If you have not yet read the previous entries, I am propounding a new theory of Hamlet that makes much more sense than does the traditional view. This is completely based on the actual text. My view is that Claudius is not the fratricidal, regicidal, incest-driven monster that everyone assumes killed his brother, king, future brother-in-law, but rather that Prince Hamlet did the killing.
Yes, that part’s a bit different, isn’t it? Well, today, yet another one of those incredibly dreary and rainy days in Southern California that the weather experts tell us will do nothing to relieve drought conditions, I am going to concentrate on a telling line in the “To Be” speech, Act III, Scene 1.
And why, pray tell, does Lord Hamlet contemplate suicide so memorably? What, exactly, has traumatized him so much that offing himself seems like a plan? Well, the death of his father, I suppose, (the traditionalists would tell us that he has just discovered from a ghost that his dear old dad was actually murdered) has plunged him into the slough of despair.
But quite frankly, this doesn’t make sense on a psychological level. First of all, he can’t settle in his mind when exactly his father did die. Like a strung-out junkie, he babbles different and contradictory time lines, only to be clarified by Ophelia (assuming she has not lost her mind yet) when she reminds him that it is at least FOUR MONTHS!!! since the death, not the two hours he thinks has elapsed (III, 2). This is a rather unseemly delay for such a reaction to set in.
So, why does he make such an egregious error? Ah, you say, because he is pretending to be mad. Nonsense, I say. He IS mad because he is the culprit for whom the crime is always fresh, the unhealed running sore that is immune from respite. Time, for a madman, is an irrelevant issue, the country from whose bourn he cannot escape. Every day is Groundhog Day to a man like Hamlet, who must replay the events continually.
Secondly, Hamlet is far from being a boy—he is a grown, albeit immature, man who seems to have failed to launch, as the Zeitgeisian cant would say. Bright, clever, moderately talented, devious--and totally mad! He is a man capable of creating consistently only dissension and distress to those around him—and one wholly unfit for kingship.
So he is a court jester sans real responsibility. Why would he think of killing himself? Obviously, because he has done something in his insanity that deserves the greatest of punishments; he has committed the greatest of crimes—regicide (killing the king, by the by, is higher on Shakespeare’s crime list that "mere" parricide). Remember, Prince Hamlet himself says he is only mad north-northwest (in the interminable Act II, Scene 2), so he knows that when he killed his father, his sane self watched and could do nothing. His sane self seeks release by suicide; the insane side stops him and urges him onward to new crimes.
Now, back to the “To Be” speech. The telling line is this most over-looked one. He says that death is “the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.” Now, isn’t this a wee bit curious from someone who supposedly, just a very short time before, has been given marching orders from just such a spirit and that this spirit has indeed returned from that undiscovered country!? Is his memory that short?
Not at all. He remembers that he was talking to the “ghost,” but he knows full well that this "ghost" is all too human, an actor portraying a ghost, speaking words that Hamlet himself wrote to help convince himself that it is not he that has killed his father, but rather his uncle.
Prince Hamlet creates an eleborate ruse to murder the guilt (but not the guilty) of the unforgivable crime he has committed. Remember, as Hamlet himself says, nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so (II, 2). Thus, if he can "think" it possible, likely, undeniable that Claudius is the murderer, then it will be so! Wonderful mad logic!
You see, Hamlet knows there is no ghost that has returned from death’s boundaries, and he gives himself away to us in the most famous of all Shakespearean speeches. Of course, Hamlet wishes with all his being that his father will return and exonerate him, the son, from the crime-of-crimes he (the son) has committed. But since the dead don’t walk or talk, Prince Hamlet has had to resort to the next best thing—a theatrical illusion which walks and talks and provides a new "truth."
Isn't it interesting that theatrical illusion is exactly what Edward de Vere himself traded in? Did he not create an alter ego who spoke truth that he as Oxford could not? He might as well have been talking about himself, the nobleman who killed himself by slaughtering his reputation and position and then traded in theatrical illusion to provide himself worth (and a name) and vindication for losing those things he had arrogantly thown away with both hands. I want you to see Hamlet, therefore, as an autobiographical exorcism; if you do, things become MUCH more interesting!
So, my friends, reflect on the line “From whose bourn no traveler returns,” and then provide another, more logical explanation, than the one I just propounded.
Ah, I didn’t think you would.
Now, for those of you impatiently champing at the bit to throw in my face what I call the sine qua non that PROVES Claudius as the culprit (namely his soliloquy after the play-within-a-play), I ask only that you be patient, and all will be revealed and explained.
Until next time.
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3 comments:
It's not only the (attempted) confession of Claudius after the Mousetrap that contradicts this understanding of the play, but also his aside just before the nunnery scene. Also witness his two attempts to assassinate Prince Hamlet, once with bogus accusations sent to the King of England and once in the poison drink/trick foil plot, and his fear of setting the strong law on Hamlet after Polonius's slaughter.
CC.
ps - I believe this has been tried before: I don't remember where, but you find reference to it in Harold Jenkin's preface to the Arden 3.
Hamlet's self-admission of uncertainty about the "ghost" in itself seems to point to his innocence with respect to the true identity of the ghost. In fact, the whole reason for the play was that Hamlet doubted the ghost.
Therefore, for Hamlet to be the killer, the "ghost" would more than likely be Horatio in disguise, attempting to provoke Hamlet's conscience.
In any case, I think the connection between Hamlet and Eddie Oxford is more likely the simple idea of putting on a play to test whether it can provoke someone into an unseemly confession of some kind. There's probably scandals that Oxford was aware of that he would have dared not stated openly.
The 2B speech is not a contemplation of suicide, it's Hamlet's contemplation of killing Claudius. One must keep the setting in mind: Hamlet doesn't know Claudius is already in the room, and he's expecting Claudius to arrive alone, which could provide a good opportunity to kill Claudius. When Hamlet begins speaking, he is talking about whether Claudius is to be, or not, when Claudius arrives. Hamlet's trying to talk himself into killing Claudius when Claudius arrives.
Ophelia's word "twice" at the'Mousetrap' play is a lisp. She lisped the word "two." Shakespeare used her lisp for wordplay, and conceptual play; the "twice" is not to be taken literally. "Two months" is the correct statement of the passage of time.
The Hamlet character is 16 years old. The remark of 30 by the gravedigger Clown is a topical reference to Ben Jonson, who was 30 when 'Hamlet' was first published in 1603. The sexton Clown is Shakespeare's lampoon of Ben Jonson.
Re "no traveler returns," a ghost is not a living person. The Ghost is not a person returned to life. It doesn't contradict what Hamlet says. There's also the question of whether the Ghost is really King Hamlet. The line Shakespeare gave Hamlet can be read as a hint that the Ghost is not really King Hamlet.
You're right that Claudius didn't kill King Hamlet. King Hamlet died of a heart attack. Claudius poured poison in the ears of a dead man. That isn't something that can be inferred from the dialogue, however, it's something that appears when the play is acted correctly, exactly as Shakespeare wrote: "suit the action to the word." When the play is acted faithfully to that instruction from the Bard, Hamlet mimics a heart attack during the Closet Scene. But Hamlet doesn't have a heart attack, so who did? The answer is, his father.
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