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2009 Common Test 2:

PostmortemHAMLET ESSAY QUESTIONS

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Question 2B

Discuss the means by which Shakespeare creates an atmosphere of deception and corruption in the court of Denmark.

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Some Problems Conflating the two terms and treating them as if they are

interchangeable – corruption and deception are two separate terms and although there may be some overlaps, you need to show some awareness of the differences.

Don’t just point out various instances or examples of deception and corruption and stop there. The essay shouldn’t be made up of isolated examples – try to structure a coherent argument even if this is not a typical argumentative question which requires you to take a stand.

Don’t tack on the line ‘thus Shakespeare creates an atmosphere of deception and corruption in the state of Denmark’ at the end of every paragraph.

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Some Problems Don’t use colloquial and/or informal terms eg Polonius

sucks up to Claudius

Don’t confuse the film and the text – no mirrored trapdoors and passageways in the text.

Use more than one example to show a trend or pattern – Images of disease and poison are prevalent in the play. This is evident when…

The greatest example of deception in the play is Hamlet because he himself deceives the court by feigning madness.

‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern is …’ R and G are 2 different people, not a single entity

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Answering the Question – Some points to consider

The atmosphere of deception and corruption is pervasive in Denmark and Shakespeare creates this through various means:

Opening of the play Characterization Presentation of the court Repeated motifs (spying, acting) Imagery and language Use of asides and soliloquies

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The Opening of the Play (1) The premise of the play itself is based on acts of

deception and corruption.

Claudius’s murder of King Hamlet during his ‘secure hour’ when he was ‘sleeping within [his] orchard’ is a deceptive act which goes against God as well as the state due to the fact that Claudius commits both fratricide and regicide.

In so doing, Claudius betrays the state by committing treason, and deceives the court by usurping the throne. He also corrupts and violates the familial bond by murdering his brother and marrying his ‘sometime sister’.

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The Opening of the Play (2)BERNARDOWho's there?

FRANCISCONay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.….

BERNARDO'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.

FRANCISCOFor this relief much thanks: 'tis bitter cold,And I am sick at heart.

HORATIOIn what particular thought to work I know not;But in the gross and scope of my opinion,This bodes some strange eruption to our state.

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The Opening of the Play (3) The play also opens with an atmosphere of darkness and

uncertainty where the opening lines, spoken in darkness just after the stroke of midnight highlight the guards’ need to confirm each other’s identity in the course of duty.

This indicates the unsettled state of Denmark, the lack of clarity and certainty, and the subsequent difficulty in distinguishing or discerning between friend and foe, truth and falsehood, action and intention, appearance and reality etc.

This difficulty in distinguishing appearance and reality is a central problem in the play and is evident in various instances such as the ‘questionable shape’ of the ghost which appears in ‘the same figure like the king that’s dead’, Polonius’s use of Ophelia as a decoy and even Claudius kneeling at prayer, appearing to be a picture of repentance when in reality his ‘thoughts remain below / [and] words without thoughts never to heaven go.’

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Characterization – Claudius (1) Claudius is the character most strongly associated with

both deception and corruption in the court.

His deceptive nature is evident from his equivocation, the devious and underhanded ways in which he carries out the murder and the affairs of the court, as well as his ability to distinctly maintain his public and private persona.

The corruption prevalent in the court of Elsinore can also be mostly attributed to Claudius as it is his actions and manipulation of the other characters that result in Denmark becoming rotten and infected with the poison and disease that spreads indiscriminately throughout the court. As Hamlet points out in Act 5, Claudius is a cancerous or disease-ridden ‘canker’ that is capable of spreading ‘further evil’, and his influence is so widespread that almost no one can avoid infection.

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Claudius (2) From the moment he appears on stage, Claudius’s tendency to

use language as a tool for deception is evident from his first speech which sounds polished, insincere and contrived.

His first address to the court is filled with carefully put together paradoxical and contradictory references like ‘defeated joy’ and ‘mirth in funeral and dirge in marriage’ which not only aim to give the impression of balance and good judgment but also seek to convince the court that he has not forgotten to mourn his ‘dear brother’s death’ even as he celebrates his marriage to his brother’s widow.

His crafty and scheming nature also enables him to maintain his external façade as an efficient king and head of state and this is evident when he cunningly chooses to ‘suppress’ Fortinbras through the ‘impotent and bed-rid’ Old Fortinbras rather than to engage in open combat as the valiant King Hamlet had done.

