Hamlet: A Fascinating Finale

My last blog for this month comes on the same day that we finished reading Shakespeare’s Hamlet in class, so I felt for this blog that it would be good to share some of my initial thoughts to the dramatic and tragic conclusion of the play, and also look into what it has to offer to many of the underlying themes and motifs that have been developed over the course of the five Acts. Within Act V scene ii, the final act of the play, the described deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and the actual deaths of Gertrude, Claudius, Laertes, and Hamlet himself are witnessed, but there is still plenty of room to analyze for greater meaning behind each of the characters’ words and actions. Perhaps one of the most prominent moments is between Hamlet and Horatio before he goes off to exchange in dual with Laertes, in which Hamlet confides to his guard of him feeling the inevitable nature of his death to come and his readiness to accept this new course that Fate itself has set before him. Hamlet reflects, “But it is no matter…it be now, ‘tis not to come, if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come…let be” (V.ii.227…234-235...237). It is interesting to note here the demeanor and perspective with which he approaches death, something he has reflected upon in the past with fear and dread of the mysterious future that would await. Before destroying his relationship with Ophelia, Hamlet reflected on his views of death as “the dread of some undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns” (III.i.86-87). Now, as he prepares to meet his destiny, he has an unusual calmness to him, seeming to accept himself and his fate willingly despite whatever death may have in store for him. Perhaps the greatest reason behind this is from the final line of the quote, “let be”, which seems to serve as an answer to the timeless question that Hamlet himself raised of “to be or not to be”. Over the course of the entire play, Hamlet has struggled with this conflict, going back and forth between “seeming” to be a man of insanity and irrationality while masking who he actually “is”, a man of integrity and wisdom. Now, as he prepares to meet his death, Hamlet comes to terms with himself and decides that if this is to be his end, he would himself die as the Hamlet that he knows himself to be and not what others may think or wish him to be. Hamlet hit upon the great fact of the “seem” vs. “is” argument, which is that ultimately the truth overcomes the illusion, but what remains the critical factor was the extent of the illusion and the damage that it has done to those involved. Hamlet sees now, before his mother, uncle, and Laertes even die, that time of “seem” must come to an end, that the walls of suspicion, lies, deceit and treachery that have stood as the crux and foundation of the entire play must all come crashing down if the kingdom is to be restored to its former state and liquidated of all that is “rank”. It is only fitting that all those whose actions inadvertently caused the state to deteriorate to where it is at the end are all dead, leaving only Horatio, perhaps the only man to act out of true reason, alive to tell the tragic tale. Hamlet’s purge of rankness in the kingdom would claim his own life as well, and leave the kingdom open to a man untainted by the poison of the previous kingdom, perhaps in the hopes that a new one can be rebuilt and be fruitful and the memory of the time of the rankness of Denmark be forgotten.

