Selected Problems of Interpretation Acts I-V

The following are some of the problems scholars have puzzled over, concerning the interpretation of Hamlet. The most basic question is the one he asks himself, “Why do I delay? (cf. esp. 55-56, 93-94). But there are also many others.

Act I. This act is dominated by the Courtroom Scene exhibiting Hamlet’s disaffection with King Claudius and Queen Gertrude, (ii) and the experience with the Ghost (i, iv-v), which sets the plot to determine if Claudius killed Hamlet’s father, and then how to avenge him, in motion.

• Is the ghost real or a phantom of Hamlet’s imagination? If it is real, is it a representation of King Hamlet himself, come from Purgatory (this would be a Catholic interpretation), or is it either a demon from Hell or an angel from Heaven speaking in his voice (this would be a Protestant take)? If it is the case that later events suggest it was indeed King Hamlet, how do we make sense of this Catholic read, in what is otherwise generally a Protestant-theology drama?
• Why is it necessary for him to test the truth of the Ghost’s claims? (I.e. determine that he is not a demon?) Why does the Ghost re-appear in the Act III bedroom scene with Gertrude?
• What are we to make of Gertrude’s infidelity? Was she aware of Claudius’ regicide? Why does the Ghost caution Hamlet to leave her punishment to heaven?

Act II. This act is dominated by the “comedy of masks” in which Hamlet is trying to see through to Claudius’ intentions, as well as those of his minions Rosenkranz and Guildenstern, and in which Claudius is trying to see through Hamlet’s “antics” to determine if his madness is caused by grief at his father’s death and ambition (and thus is a threat to Claudius) or if it is caused by grief at Ophelia’s withdrawal of love from him (as Polonius would have it).

• Who overhears what, e.g. does Hamlet overhear Polonius and King Claudius plotting? Do they overhear his soliloquoy--and if so, does he realize it?
• Did Claudius become King by usurpation? Should Hamlet, as his father’s son, have become King?—which would put the legal and moral status of Claudius’ reign in question even if he had not gained it by regicide.
• What is the significance of Hamlet’s “antic disposition”/madness? Is it
  • play-acting by him, invented to cover his inquiries, as he suggests at the end of Act I, or
  • a genuine nervous breakdown of sorts, brought on by the discoveries of his uncle’s murder of his father, his mother’s infidelity and possibly complicity in the murder, his loss of kingdom, his loss of Ophelia, and his loss of any friends he can trust apart from Horatio?

·         What is the significance of the attribution of “incest” by Hamlet to his mother? Here the answer is fairly clear, indicating a difference in sexual morality between our times and Shakespeare’s: in the 17^th century, it was regarded as “incest” for a woman to have relations with her husband’s brother. The marriage itself is tainted with this coloration, which is at least as strong as e.g. marriage between 1^st cousins or an uncle and a niece would be today. [Note: calling it incest relates to the persistent theme of ‘nature’ in the play—and the complications of that concept in relation to supernature: ‘nature’ as the goodly order God would will for human beings, ‘nature’ as the baser instincts of human beings, in conflict with their ‘rational nature’, what is ‘unnatural’ in the sense of being evil (i.e. Claudius).

Act III. This act is dominated by Hamlet’s strange interaction with Ophelia (ii, iii), the Play testing King Claudius which ‘establishes’ his guilt and Hamlet's curious decision not to kill him (iii) and the Bedroom scene with Gertrude and the Ghost (iv).

• Analyze and discuss the "to be or not to be" soliloquoy, esp. the alternative readings of to act or not to act vs. to exist or not to exist.
• Why does Hamlet speak so licentiously to Ophelia? This is a continuation of the question about his ‘turn-about’ in attitude toward her—his harshness in the “Nunnery” scene. It raises the general question of “misogyny” in Hamlet and in the play, though clearly Ophelia is an innocent, Christ-like figure, and his mother comes around to Hamlet’s side at the end. What exactly has transpired between them? Did she sleep with him? (there are lines that suggest it). Was he emotionally damaged by her rejection of him?
• Why wasn’t King Claudius upset during the mime, which shows directly his crime, rather than only after Lorenzo’s speech?
• Why are the Queen and the entire Court angry with Hamlet, if they did not know that Claudius killed King Hamlet and therefore did not know why he was so upset? How does the scene function aesthetically to communicate a kind of dramatic truth, even if it is awkward as a representation of the characters and their understanding of things?
• How shall we understand Hamlet’s decision not to kill Claudius? It is not mercy. How does it relate to the general theme of “justice” vs. “revenge”?
• How shall we understand Hamlet’s actions in the bedroom? Is he mad? Is his attitude toward Gertrude incestuous? What relevance is there, if any, that only Hamlet sees the Ghost, not Gertrude?
• How shall we understand Gertrude in the play? Is Olivier’s interpretation—which emphasizes a Freudian/underlying oedipal attraction between her and her handsome son—valid, or a distortion? Why does she ‘submit’ to him in the end, after he has shamed her? Does she, in fact, cease making love to Claudius?

Act IV. This act is dominated by maneuvering on the part of Claudius to kill Hamlet (i-iii, vi-vii) and the madness and death of Ophelia (v).

• Why does Hamlet continue to wait? What are the complications that his killing Polonius have introduced into his determination to get rid of Claudius? What are the factors that inhibit Claudius in killing him?
• What do you make of the “popular revolution” led by Laertes vs. Claudius? What role does this democratic political element play in the otherwise aristocratic politics and ‘machtpolitik’ of the drama?
• How do you interpret the ‘play’/’contest’ of Hamlet with Rosenkranz and Guldenstern? How does his relation to them compare to his relation to Horatio?
• What is the import of Hamlet’s sharp remarks on the “imminent death of 20,000 men…who, for a dream and trick of fame…go to their deaths”? Compare the “ethic of honor” that aristocrats were bound by—including the duty of revenge—to the “ethic of love” which Christians were supposed to be bound by, or the “ethic of reason” that ancient philosophers such as the Stoic Horatio were supposed to be bound by?
• How shall we understand the role of Ophelia in the play, its first tragic victim? How would her madness have been seen or understood by a Shakespearean audience? Does our more psychologically sophisticated age change how we perceive her?
• How the role of Laertes?—who, with Fortinbras, plays foil to Hamlet, sons seeking to revenge their fathers.

Act V. This act is if anything even more off the charts of dramatic complexity than acts II and III, which moved into radically new places, with the ‘metatheatrical’ elements involving the multiple Plays within the Play.

• What role does the gibing and jesting with the gravediggers play in the drama, including Hamlet meditating on the skull of Yorick?
• How can Hamlet seemingly forget that he murdered Laertes’ father?
• What is the significance of “readiness is all”? Does this mark a radically new stance, on the part of Hamlet, toward his unceasing effort to “make things right” in Denmark?
• “Everyone dies.” Is the play, finally, nihilistic? Does the ascent of cold, shallow, rapacious Fortinbras confirm this?
• Why is Hamlet, if only for his thoughtfulness, an extraordinary figure—at least as towering as Oedipus? How does his fate compare with that of Oedipus? Do we experience with, as with Oedipus, not only a tragic catharsis, but a kind of elevation and sublimation of our idea of ‘human’? What achieves that, despite his terrible flaws and their consequences?