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Claudius (3) Even as Claudius maintains the persona of an effective king and a

concerned father, however, his true corrupted nature is made evident to us through the ghost’s words as well as through his own soliloquy which reveals his private torment even as he maintains his almost unshakeable public persona, and like Hamlet, we are able to see through the ‘smiling, damned villain.’

Fairly early in the play, for instance, the ghost confides that ‘the serpent that did sting thy father's life / Now wears his crown’ and that Claudius is an ‘incestuous’, ‘adulterate beast’ who used the ‘witchcraft of his wit’ to ‘seduce’ and win to ‘his shameful lust / The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen.’

Such animalistic references are also echoed by Hamlet who likens Claudius to a satyr while his father is associated with the divine Hyperion, Jove, Mars and Mercury; ‘A combination and a form indeed, / Where every god did seem to set his seal, / To give the world assurance of a man.’

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Claudius (4) These bestial references to the serpent and the satyr which

are associated with evil and lechery respectively, give us the impression of human nature at its most corrupt and base, and this suggestion is reinforced and confirmed by Claudius in his own soliloquy where he admits to his ‘rank’ and ‘foul’ offence which ‘smells to heaven’, his ‘wretched state’ and his ‘bosom black as death’. Despite this awareness of his tainted soul, however, Claudius himself realizes that true contrition is inaccessible to him because his admission of guilt is accompanied by his unwillingness to relinquish his ill gotten crown, ambition and queen.

As the head of state, Claudius also contributes directly to the prevailing atmosphere of corruption and deception in the court of Denmark as his actions directly or indirectly set the standard for the rest of the court.

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Claudius (5) As Rosencrantz and Guildenstern point out,

‘The cess of majestyDies not alone; but, like a gulf, doth drawWhat's near it with it: it is a massy wheel,Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount,To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser thingsAre mortised and adjoin'd; which, when it falls,Each small annexment, petty consequence,Attends the boisterous ruin. Never aloneDid the king sigh, but with a general groan.

Thus, in the same way that Claudius’s physical act of pouring the ‘leperous distilment’ in the ‘porches of [King Hamlet’s] ear’ leads to it coursing ‘swift as quicksilver’ ‘through the natural gates and alleys of the body,/…/ And curd, like eager droppings into milk, / The thin and wholesome blood:’ his corrupted and deceptive nature symbolically spreads poison and disease throughout the court of Denmark, affecting even the most ‘wholesome’, innocent and noble characters in some way or other.

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Claudius and Laertes Claudius’s influence is perhaps most evident in his manipulation of

Laertes who despite his faults, initially comes across as an overprotective brother in his relationship with Ophelia and as someone who is willing to confront Claudius and Hamlet directly after he learns of his father’s murder. In Act 4, it is clear that Laertes’ original impulse is to face Hamlet directly which is evident when he says ‘it warms the very sickness in my heart, / That I shall live and tell him to his teeth,/ Thus didst thou.’

As Claudius begins to gain control over him, however, Laertes’s becomes a willing accomplice in Claudius’s devious scheming and proves himself not just willing to be ‘ruled’ by Claudius but also eager to be the ‘organ’ of Claudius’s plan.

His sense of honour and righteousness becomes perverted and corrupted to the extent that he is not only willing ‘to cut [Hamlet’s] throat i' the church’ but also further adds to Claudius’s evil scheme by coming up with the idea to ‘anoint [his] sword’ with an ‘unction’ that is certain to bring death to Hamlet even if he should ‘gall him slightly’.

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Hamlet and Ophelia (1) The atmosphere of corruption is so pervasive in the court of

Denmark that even characters like Hamlet and Ophelia cannot escape the effects of the poison that spreads throughout the court.

At the beginning of the play, for instance, Hamlet stands apart from the rest of the court not only because of his mourning attire but also by virtue of his attitude which is in direct contrast to Claudius’s insincerity and deceptive performance. As he points out to his mother:  

Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not 'seems.'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,Nor customary suits of solemn black,…That can denote me truly: these indeed seem,For they are actions that a man might play:But I have that within which passeth show;These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

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Hamlet and Ophelia (2) Hamlet thus begins the play as an open and candid person and his

soliloquy in Act 1.2 where he says, ‘But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue,’ reveals real pain and turmoil that he must hide his real feelings about his mother’s ability to ‘post / With such dexterity to incestuous sheets.’

