The Theme of Hamlet

About a year ago I wrote an article

Which was about how much I dislike basically all Freudianism, but especially when applied to literary criticism.

In the comments remarked

In response to the theory that the reason why Shakespeare has Hamlet wait to kill Claudius too long is not because then the play will be over and we need something to make him wait.

Obviously there is a difficulty in determining what the premise of Hamlet is in that we do not have Shakespeare’s writings on that subject, we can only investigate the text, Shakespeare is really the prime representative of the modern theory that the meaning of a work has nothing to do with the author’s opinions, but only our own as readers, because we just do not know what Shakespeare’s opinions were on his work.

The idea that there was some sort of problem of non-action in the play where Hamlet is at least partially responsible for the deaths of 7 people (a ludicrously low number by our modern Action hero standards, but in a theatrical play quite impressive), was first brought in by Goethe in his book Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, generally translated as Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship

Which has often been observed as “what did you expect Goethe to say?” This accusation of inaction was also of great interest to Coleridge, Hazlitt, and August W. von Schlegel in turn. All of whom, in each case, seemed to perceive in the mirror of the play what plagued them most, as thinkers known to “vacillates from sensibility, and procrastinates from thought” in the words of Coleridge.

This idea that Hamlet does not act is of course rooted in character, and prompts the question why does he not act, leading to the psychological view of the Freudians I derided that Hamlet does it, or rather doesn’t, because he has an Oedipal fixation and thus cannot bring himself to take the appropriate vengeance on his Uncle for doing what he always wanted to do — namely, kill his father and sleep with his mother.

My ridiculing of the Freudian position also has its own critical history, related to the critical genre of historical criticism, as exemplified in E. E. Stoll’s Art and Artifice in Shakespeare which argues that Hamlet is a revenge play, and in keeping with that the revenge comes at the end or culmination of the play.

Thus there is no authoritative premise of the play, there is only interpretation, and the historical criticism position is that of course Hamlet takes a while to do what needs to be done because it needs to be that way for the play to be the kind of play it is. That’s simple enough.

Unfortunately, Hamlet isn’t Simple

Let us look at a modern revenge story — John Wick, in this story the revenge is also at the end (well towards the end, there is some mopping up), but there is an obvious difference with Hamlet — in John Wick the revenge is at the end because there are physical impediments in the way of the revenge being achieved immediately. In Hamlet these impediments are (nearly) all mental.

John Wick is straightforward, in order to kill target he must kill lots of other targets in between and beat people up in interesting ways, Hamlet is a bit more complicated because in order to kill target he must defeat the mental impediments enough to do the killing, and also to make the mental impediments seem real in some way (which requires significantly more effort than a guy shooting at the protagonist, dramatically speaking) while also killing a lot of other targets because revenge narratives need lots of violence leading up to main violent payoff.

Hamlet’s Mental Impediments

There are two explicit mental impediments that prevent Hamlet immediately killing his Uncle, these are of course the problem that Hamlet does not trust the ghost of his father is actually the supernatural entity it claims to be, but may instead be some altogether different supernatural entity trying to trick Hamlet into killing his Uncle because once you admit supernatural entities into your logic why trust them? And the second being that when Hamlet kills his Uncle he wants to make sure to do it at such a point that his Uncle will be sure to go to hell, because evidently Hamlet holds with the doctrine that confession absolves one of sin, and thus the Uncle that killed his own brother, committing treason, to sleep with his brother’s wife, might be heaven-bound.

It is of course obvious why audiences, as they moved farther and farther from Shakespeare’s time, should find these motives for delay suspect.

There is however also an implicit motive for delay, which is what is picked up by the various references to inaction over the generations. This motive is that Hamlet is obviously depressed.

What is Hamlet Depressed About?

The Freudians evidently held that Hamlet was depressed because he didn’t get to kill his father and sleep with his mother, being beaten to the punch by his uncle, and evidently once the father is killed by someone else incest no longer holds such a special allure.

