me from the movie.
The Rest is Silence.
NB: All the pictures taken by me from the movie.