Hamlet’s open nature is indeed refreshing in a court which thrives on double dealing, acting and concealment. Unlike most of the court which behaves sycophantically, Hamlet treats everyone with courtesy and dignity from the junior officers Marcellus and Bernardo to his friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to the actors who arrive in Denmark.

And as much as he dislikes and is repulsed by Claudius and his mother, he refuses to rashly embark on revenge but instead seeks proof of Claudius’s guilt because he doubts the ghost. Even the antic disposition Hamlet puts on is not really effective by the standards of deception around him and the disturbing atmosphere in Denmark is heightened by this paradoxical situation where the open and free prince must hide his true feelings and nature while the conniving and calculative Claudius gets free rein.

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Hamlet and Ophelia (3) In fact, in a play where acting and role playing form an important

part of the action, Hamlet is one of the few main characters who find it difficult to pretend to be what he is not and even Claudius states that Hamlet is ‘most generous and free from all contriving’.

He is so ill suited to play the role of avenger, for example, that he chastises himself for showing no passion compared to the player’s emotional performance which is based on nothing but a ‘fiction, in a dream of passion’.

As he struggles to come to terms with the obligation and burden of revenge, as well as the hypocrisy that pervades the court, however, Hamlet also resorts to using deceptive means to counter the deception and betrayal that surrounds him. His antic disposition which begins as a ploy to find out the truth about his father’s murder soon becomes a necessary mask to protect himself from the king’s suspicions and the only time that Hamlet can give free vent to emotions which must otherwise be suppressed is during his soliloquies which serve as a candid representation of truth in a world of deceit, disguise, superficiality and both real and contrived madness.

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Hamlet and Ophelia (4) As the play progresses, Hamlet’s behaviour becomes more and

more erratic and ambiguous that even the audience is unsure how affected he is by the corruption of the court. His rash and impulsive murder of Polonius and his almost casual dismissal of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as being ‘not near his conscience’, for example, seem to suggest that he has not managed to completely isolate himself from the rotting state of Denmark and like Ophelia, we are left to lament the fact that ‘the expectancy and rose of the fair state’ and the ‘noble and most sovereign reason’ is now ‘like sweet bells jangled out of tune and harsh’.

Like Hamlet who cannot completely escape the effects of the corruption and deception of the state, Ophelia, too, is pulled in through little fault of her own. In Ophelia’s case, the corruption of the state goes inward, corrupting and destroying her mind even though she does not willingly or consciously engage in deception and remains ‘fair and unpolluted’. Claudius describes Ophelia’s madness as ‘the poison of deep grief’ and her drowning symbolically represents how even someone who is not directly implicated in the corruption and deception of the court is ‘pulled…from her melodious lay / To muddy death’.

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The Presentation of the Court (1) The atmosphere of deception and corruption is also evident

through Shakespeare’s presentation of the court which is characterized by spying, sycophancy and betrayal.

Spying is a repeated motif in the play and the fact that both the king as well as his Chief Councillor / Lord Chamberlain, Polonius, engage in it, suggests the extent of depravity in the court.

Spying is first evident in Act 2 when Polonius rather disturbingly instructs Reynaldo to spy on Laertes. Rather than being upfront and direct, Polonius believes that the

…bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth:And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,With windlasses and with assays of bias,By indirections find directions out

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The Presentation of the Court (2) The fact that even the truth is sought through ‘falsehoods’ and

indirect and underhanded means is indeed ironic and this perversion of values is evident throughout the play not only in this scene, but also in subsequent scenes where Claudius and Polonius repeatedly corrupt values like integrity, trust, honour and loyalty either by engaging in spying themselves or by using others to betray and spy on their loved ones.

The scene where Polonius instructs Reynaldo to spy on Laertes, for instance, parallels the following scene where Claudius instructs Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spy on their friend. The sacred bonds of family, friendship and love are thus repeatedly violated as even Ophelia and Gertrude are forced to be part of Polonius’s and Claudius’s questionable ethics which they justify and sanction by calling themselves ‘lawful espials’ who engage in spying out of concern and necessity.

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The Presentation of the Court (3) The Danish court is also characterized by sycophancy which is

evident from the fawning and pandering of the courtiers.

