Introduction
Hamlet is among the big four of Shakespearean tragedies, along with King Lear, Macbeth, and Othello. It was written about four hundred years ago, yet it is so relevant even in the 21st century. It has been translated into film, and its appeal to almost every culture in this world is evidence of the genius of Shakespeare. The present essay intends to answer some of the fundamental issues in the drama. First, the nature of conflict inspires Hamlet to build his worldview, to see whether it’s external or internal or both. Second, consider the question regarding the form of the play as a tragedy or revenge. Third, Ophelia’s role and the nature of her relationship with Hamlet are discussed. Fourth and final is the comparative look at Hamlet and Horatio.
Conflict is the essence of drama, and Hamlet’s tragedy is a rich representation of the dependence of one conflict on the other. Inertia, insanity, revenge and his obsession with the afterlife are the internal conflicts that Hamlet struggles with, and these conflicts are influenced by external events such as the death of his father, the marriage of his mother and the betrayal of Ophelia. The central internal conflict is to avenge his father’s death. The struggle to avenge creates more internal conflicts, as mentioned above, and hence, the action is delayed due to the physical restraints he encounters, as he states:
And thus, the native hue of resolution
Is sickled o’er with the pale cast of thought. (III, I, 83 – 84)
On the surface, Hamlet is a tragedy of revenge; Shakespeare used the form of tragedy of revenge to explore one of the most challenging questions regarding human existence. The moment when Hamlet is informed that his father is murdered by his uncle, ‘yea, from the table of my memory/ I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records/…. And thy commandment all alone shall live/Within the book and volume of my brain, (III, I, 83 – 84). By this time, he should have killed his uncle, but instead, he delayed the action, and under the course of this delay, he contemplated the existential questions that surround human life and the redundancy of his actions.
After his meeting with the ghost and the marriage of his mother to his uncle, Hamlet faces a complexity of emotions regarding women in general and Ophelia in particular. Throughout the play, he confesses his love for Ophelia ‘and I did love her’, and the graveyard scene does depict his true emotions concerning Ophelia. The character Ophelia is a significant character if we want to know about Hamlet’s past; throughout the play, Hamlet claims his love for Ophelia in the past tense ‘I did love her’ and ‘I loved Ophelia’; hence, one can argue that he loved Ophelia, but after the death of his father he lost his faith in women as he says to Ophelia ‘God has given you one face and you have made another one’.
The emotional trajectory of Hamlet’s character towards other characters is evident as we have seen the complexity of his emotions regarding Ophelia. Nevertheless, Horatio is a character with whom Hamlet’s love and trust never change. Hamlet and Horatio were schoolfellows, and they had spent a lot of time together. By Hamlet’s conversation with him at the beginning of the play, we know that Horatio is a student of philosophy like Hamlet. He is an empiricist. But unlike Hamlet, Horatio didn’t suffer the death of his father and the marriage of his mother to his uncle. Nevertheless, he was a loyal friend and, like Hamlet, willing to die for his cause.
Conclusion
The complexities of Hamlet’s character and the inability to decide on action make Hamlet one of the greatest characters in Western Literature. His varying emotions and philosophical contemplations are relevant even today. One can empathize with his character due to the timelessness of his ideas.