Master of Puppets

After having read through the first three acts of Hamlet and having to search for various recurring themes and motifs that Shakespeare inserts that help bring about a greater meaning of the work itself, I found that one of the key recurring ideas of the play is that of struggle of power and the manipulation of people in various circumstances to make them work to satisfy some sort of personal gain. With this thought in mind, I immediately thought of the lyrics to Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” as being of large relevance to this idea, since this song, along with every other song on the album, lyrically focus on the ideas of the loss of control and the abuse of power, both of which can be easily identified within the context of Hamlet as well. The song most explicitly explores manipulation and the struggle for control of one’s own fate in the context of drug abuse, making it very clear from the beginning what the real danger is behind letting substances like these become the driving force of one’s life. After a blistering iconic introduction, James Hetfield fiercely opens with the lines, “End of passions play, crumbling away, I’m your source of self-destruction”. From the beginning, it is made very clear just how real and terrifying drug addiction really is, and ultimately how scary the idea of becoming a slave to something against your will can really be. And while the lyrics may only seem to cover the pitfalls of substance abuse, they in fact can be applied to life itself, how it is that so many people find themselves pulled in various directions by fate and forces outside their control. The ‘strings’ of fate that pull people against there are directly identified in the chorus, “Master of puppets I’m pulling your strings, twisting your mind and smashing your dreams, blinded by me you can’t see a thing, just call my name because I’ll hear you scream”. With these lines, it is impossible not to think of the cover of the album, which shows a line of crosses in a cemetery, each with strings on them which are being held by two hands coming down from the sky. Every person in life likes to believe themselves to be their own ‘master of puppets’, believing in the idea that they can control their destiny or even manipulate others and pull on someone else’s strings. But in reality, we are all slaves to a master of some sort, destined to have our lives determined by a force that will consume our lives until the day we find ourselves resting below a cross in a cemetery. Each person has a different master, like the song describing how drugs ultimately consume a person’s life until death, forever destined to both hate their slavery to this materialistic master, yet loving the temporary pleasure it gives. This idea is represented musically in the song, as it is unabashed heavy riffs until the middle of the song, where it recedes into the melodic and somewhat classical bridge. Perhaps this is a representation of the drug addict having tried to free himself from the tumult that comes alongside being a slave to drugs, and stops using them for a while. But as the intensity and anger builds back up again in the song, it is apparent that there can be no true freedom while under the oppressive rule of the master, and it isn’t long until the song returns to full intensity and thus the power of the puppet master returns with full force. The victim screamed out in agony to the puppet master, “Fix me!” returning back to the drugs that keep him a slave to the master. As the puppet is under full control of the master, he is susceptible to whatever the master wants, seen through the lines, “I will occupy, I will help you die, I will run through you, now I rule you too”. These lines allow for the inference that the puppet reached a full point of being consumed by the master, so much that it was unable to retain a separate life of its own, and as a result died to become part of the master. Such is the fate of all people tied to their personal masters, destined to be consumed by forces that they cannot control which came about as a result of their own actions. Perhaps this is why the song ends with sinister laughter, as the dead puppet is mocked for having created the ties to the puppet master in the first place.

Hamlet: The Art of Illusion

Over the course of a rather hectic week between snow storms and a 4-day weekend, I worked in some time to read through Act III of Hamlet, which essentially consisted of Hamlet destroying all bonds of affection between himself and Ophelia, the performance of the play which mimics Claudius’s killing his brother the king, Hamlet’s scathing remarks to his mother and in his rage killing Polonius, and finally Claudius and his futile attempt to pray to God to forgive his sins. While there are obviously several different places to pick apart the key analytical points of the four scenes and bring out a “so what” toward the overall meaning of Shakespeare’s work, I wanted to focus on the continued motif of the play and the stage in this Act, found in Scene 2 where Hamlet is lecturing one of the players about the execution of his upcoming performance. By observing Hamlet’s criticism of what it means to “seem” the role of a player upon the stage, there is subtle insight into the protagonist’s own mind as he struggles to fight off his inner demons and carry out his own performance of madness for Ophelia, Gertrude, and everyone else he comes into contact with. He begins his criticism by telling the player to “o’erstep not the modesty of nature” (III.ii.20-21). While ‘nature’ most often finds its context in either describing the outside world, here it takes on two other refreshingly different meanings, and while Hamlet gives these instructions to someone else, they actually better reflect the young Prince himself. Here, ‘nature’ can be better connoted to mean a combination of qualities that make up the identity of a human being. With this new understanding, Hamlet seems to be telling the player to not overstep his own boundaries as a person, something that reflects on Hamlet, who also finds himself as a player over the course of the play. It seems here that Hamlet is inadvertently attempting to tell himself how he needs to be careful in his own acting, as to not go over the line in which he loses sense of who he is. Perhaps he partially feels himself losing control of this aspect, having just harshly condemned his past lover Ophelia to a nunnery, he must struggle to keep his own self in check. ‘Nature’ also has a theological connotation, dealing with a state of being in which there is a lack of grace. Again, this idea can applied to Hamlet’s situation as in his act of “seeming” to be someone that he really isn’t, he must be wary to not cross any religious lines with himself. We have seen this before, with God being the only thing that holds Hamlet back from killing himself, and we see it later in scene 3, where Hamlet has the opportunity to strike down Claudius when he appears to be praying, but refuses “to take him in the purging of his soul” (III.iii.90). In this way, Hamlet reveals how he rather difficultly continues to maintain his own personal moral compass in his act of illusion. In final thought, Hamlet’s instruction to the player is layered with an insight onto the purpose of acting itself, which he describes by saying, “from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is to hold, as ‘twere, the mirror up to nature, to show virtue her [own] feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure” (III.ii.21-26). Hamlet entreats the player to what he believes to be the very point and purpose to what both of them are taking part in, which is to use illusion to both criticize and reflect upon the current state of reality. What is perceived to be false can mirrored and reflected to reveal truth. Here Hamlet inadvertently reminds the audience why he is doing what he is doing, not just with the play conducted by the players, but the entire façade of madness that Hamlet has been acting out since his interaction with the ghost. Hamlet has the desire to take the essential elements of the world that is around him (nature) and remind everyone what it really is. It is somewhat of a ‘fight fire with fire’ mentality, casting off the illusions of what reality is by creating an alternate one, but it serves the point to reflect a true state of being. That is what Hamlet’s goal is with the play-within-a play about to be put on, and it is also what his goal is with his own personal illusion of madness.