Polonius’s flattery of Claudius is evident in almost every scene involving the two characters, and he is quick to insinuate at every opportunity that ‘I hold my duty, as I hold my soul, / Both to my God and to my gracious king.’

This fawning is echoed by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern who readily and unreservedly put their friendship with Hamlet aside in order to ‘obey, / And…give up [themselves], in the full bent / To lay [their] service freely at [Claudius’s] feet, / To be commanded.’

The atmosphere of corruption and deception thus festers in such a court where there is little opportunity, and in fact, little benefit, in speaking the truth or upholding any sense of integrity and honour.

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Imagery and Language (1)

The language employed in the play also enacts the kinds of contradictions and tensions that exist in the court of Denmark.

Apart from the equivocation, ambiguity, word play, paradoxes in the play, there are also many references to words like ‘seems’ and ‘assumes’ (‘seeming-virtuous queen’, ‘the devil hath the power t’ assume a pleasing shape’) etc which highlight some of the play’s preoccupations with deception and the distinction between appearance and reality where one may affect virtue or pretence even when there is no genuine emotion.

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Imagery and Language (2)

The play also makes extensive use of imagery to highlight the prevalence of corruption and deception.

Images of painting, make-up etc suggesting how external signs may be deceptive and perhaps even ultimately useless in their attempts to conceal.

POLONIUS‘Tis too much proved, that with devotion’s visageAnd pious action we do sugar o’erThe devil himself

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Imagery and Language (3) Claudius’s references to art and the harlot’s cheek emphasizes his

own degradation while Hamlet is disgusted by what appears to him to be women’s willingness to put on a face and betray vows of loyalty.

CLAUDIUS [Aside]O, 'tis too true!How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!The harlot's cheek, beautied with plastering art,Is not more ugly to the thing that helps itThan is my deed to my most painted word:O heavy burthen!

HAMLETI have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God has given you one face and you make yourselves another.

HAMLETNow get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come

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Imagery and Language (4) Images of bestiality suggesting the corruption of human nature.

HAMLETO, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,Would have mourn'd longer

HAMLETGet thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be abreeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest;but yet I could accuse me of such things that itwere better my mother had not borne me: I am veryproud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences atmy beck than I have thoughts to put them in,imagination to give them shape, or time to act themin. What should such fellows as I do crawlingbetween earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves,all; believe none of us.

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Imagery and Language (5) Images highlighting Hamlet’s disillusionment with the world and his intense

disgust and revulsion towards the taint of human sinfulness and imperfection and life in general.

HAMLET O, that this too too solid flesh would meltThaw and resolve itself into a dew!…How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,Seem to me all the uses of this world!Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature

HAMLET...the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this mostexcellent canopy, the air, look you, this braveo'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof frettedwith golden fire, why, it appears no other thing tome than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!how infinite in faculty! in form and moving howexpress and admirable! in action how like an angel!in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of theworld! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me,what is this quintessence of dust? man delights notme: no, nor woman neither, though by your smilingyou seem to say so.

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Imagery and Language (6) Images of disease and poison suggesting that even the innocent and

morally principled characters like Hamlet and Ophelia cannot escape the infection.

HAMLET…Mother, for love of grace,Lay not that mattering unction to your soul,That not your trespass, but my madness speaks:It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,Infects unseen.

GERTRUDEO Hamlet, speak no more:Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;And there I see such black and grained spotsAs will not leave their tinct.

The reference to poison especially is a dominant one that runs throughout the play and in one sense, the play comes full circle and begins and ends with poison. Claudius’s death by poison at the end is a fitting one since the revenge tragedy begins with his poisoning of King Hamlet and as Laertes points out at the end, Claudius ‘is justly served; / It is a poison temper'd by himself.’

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Question 2A‘There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.’

Using this quotation as a starting point, discuss the relationship between human action and divine forces in Hamlet.

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Some Problems

Lack of clear direction

Limited and superficial argument

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Some Points to Consider Examples of human action:

Claudius’s murder of King Hamlet and his other actions, Hamlet’s antic disposition and The Murder of Gonzago

Examples of divine forces: The ghost, the pirate ship and the final scene

Characters who focus on human action: Claudius, Laertes, Hamlet

Characters who submit to divine forces and/or the wills of others: Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guidenstern, Hamlet towards the end of the play

The gravediggers’ scene and Hamlet’s increasing realization that there are limits to what man can accomplish.

