| "The Tragedie of Hamlet" is not a play
about revenge. It is a play about the revenger. The act of revenge
itself is unimportant, irrelevant. What is vital, however, is
the transformation in the character of the one called upon to
perform this act.
When the ghost appears to Hamlet and delivers its revelation
to him, Hamlet touches and is touched by the supernatural. The
veil of Maya is torn down and hangs in rags before his feet and
his eye pierces all illusion and now perceives the more terrible
beauty of Existence. He sees the skull beneath the bone. He alone
has been chosen to receive it. Therefore he is seperated from
humanity.
After the visitation of the ghost, we behold a Hamlet who can
now read obscure signs and strange alphabets in the earth and
sky; who conceives himself larger and greater than all others
(including the Hamlet who existed before this visitation); who
now holds the keys of Heaven and Hell; a Hamlet who can now bless
and unbless. For the knowledge granted him is not to heal wounds,
but to inflict them.
What was Hamlet like before his father's death? Some critics
like to think that there are certain scenes, for example with
the Players, where we are allowed to glimpse this old Hamlet who
lived in Wittenberg. I think that is wrong. After the visitation
of the ghost, nothing can ever be the same again for or of him
- nothing. His new knowledge is inherent in every word he says
and every act he performs. Nothing is done or said in innocence
or ignorance anymore. The ghost is inside him. Like a Sokratic
daimon, it never leaves. Two hands feel the thing he touches,
two mouths taste the wine he drinks: his and the ghost's. The
Hamlet who existed before is dead. Hamlet killed him.
Why doesn't Hamlet kill Claudius immediately? Because he doesn't
have to. He knows that Claudius is guilty, his mind contains everyone
else and in his mind Claudius is damned eternally. His knowledge
is his power. To take Claudius' life is to lose that power, to
have the divine taken away from him and to return into a mere
mortal once more.
Should he reveal the guilt of Claudius to everyone else and demand
Justice be done? But then his power would be gone. Or should he
keep it to himself and instead enjoy and revel in his power over
Claudius, letting Claudius know he knows in order to make him
fear and tremble that Hamlet will reveal it?
Hamlet does not delay because he fears the order of the ghost,
but because he goes beyond it. What originally begins
as a personal and secret mission against one man is
transformed by him into a prophetic crusade that incorporates
and judges the world. Hamlet has been granted this dangerous
flaming sword of knowledge and been ordered to use it
only in one particular circumstance: to take the life
of his uncle. But granted such a weapon he applies it
everywhere: to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Polonius,
the Players, Horatio, Gertrude, even Ophelia. What does
he say after he has killed Polonius? |
