CONTAIN SPOILERS ABOUT THE REPUBLIC AND HAMLET
So this past week has been quite hectic with reading The Republic and Hamlet at the same time, but out of nowhere, I made a connection that I now can't get out of my head.
Hamlet is The Republic.
The Republic is Hamlet.
So during the time that Shakespeare made Hamlet, The Republic was a common text read by scholars, poets, and all other sorts of people. With this text being read by many, I believe that Shakespeare might have actually based Hamlet off The Republic. This theory could actually be true, being that they contain very similar elements, except one talks about those elements (The Republic) and the other is "living" them (Hamlet).
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| Doctor Fate |
So being assigned, "How do people deal with conflicting elements within their personalities?", I decided to defy fate and blend my theme and my idea together.
The Republic talks about what makes a Just man "just" and what makes a unjust man "unjust", and then about the difference between each, and also the benefits of each. So basically, lets just keep it at 2 things.
1. How the just and unjust are seen as by others.
2. How the just and unjust feel emotion wise and how they deal with said emotions.
And please DON'T include the perfectly just and the perfectly unjust, that is an entirely different blog post.
So as we saw character after character die throughout Hamlet, 3 characters stuck out to me, each with a different way to display or convey their emotions. These three characters we're Hamlet, Claudius, and Gertrude. I wish I could talk about people that might not be considered main characters in the entire play, but these three appeared to me to show what I was looking for.
Hamlet was the character who felt almost forced as the main character, but this ties in with how he is the "just" one in this play. Throughout this plays entirety, we saw him kill person after person until he finally died himself. And with the sword that caused his death, he killed 2 people with it before his demise. That, in itself, is pretty awesome and probably one of the only things I'll give him credit for doing. But seriously, Hamlet really bugged me throughout the play, but that adds to the fact that he is Just. In The Republic, it is said that a just man is seen as unjust, while the unjust are seen as just.
Throughout the play, Hamlet repeatedly had times where he could have killed Claudius, but chose not to because Claudius was "doing good" at the time. For instance when Hamlet entered to Claudius praying for forgiveness, he says, "Now might I do it pat, now he is praying; And now I'll do't. And so he goes to heaven; And so am I revenged" (3.3. 74-76). If Hamlet had killed Claudius in this/other moments, Claudius would have died being just, which would have covered up the bad things he had done and allowed him to live throughout history as a matyr. This would have caused everyone to have pitied him, felt sorrow for him, and caused people to fight in his death. All of which he didn't deserve at all.
Honestly, I would have been happy if Hamlet had killed Claudius then and there, but alas, Shakespeare had to have dramatic ending and such. But back to how Hamlet handled his inner emotions/elements. Reading through the translated side, Hamlet pulls out his sword to kill Claudius, but then sheathes it because he decides to quell his emotions for another/better time. This is a prime example of how Hamlet repeatedly has trouble controlling his emotions, because he is literally living them, until towards the end of the book where his good side and bad side seem to agree on one thing. Killing Claudius.
Claudius, unlike Hamlet, is almost set on being bad until midway through the book where he prays and starts to feel guilt about certain things. But, I will say that not once does Claudius admit his emotions to others out of guilt, but out of death. So he never really did let his emotions show, which fits how everyone in the entire book sees him as a good man up until after death, which isn't his fault because he was dead and couldn't really do anything about it.
He even did this whole speech crap about how his brother was so great and mighty, and that he was so sad about his death, he states with 'sadness', "Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death the memory be green, and that it us befitted to bear our hearts in grief..." (1.2. 1-3). To me, you can sum this up as "Boohoo! My brothers dead and stuff. Now I'm king and his wife and throne are mine." I know that that is pretty dry with no emotion, but that's on purpose to represent what Claudius did with his emotions. He silenced them. He quenched them. He ignored them.
No Hablo Emotions.