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Main Argument Characters in Hamlet can be roughly classified into those who

succumb to their fates without argument and those who attempt to take matters into their own hands and control the course of their lives. Claudius’s murder of King Hamlet, for instance, signifies his attempt to gain control of the throne as well as the queen, while Hamlet regards it as his filial duty and moral obligation to ‘set things right’ after the ghost’s injunction.

As the play progresses, however, it becomes clear that human action and divine forces cannot be regarded as separate and distinct categories and while the quotation seems to suggest that human action is useless against the forces of fate, this is only partly true since the events of the tragedy suggest that both human action and divine forces have a significant role in the play as a whole.

Indeed, human action and judgment are bound by divine forces as there are limitations to what man can accomplish, and ultimately, it is the characters who recognize and acknowledge the importance of both human action and divine forces that achieve something at the end of the play.

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Claudius (1)

From the very beginning of the play, Claudius can be seen as someone who strives to change his destiny by ‘dispatch[ing]’ his brother ‘of life, of crown, of queen’, and in Act 1 scene 2, he appears to have succeeded completely in his attempt to alter fate and fulfill his ambition as king.

His opening address, for example, shows him to be in full control of the court of Elsinore as he displays not only his political competence by containing the external threat of Fortinbras army, but also his ability to manipulate and control the court by getting them to ‘freely [go] / With this affair along’ and celebrate his wedding to King Hamlet’s widow rather than mourn for the recently dead king.

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Claudius (2)

This confidence in his own power and ability continues in the course of the play and his repeated efforts to change or control fate is evident in many instances from his ‘hasty sending’ for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spy on Hamlet, to his instructions to the King of England telling him to ensure the ‘present death of Hamlet’.

Even when fate intervenes in the shape of a pirate ship that foils his plans to kill Hamlet, Claudius only momentarily falters. Instead of submitting to fate, he manipulates Laertes and comes up with a devious and clever plan which aims to ‘work Hamlet / To an exploit, now ripe in my device, / Under the which he shall not choose but fall’ and tries to guarantee Hamlet’s death not just by using an ‘unbated sword’ during the duel, but also by placing some poisoned wine ready for Hamlet to drink just in case ‘he by chance escape [Laertes’s] venomed stuck.’

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Claudius (3) From Claudius’s perspective, divine forces rule all

in the afterlife but it is human action that prevails in the mortal world, and this perception is evident in his soliloquy where he points out that:

In the corrupted currents of this worldOffence's gilded hand may shove by justice,And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itselfBuys out the law: but 'tis not so above;There is no shuffling, there the action liesIn his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd,Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,To give in evidence.

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Laertes

Like Claudius, Laertes, is another character who takes matters into his own hands. At the start of the play, he attempts to control and protect Ophelia by discouraging her relationship with Hamlet and ‘show[ing] [her] the steep and thorny way to heaven.’

When he finds out about his father’s murder, Laertes leaves nothing to fate, rushing back from France to ensure that he is ‘revenged most throughly for [his] father.’

His determination to carry out revenge regardless of the moral consequences and divine laws is not only evident in his statement that he ‘dare[s] damnation’ but also from his readiness to ‘cut [Hamlet’s] throat i’ th’ church.’

And in the final conspiracy against Hamlet, Laertes not only agrees to be ‘ruled’ by Claudius but also comes up with a devious and scheming plan of his own since it is his idea to ‘anoint’ his sword with an ‘unction’.

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Ophelia

At the other end of the spectrum lie characters like Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and Ophelia who completely submit to the wills of others and the hands of fate.

Throughout the play, Ophelia has little autonomy of her own and her actions are almost entirely directed by the men around her, namely Polonius, Claudius and Laertes.

Ophelia’s complete lack of control over her life is perhaps best signified by her madness which renders ‘poor Ophelia / Divided from herself and her fair judgment’.

Even at the moment of her death, Ophelia remains silent and voiceless, ‘incapable of her own distress’ and seemingly unaware of her own plight as she is ‘pulled…from her melodious lay / To muddy death’. Her inability to stand up for herself is further reinforced by the ambiguity surrounding her death so much so that she has to suffer the indignity of having ‘maimed rites’ rather than a full Christian burial.

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Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

Caught in a clash between two ‘mighty opposites’, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are also used and pushed around by Hamlet and Claudius until they are unwittingly sent to their ‘sudden deaths’ at the end of the play.