We could easily assume that he is just depressed because his father, who evidently he thought highly of, is dead, and then further depressed because his mother is with the uncle. But that does not seem to be quite right either.

Because even when Hamlet is going about the vengeance for things he is depressed, wondering if he should be or not be is really wondering if he cares enough about this whole dad dead, mom shacking up thing to work on it as fully as he is obligated.

I am not saying his family’s problems do not contribute to his depression, and his anger, they do. But if I were to do the interpretation as to the premise of Hamlet’s depression I would take something else.

Remember, we said because of Shakespeare’s unknown opinions on things we can put on a play any interpretation that might possibly fit, and in this case the interpretation I prefer for Hamlet’s depression is one that has become popular in our current age — he is gay.

However in my interpretation I don’t much care about his relationship with Horatio, although, sure — it can be a homosexual one. I just care as it being a cause of his depression.

Hamlet is a gay man, and he hates being back in Denmark where every day reminds him greatly of his obligations to take a Queen of some sort, beget children in the approved heterosexual manner, and rule as King (once his Uncle is gone).

These obligations that are naturally not very interesting and somewhat irritating due to his orientation are made even more repugnant by the knowledge that doing these very things led to the death of the man he admires most, his father, whose name he bears.

His mother killed his father, a “real man” and cursed him to rot in hell as a consequence, in preference for his uncle whom he does not find manly enough in comparison.

His original depression that we encounter at the beginning of the play, the reminder of his obligations that go against his nature, gets worsened by the knowledge of how acquiescing to have sex with a woman as his kingly duty could lead to his death.

The mission of vengeance he has been given by his father’s spirit reminds him deeply how unfair his life’s lot is, and even worse, if he were to manage to kill his uncle he would become the King and his duty would be on him even sooner.

Damn, that sucks.

This source of his depression would explain his nastiness to Ophelia, his childhood sweetheart that was evidently a possible mate of his future (obviously ridiculous, Hamlet is a prince and the heir, he would marry some princess or noble from somewhere that would strengthen the monarchy, but the story must be allowed its little idiosyncrasies)

He likes and cares for Ophelia, but doesn’t really want to have sex with her which he would have to, and also he is at the moment slightly mad at women because mom did dad dirty.

Non-Action

We could lay the blame for non-action at his depression, but I still find it weird the idea that we should focus on non-action in a play where there’s so much action.

So I would like to replace this theme with another related theme that is often associated with depressive personalities and procrastination — that being: The Perfect is The Enemy of The Good.

Hamlet is after all not satisfied with killing his uncle, he wants him damned to hell in the same way his father was, that’s a big ask given the circumstances.

The Perfect is the Enemy of The Good as a theme of course is also a greater irony, from the outside looking in one could hardly find a more imperfect ending, his Mother is dead, he is dead, the girl he loved, a few others for not particular reason.

But wait, if our theme of Hamlet’s homosexuality and depression holds then what looks imperfect is, in some ways, pretty much the most perfect for Hamlet that can be wished for.

His uncle dies and in such a way that he is going to hell.

His mother dies but in a way that she should not be going to hell, according to the play’s rules. The ghost told him not to kill her as her living on would be the greater punishment, so thus her death is merciful and not Hamlet’s fault, which is good in that he has not disobeyed his father’s injunction against vengeance upon his mother while still achieving that vengeance.

Hamlet has not sinned in these killings by the rules of the play and therefore he may be supposed to go to heaven (admittedly this seems a stretch to me but I don’t believe in heaven anyway), but even better Hamlet can escape his life’s duty of ruling Denmark and getting a wife who will be unhappy and poison him sometime in the future.

I’m not sure if Polonius and his whole lineage dying doesn’t also match up with this ironic view of perfection.

The irony of this perfection is of course not just that from the outside (exterior to Hamlet) the perfection looks bad, but from Hamlet’s interior it seems good, but also that it is of course tragic and thus bad, but a perfectly tragic end and for the theatre — good.

after which a peal of ordnance is shot off.