He just poisoned his brother, married his wife, and stole his kingdom that he seemed to be doing a pretty good job running. If I was Claudius, I probably would have cracked at the first time I sat on the throne. He just killed someone for crying out loud! That person being his brother for crying outloud! And he is able to just ignore that?! To me, he has no soul! Maybe he is Voldemort in disguise or something...
Claudius is a prime example of how people are able to take their emotions, and not even remotely acknowledge them. Being that Hamlet "lived" his emotions, and Claudius ignored his, it makes sense that the two are polar opposites. Good and bad. Just and unjust.
Gertrude is a very lame character to me. She is portrayed as a clueless mom, according to pretty much everyone in the books. And if my mom is like other moms, they are sharp as tacks and have eyes in the back of their heads. Literally.
Anyways, Gertrude is kind of an oddball to me, being that she is such a bad character who never seems to grasp what is going on around her. So I'm going to make a new term for her. She is the clueless just. This being that she is "just", but only in her own terms since she is so clueless as to what good and bad are that whatever is in front of her at that moment tends to be the thing she will believe or put trust in.
For instance, Gertrude is being talked to by Hamlet about how Claudius isn't as good as everyone thinks he is. Telling her, "Oh, throw away the worser part of it, and live the purer with the other half" (3.4. 159-160). After reading this quote, remember that crap has been hitting the fan for the past couple of acts and something fishy is going on. Gertrude has alluded to knowing some stuff about this, but has ignored it up til now. Then her supposedly crazy son comes in and kills someone, claiming that she is a horrible person, and that his father is now a ghost who sent him on a trip for revenge. I would definitely be confused about this just like her, but unlike her is if/what I would do about it.
If she isn't able to see that somethings going on here, she is blind. Her son has just killed Polonius, who seemed to be conspiring with her and Claudius. And Hamlet stated something about how he had stabbed the wrong person. Hmm, wonder who the other person could be in your evil trust triangle? Oh wait, it's not evil to her because she is to blind to see the good and the bad in people.
Walking out of the situation, she is in shock. Even with how blind she is, she has had her mind changed about something, until Claudius steps in. Your son just has this whole speech about how evil he is, and you still just want to talk? Leave it to Gertrude to be so oblivious to this entire thing, that she allows Claudius to convince her that Hamlet is actually crazy, and that the entire speech with all the reasons why Claudius is evil is false in every way. Great job Gertrude.
And then I love how the next day she be sitting on her chair watching Hamlet and Laertes fence it out, as if nothing happened. Prime example of clueless-ness right there
Roping Gertrude into the whole emotions/inner personality thing, this one was a little tougher to make a definitive decision on how she handles her emotions. Obviously she has emotions, they exist, but it seems that they aren't there for long. She has a short attention span. She forgets her emotions soon after they've shown up. Basically, her emotions are just there for show, she's a lady who cares about her social appearance. Other then for keeping up her looks, her emotions don't matter unless they are right in her face.
Conclusion
I thoroughly enjoyed Hamlet, it is a cool play, with some mystery and suspense. (Although, I totally called the part where Claudius was evil and stuff) Overall, I'm happy with how this blog turned out, even though it was really time consuming. I feel that I summed the entire thing up pretty well, including where I was able to mix what I wanted to write about and "what my fate was".
Sources:
Doctor Fate Picture: http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2014/061/b/5/doctor_fate_young_justice_by_fateroid12-d78n8lo.jpg
http://nfs.sparknotes.com/hamlet/
You made some great revisions to this blog. Nice work, Carter. I can see the pride in your work.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your characterization of Gertrude as "Clueless Just" in your blog. You're right that she is an innocent character, but she is innocent by virtue of her trusting and accepting nature. She doesn't do a whole lot of just things. She is just the rare person who isn't unjust.
I'm glad you rejected fate and took this down your own road that combined the topic fate gave you and the topic you wanted to examine. This is a good look at justice as it relates to the characters in the play.
The only thing your quotations are missing would be the character who is speaking. You could say something like, "After Hamlet kills Claudius, he says, "Quotation goes here" (Citation). Then you'd be even more amazing.