Eldorado

For this blog, I felt it would be as good a time as any to talk about a poem, so for that I decided to go back to a familiar name that I’ve already looked at a couple times in older posts: Edgar Allan Poe. To delve into the fascinating world of Poe, I chose Eldorado, one of his last writings and published only months before his death in 1849. It is a fitting poem written by a man nearing the inevitable end of life’s journey to be about someone to be also on a quest toward a greater goal. The poem opens up in a manner somewhat outside of Poe’s norm, as it seems to evoke thoughts of medieval tales of King Arthur’s court or “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”, saying, A gallant knight, In sunshine and in shadow, Had journeyed long, Singing a song, In search of Eldorado”. While it is only natural to imagine a shining knight traversing along dangerous pathways to discover the hidden treasures of the long lost city of gold, there is in fact another story being told here, revealed in the end. Each and every person, like the brave knight, ceaselessly traverses through “sunshine and shadow”, through times of joy and times of grief, in order to seek out that which they desire most, something that is different for every person. Poe also identifies a harsh reality toward each person’s internal strive toward their treasure, that many times it is never found. The knight in the poem, “grew old-This knight so bold-And o'er his heart a shadow Fell as he found No spot of round That looked like Eldorado”. Poe’s description of the knight who has spent his entire life scourging for the riches of the earth may seem foolish and rather silly to the modern reader, who scoff at the idea of someone devoting their entire life to the slim chance of discovering physical and ephemeral greatness. But as much many refuse to believe, people have not changed all that much over time, as we what drove men and women to pursue ideas and goals are relatively the same today. The greatest of these is greed, the desire to own much more than is necessary. One does not need to think very hard to determine that greed still drives people, cities, and countries toward greatness, and naturally, toward their own destruction. People never stop dreaming about all that they wish they could acquire over the course of their lifetime, burdened with the task of filling the void within their own hearts with the material desires of this world. Such is where the knight is as well when the shadow falls upon him, and he asks where to find Eldorado. In reply, the shadow says, “"Over the Mountains Of the Moon, Down the Valley of the Shadow, Ride, boldly ride, "The shade replied-"If you seek for Eldorado!"” As the shadow bellows out his spur of knowledge to the aged knight, one would think that this would give the seeker a sense of closure in knowing that even though his journey must go on, he will eventually find Eldorado. But this is not the case. Instead there is an implied feeling that there is no Eldorado, that the physical treasures that the knight pursued and sought out over the course of his entire life in the fragmented hope of finding gold, have all been for nothing. The treasures of this world blinded the knight to what true treasure really is, which is that which transcends beyond the physical world and into the intellectual and even spiritual. The true treasures to be find could be anything from knowledge, wisdom, and understanding to religion or God, all of which are true treasures that can never be measured by physical means, but instead are measured by how it is that they can transform our lives in a way that money never could and never will.

