Hamlet: Power of the Mind

With a lot of time to digest the play Hamlet, I was drawn to the internal struggle within the characters. I took Hamlet as an example of Realism, when the ethical choices of characters are more important than the plot for instance its not as important that Hamlet is set forth to avenge his father and dies but it is the uncertainty of the human mind that causes impulsive action.

The forefront of the debate is whether or not Hamlet truly is “mad.” To give my two cents, I do believe the ghost of the King was seen initially in Scene I but the stressors of Hamlet’s reality manifested the need to avenge his father. In class we explored the word “madness” which was repeated 22 times throughout the play. I tested this theory with the word “mind” which had 16 results. The first reference to the mind is referenced to the body of Denmark as a whole:

Horatio

A mote it is to trouble the mind’s eye.
In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets;
As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun; and the moist star,
Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands,
Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.
And even the like precurse of feared events,
As harbingers preceding still the fates
And prologue to the omen coming on,

The allusion of foreshadowing throughout the poem represents Hamlet’s increased anxiety. He had never coped with the death of his father, and the remarriage of his mother to a corrupted tyrant, he feels that his emotions are out of place. Hamlet is struggling with the moral dilemma of internal acceptance and the impending demise of his country. Act 1 Scene 2; the dialogue with his mother and Claudius is pivotal to how Hamlet begins to perceive his situation and the people around him:

QUEEN 
Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not forever with thy vailèd lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust.
Thou know’st ’tis common; all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.
HAMLET 
Ay, madam, it is common.
QUEEN If it be,
Why seems it so particular with thee?
HAMLET 
“Seems,” madam? Nay, it is. I know not “seems.”
’Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected havior of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
That can denote me truly. These indeed “seem,”
For they are actions that a man might play;
But I have that within which passes show,
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
KING 
’Tis sweet and commendable in your nature,
Hamlet,
To give these mourning duties to your father.
But you must know your father lost a father,
That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound
In filial obligation for some term
To do obsequious sorrow. But to persever
In obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness. ’Tis unmanly grief.
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschooled.
For what we know must be and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we in our peevish opposition
Take it to heart? Fie, ’tis a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd, whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse till he that died today,
“This must be so.” We pray you, throw to earth
This unprevailing woe and think of us
As of a father; for let the world take note,
You are the most immediate to our throne,
And with no less nobility of love
Than that which dearest father bears his son
Do I impart toward you. For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire,
And we beseech you, bend you to remain
Here in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

The importance of this quote derives from how Hamlet is last seen as a son and only primarily an heir to the throne to keep power within the family. The queen lacks the empathy of a mother who lost a husband and a father to her child. Claudius more or less calls Hamlet’s grief “cute” as if an infant lost their stuffed animal. The king’s speech also includes another reference to the mind this time as infantile and impatient. He argues that Hamlet is simple minded:

Of impious stubbornness. ’Tis unmanly grief.
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschooled.
For what we know must be and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense

Then juxtaposes himself in saying that death is bigger than us so it isn’t worth thinking about resulting that ignorance is also being simple minded:

Why should we in our peevish opposition
Take it to heart? Fie, ’tis a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd, whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse till he that died today,
“This must be so.”

Every character is aware of the power of the mind and the process of working through emotions is considered mad and unmanly. The aspect of this play gives the sense of deep internal anxieties of life’s uncertainty and masking it with the idea that shit happens