Their complete submission and loyalty to ‘the sovereign power’ of Claudius and their willingness to ‘lay [their] service freely at [his] feet / To be commanded’ leads Hamlet to refer to them as a ‘sponge’ ‘that soaks up the King’s countenance, his rewards, his authorities’, kept ‘like an ape in the corner of [Claudius’s] jaw, first mouthed to be last swallowed.’

Like Ophelia, they are completely passive, unwilling or unable to take any action of their own and at the end of the play, when Hamlet dismisses their death as being ‘heaven ordinant’ and ‘not near [his] conscience’, we can feel little pity for these two insipid characters who to some extent deserve the fates that have befallen them.

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Hamlet (1)

The relationship between divine forces and human action can be clearly seen in the character of Hamlet.

On one level, the tragedy is due to Hamlet’s character, his actions and inactions. At the same time, however, fate also has a hand in imposing upon him a task that so clearly goes against his nature and Hamlet’s despair and confusion regarding his role as revenger is evident in his line, ‘The time is out of joint: O cursed spite, / That ever I was born to set it right!,’ which implies both the hands of fate as well as the need for human action.

On the one hand, Hamlet has little choice but to fulfill the ghost’s injunction since as Prince of Denmark, it is his filial duty, moral obligation and his destiny to carry out revenge for his dead father.

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Hamlet (2)

As Laertes points out in Act 1.3,

…his will is not his ownFor he himself is subject to his birth. He may not, as unvalued persons do, Carve for himself, for on his choice depends The safety and health of this whole state.

However, revenge is also a burden of responsibility that he has to shoulder in the course of the play and in order to ‘let not the royal bed of Denmark be / A couch for luxury and damned incest,’ Hamlet must take specific action to set things right and restore moral order. This is evident in his meeting with the ghost which persuades Hamlet to take action by appealing to his sense of filial duty and by playing on his sense of outrage at Claudius’s murder and disgust at his mother’s sexual betrayal.

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Hamlet (3) In an effort to ‘set things right’, Hamlet puts on an ‘antic

disposition’, plans a play to ‘catch the conscience of the king’ and even takes it upon himself to ‘speak daggers’ to his mother so that she may ‘confess [herself] to heaven / Repent what’s past, avoid what is to come,’ and ‘live the purer’ for the remaining part of her life.

As the player king points out, however:

Our wills and fates do so contrary runThat our devices still are overthrown;Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own

Thus, in the same way that Claudius’s efforts to change fate are undermined by the supernatural intervention of the ghost whose entry ‘bodes some strange eruption to our state’ and foreshadows the oncoming tragedy that is beyond anyone’s control, Hamlet’s attempts to direct his revenge do not quite turn out the way he plans.

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Hamlet (4) The Mousetrap, for example, confirms Claudius’s guilt to

Hamlet’s satisfaction but at the same time, it also leads to consequences beyond his control since because of it, Claudius learns that Hamlet is aware of the murder and confirms his plans to send him to England.

The suggestion that human actions are often undercut by larger, divine forces is also highlighted in the gravediggers scene where Hamlet not only confronts the inevitability of death but also recognizes that in death, the scheming politician, the hollow courtier, the manipulative lawyer and the powerful emperor are all one and the same, returning to their ‘base uses’.

This emphasis on the limitations of human action and the futility of human achievement is further reinforced by the play’s repeated references to human weakness, the instability of human purpose and how humanity is subject to the misfortunes of fate.

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Hamlet (5) This is evident firstly in Hamlet’s speech on ‘the stamp of one

defect’ which suggests how man is susceptible to weakness where ‘some vicious mole of nature in them’, ‘shall in the general censure take corruption / From that particular fault.’

The instability of human purpose is also evident in Claudius’s speech where he points out that:

…that we would doWe should do when we would; for this 'would' changesAnd hath abatements and delays as manyAs there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;And then this 'should' is like a spendthrift sigh,That hurts by easing.

Finally, Hamlet himself raises the issue of how man is subject to larger forces in his ‘to be or not to be soliloquy’ where he broods on suicide and the consequences of it.

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Hamlet (6) Here, Hamlet questions whether he should simply submit

completely and passively to fate or take action to change the course of his life ie ‘whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune / Or take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them.’

And while he is tempted to ‘end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks’ and make his ‘quietus’ with a ‘bare bodkin’, he is at the same time aware that human action has its limitations since whatever his action, he will not have control over what happens in the afterlife.