Hamlet: The Extent of Obligation

For my final blog for this month, I felt it only necessary to address the second work that I am reading in AP Lit class, William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. While the classic tale has had its fair share of modern incarnations through film and other works, the original text (or texts depending on the other versions of the play) creates critical questions that to this day remain incredibly difficult to answer, as seen by multiple scenes of the characters themselves asking questions to one other. To be more specific, I wanted to expand on one of the key words that we have been indexing throughout the play thus far, which is “duty”. The idea of fulfilling a role or obligation to someone or being bound by law to complete a task is a concept that is constantly present throughout the first act alongside the beginning of the second, which is how much of the play that we have covered. From the guard’s declaration of “Our duty to your Honor” (I.ii.275) toward their Prince Hamlet, to Ophelia’s sullen response “I shall obey, my lord” (I.iii.145) toward her prying father Polonius, complying to the will of another is an idea that Shakespeare expounds upon through his characters. Perhaps the most notable example of moral obligation, and the one that sparks a hefty moral question, is that with Prince Hamlet and his ghostly King, where the deceased father incites his son to enact revenge on his cunning uncle Claudius who murdered him the orchard. In response to his father’s charge, young Hamlet declares “thy commandment all alone shall live within the book and volume of my brain, unmixed with base matter” (I.v.109-111). Through these words, Hamlet declares that he shall dedicate his entire being toward fulfilling his duty to his dead father and the newfound charge he has been given, setting aside all other obligations he may need to fulfill for the sole satisfaction of this one. In this way, the morality of the concept of duty and obligation is brought into question. While Hamlet does in fact feel compelled by his honor to commit an act of vengeance against his uncle, should he not question the virtue and morale behind his actions? To what extent can obligation be carried out without comprising the moral integrity of the person appointed with the task? It is interesting to note how Hamlet lamented in the king’s hall earlier about why “the Everlasting had not fixed his canon ‘gainst [self-slaughter]” (I.ii.135-136), dreading how the commandments of God were the only thing keeping him among the world of the living. In his duty to God, Hamlet was willing to give up his selfish wish of taking his own life in order to maintain his moral integrity. However, Hamlet seems to have no problem breaking his service to the Lord when it comes to adhering to a new duty that his dead father has enlisted him into, something that goes directly against the Bible. Romans 12:19 explicitly states “Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord”. As a man who knows God’s thoughts on suicide, Hamlet is also certain to know what God has to say about revenge, but is willing to compromise his faith to satisfy his inner demons that long for hate and revenge against his Uncle Claudius, and have been stirred up by his father’s apparition. Through Hamlet, Shakespeare poses the question of not necessarily of who we are all duty-bound to serve, but what obligations we are willing to break in order to satisfy our own internal desires and ambitions.

 

All Woods Must Fail

For this next blog, I really wanted to return to the world of JRR Tolkien to simply examine his poetic excerpts from works like The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and see all that they have to offer outside the context of the story and what overall message they have for each of us to hear. When trying to decide which poem to pick, I found one that truly relates to my life at this moment, caught up in the entangled branches of work, school, friends, family, and anything else that might get thrown my way. Tolkien’s All Woods Must Fail seems to speak to this very concept, recognizing the weariness of the wooded world that we all get lost in at some point in our lives, while at the same time providing the glimmer of hope that an end to our troubles will one day come and we will be able to leave the shadowed world of woods far behind. The poem is taken from The Lord of the Rings and serves as an encouraging thought to the hobbits, who are nearing the end of the Old Forest that they have been lost in. It opens by saying, “O! Wanderers in the shadowed land/Despair not! For though dark they stand, All woods there be must end at last”. While the context in which this poem is derived from is from a very literal interpretation and standpoint, I believe that Tolkien’s writing transcends past the story to take on a metaphorical and even biblical interpretation. Frodo and company may have been literal wanderers through the forest, but for the rest of us throughout daily life, we have our own forests that have heavy shadows cast over them. Whether it’s the bustling hallways of a crowded high school, the narrow side-by-side cubicles in a resented job, or even our own homes at times, we all know scarily well the places where the light is shut out and we are trapped by our own surroundings of darkness. In these times, the world seems like a cruel, bitter, and cold place, but Tolkien fervently writes to reminds us that this is not the end, that to “all woods there be must end at last/and see the open sun go past”. Through these words, a Biblical interpretation could be validated, not surprising since Tolkien himself was a fervent Christian. From the start, the “shadowed land” could refer to our own world plagued with sin and death, where so many wander aimlessly without the knowledge of God and those that do know him are constantly beaten down by the world and work to their full extent to cast aside the encroaching shadows. But there is still hope with the coming of the “open sun”, referring not only to the physical light to cast away darkness, but also to the coming of Christ that is to wipe all shadows from the earth. Even if it may be difficult to see, there is an end to the woods, and because of that knowledge of what is at the end of the woods we cannot let ourselves be trapped by the forest, but pursue our way through it, and charge headlong to the end where the sun can be revealed in all its glory. Tolkien ends the poem almost prophetically, pronouncing, “For east or west all woods must fail”. Again, here is a beacon of hope to those trapped within their own forests, reminding them that all woods must fail and give way to the open fields where the sun shines brightly across a clear blue sky. For that reason, we must remember that all woods must fail.

 

 

All Woods Must Fail

by J R R Tolkien

O! Wanderers in the shadowed land
Despair not! For though dark they stand,
All woods there be must end at last,
And see the open sun go past:
The setting sun, the rising sun,
The day's end, or the day begun.
For east or west all woods must fail.

 

 

I Sit and Think

While trying to think of a poem to write about for my next blog, I immediately had the realization that I have not made a single mention of my favorite author: JRR Tolkien. While I am obviously a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Simillarion, and all things Middle-Earth related, I wanted to explore a different side of Tolkien that not too many people seem to appreciate, which is that of his poetry. To begin the exploration, I chose “I Sit and Think” by Tolkien, because I saw it as a powerful and personal reflection that is equally moving and mesmerizing because of its somber perspective of both the life that has been lived, and the future of the world to come. The poem opens by creating a beautiful backdrop to the narrator sitting there; something that immediately evokes the ornate sceneries and landscapes that Tolkien created across the rolling pastures of the Shire and the blinding white capped Misty Mountains. But alongside the harmonious images lavishly painted across the words there is also a reflection of how much things have changed over the course of a lifetime, as he recalls “meadow-flowers and butterflies in summers that have been/of yellow leaves and gossamer in autumns that there were”. However wonderful the sights may have been to the narrator, he now realizes that they are simply just a memory of a time that has long passed, one where the beauty of the past can never equate to what he sees now. Here Tolkien himself can easily be inserted as the narrator, being one whose life spanned across nearly three quarters of the twentieth century, where several technological changes occurred that began to replace the beauty of the natural world with that of industry and advancement. It is both a reflective and harrowing thought to think of how much the world has changed before one’s own eyes, and even scarier to think of what will become of the world when one’s own chapter draws to a close. Such are the narrator’s thoughts when he pictures, “a spring that I shall [n]ever see”. Life will go on without us, however much we may not wish it to, but such is the way of the world, and so it shall continue. An even greater thought is of how even when we are gone, the people that we know will still carry on with their lives and continue to experience all that this world has to offer. Tolkien touched on thought within his other writing in The Return of the King, when Frodo prepares to leave for the Grey Havens and tells Samwise how his, “part of the Story goes on” (1006). In the same way, Tolkien muses again “of people long ago/ and people who will see a world that I shall never know”, a sad truth that all must come to terms with after the twilight of life has passed over. But until the final moment comes when all of this must finally come true, the narrator returns to his peaceful reflections that he reveled in earlier, all the while “listen[ing] for returning feet and voices at the door”. Personally, I think that those feet and voices are those of either children or grandchildren who come to visit him, spending as much time with the narrator as they can before his inevitable parting. Ultimately, I think the greatest message behind this poem is to enjoy the fleeting moments of life, and to not dread the unknown of the future, but revel in your chance to have a chapter of life that was well worth living.

 

I Sit And Think

I sit beside the fire and think of all that I have seen,
of meadow-flowers and butterflies in summers that have been;
Of yellow leaves and gossamer in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun and wind upon my hair.
I sit beside the fire and think of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring that I shall ever see.

For still there are so many things that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring there is a different green.
I sit beside the fire and think of people long ago,
and people who will see a world that I shall never know.
But all the while I sit and think of times there were before,
I listen for returning feet and voices at the door.

© J R R Tolkien. All rights reserved