…Who would fardels bear,To grunt and sweat under a weary life,But that the dread of something after death,The undiscovered country from whose bournNo traveller returns, puzzles the will,And makes us rather bear those ills we have,Than fly to others that we know not of?

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Hamlet (7) Hamlet’s attitude thus changes significantly in the course of

the play as seen by the way that he becomes more accepting of the fact that human action and judgment are bound by divine forces and more aware that he cannot take the burden of the whole world upon his limited self.

Initially, Hamlet seems to rather disturbingly see himself as an agent of heaven, bringing justice, retribution and even damnation to others and this is evident not only when he chooses not to kill Claudius until a more damning moment that has ‘no relish of salvation in it’ but also when he rashly kills Polonius and declares:

Heaven hath pleas’d it so,To punish me with this, and this with me,That I must be their scourge and minister.

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Hamlet (8) Scourge and minister here refer to the two types of revengers

common in Shakespeare’s time; the scourge refers to a man who is himself evil and although he is damned by God, he is also chosen by God to destroy others before being killed himself. The minister on the other hand is a good man allowed by God to expose evil without becoming contaminated by evil himself.

Hamlet’s reference to himself as scourge and minister thus implies that he sees himself as being both implicated in the corruption and evil of Denmark, as well as being the person responsible for cleansing the state and ‘setting it right’, and because of this, he spends the bulk of the play obsessing about revenge and reproaching himself for not taking action.

After the gravediggers scene, however, Hamlet comes to realize that man is not entirely an agent of his own fate and this change in mindset is mirrored in the changing focus of his lines; where the soliloquies used to centre on his responsibility to revenge, his failure to act or his plans to confirm Claudius’s guilt, his lines in the final scene focus increasingly on references to heaven, divinity and providence.

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The Final Scene (1) Thus, in the final scene, Hamlet achieves a new sense of calm that can be

contrasted to his profound state of disillusionment and despair in the previous scenes. He no longer questions his inability to act and instead states quite calmly and simply that ‘the readiness is all’.

This change is very much due to his escape from Claudius’s trap through a series of fortunate coincidences and accidents such as having his ‘father’s signet in [his] purse’ and ‘the kind of fighting’ in his heart that ‘would not let [him] sleep’. By escaping and framing his friends, Hamlet believes that he has fulfilled some sort of divine destiny and asserts that the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern do not weigh upon him.

In fact, Hamlet himself realizes the irony when he points out that,

Our indiscretions sometimes serves us wellWhen our deep plots do pall: and that should learn usThere’s a divinity that shapes our endsRough-hew them how we will

All his former planning got him nowhere, and yet now that he has no actual plan he nevertheless feels certain that things will work themselves out.

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The Final Scene (2) In fact, his growing trust in providence leads him to agree to the

duel even though he tells Horatio that ‘thou wouldst not think how ill all’s here about my heart’ and he dismisses his fears by saying that ‘we defy augury; there is special providence in the fall of a sparrow’.

Hamlet thus enters the final scene with a strong desire for justice and not just a lust for revenge and states that

…is’t not perfect conscience to quit with this arm? And is’t not to be damned to let this canker of our nature come In further evil.

And although he is drawn into a conspiracy planned by Claudius and Laertes, it is worth noting that he himself makes no active attempt to plot against the life of Claudius at this stage of the play.

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The Final Scene (3) Thus, in the final scene, human action, conspiracy and planning all

degenerate into a series of fateful and unlucky events. Gertrude drinks from the poisoned chalice meant for Hamlet, Laertes wounds Hamlet but in the scuffle the foils are exchanged and Hamlet wounds Laertes. And when Laertes tells Hamlet that he is holding a poisoned foil, Hamlet takes the opportunity that fate has awarded him and uses it to stab Claudius and then force him to ‘drink off this potion’ that was meant for Hamlet himself.

None of these deaths except Hamlet’s own was part of the original conspiracy between Claudius and Laertes and significantly, these plans were not the revenger’s but those of his opponents.

Ultimately, while Laertes and Claudius fail in their efforts to direct divine forces, Hamlet’s ability to acknowledge the role of fate as well as the limitations of human action, do enable him to finally achieve justice, ‘report [himself] and [his] cause aright’, and restore moral order even if this is done at a terrible cost.