Introduction
Chapter XX-XXII of Aristotle’s poetics are devoted to tragedy, a definition is given and its formative elements are discussed. Aristotle lists four kinds of tragedy according to their constituent elements. The 1-complex tragedy with reversals, 2-the tragedy of suffering dealing with painful events arising out of incidents of a pitiable and fearful nature, 3- the tragedy of character, and 4-tragedy of spectacle.
Shakespeare’s famous play Hamlet belongs to the third category of Aristotle’s classification of tragedy. The story of the play revolves around the hero Hamlet, who is rather than being an action hero is (contrary to the expectations of the audience) a hero of INACTION. Revenge is the main motive in the play. So Aristotle’s formula of (intension action-consequence) works here. But it is the delay in action rather than action that brings about a great downfall in which the hero also meets a tragic death along with his revenge victim, involving many more deaths, which could have been avoided. Shakespeare owes the revenge theme to the influence of Seneca the ancient Roman dramatist.
Hamlet
Hamlet is the story of Prince Hamlet’s revenge against his uncle Claudius, the prince of Denmark. On his return from Wittenberg where he was a scholar, Hamlet comes to know that his father is dead and that his uncle Claudius has become the king. He also finds that his mother Gertrude has married Claudius. Soon his father’s ghost appears before him and tells him that he was murdered. The ghost tells him that it was a murder most foul, strange, and unnatural. Hamlet, shocked by the revelation and shaken to the core by the knowledge of his mother’s role in the act, immediately makes his intention clear in the presence of the ghost.
Haste me to know, that I with wings as swift
As meditation or the thoughts of love
May sweep to my revenge. (Acta.SceneV.L 29-31)
Thus the revenge motive is established in the exposition itself. Hamlet’s intention to take revenge for his father’s murder is also established. The ghost agrees and says, ‘I find thee apt.
Hamlet considers it his duty to protect the honor of the queen, his mother. The ghost narrates to Hamlet how Hamlet’s mother was Claudius’ accomplice in the murder. But neither the father, not the son wish to punish her. Hamlet thinks that his uncle has married his mother because she is the jointress and Claudius has used her to usurp the throne. Nevertheless, she was a party to murder and no one else must know it. So he makes Horatio and Marcellus take an oath to keep this knowledge a secret. This shows Hamlet’s good intentions.
The knowledge affects Hamlet’s behavior as it changes his entire attitude towards King Claudius and Gertrude in particular and human life in general. So when the king addresses Hamlet as my cousin Hamlet and my son, Hamlet reacts.
A little more than kin, and less than kind. (Acta.SceneII.L65)
However, Hamlet is a learned and judicious man. He can not kill a man following a ghost’s testimony. He must first satisfy his conscience and confirm his uncle’s guilt with solid evidence. Hence he decides to feign madness.
As I perchance hereafter shall think to meet.
To put an antic disposition on. (Acta.SceneV.L179-80)
Hamlet is a sensitive young man. He is deeply disturbed by his mother’s act of being a party to his father’s murder and later, her marriage with Claudius. Yet he cannot be rude to her. In the third act he says:
soft, now to my mother,
…let me be cruel, not unnatural.
I will speak daggers to her but use none.
(Act I.SceneIII.L383-7)
In the third act He also tells his mother:
My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music. It is not madness
That I have uttered. Bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word, which madness,
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass but my madness speaks.
(ActIII.SceneIV.L142-8).
His harshness then finds vent in his behavior with Ophelia. He hurts her deeply. At the end of his famous soliloquy ‘To be or not to be’ he sees Ophelia coming. He says to himself:
Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered. (iii.SceneI.L87-9).
Some critics believe that in the process of feigning madness Hamlet turns mad. This is debatable. But when Ophelia comes he is very rude to her. He remarks that beauty and chastity cannot coexist. He tells her, ‘go thee to a nunnery. This is a reaction to Polonius’s remark that to find out the cause of Hamlet’s madness, he will loosen his daughter to him. In a bitter exchange in the second scene of the third act, he tells her that the actor will show anything that you show him.
ay, or any show that you will show him. Be not you ashamed to show (private parts) he will not shame to tell you what it means. (iii.SceneII.L140-2).
This act of throwing such insults at Ophelia shows his unbalanced mind. But there is no doubt that Hamlet loves Ophelia. In the fifth act, Ophelia’s dead body is brought for burial. Hamlet is shocked to the core to know that she is no more.
Hamlet is a great scholar. The second scene of the third act shows Hamlet as an erudite dramatic critic. He talks with absolute authority.
o, it offends me to the soul to hear a
robustious previewing –pated fellow
tear a passion to tatters, to very rags,
to split the ears of the groundlings,
who for the most part are capable of nothing but
inexplicable dumb shows and noise.
I would have such a fellow whipped for overdoing Termagant. (Acta.scenario.Ll8-24)
Hamlet goes on to say that the purpose of art is
to hold as ‘twere the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her feature, scorn her image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure”. (Acta.SceneIII.L21-24).
Indeed this is what Hamlet attempts to do in real life. This leaves us with no doubt that he is perfectly sane. His madness was only the ‘antic disposition’ he has assumed to find out whether his uncle is guilty of his father’s murder.
Hamlet is honest to the core. He is very judicious. It could be that Hamlet is upset because he is deprived of his rightful ascendancy to the throne. When Rosencrantz wants to know the reason for Hamlet’s madness. He urges Hamlet to take Him in confidence or he will surely end up in jail as a madman. Thereupon Hamlet answers:
Hamlet. Sir, I lack advancement.
Ros. How can that be, when you have the voice of the king himself for your succession in Denmark?
Hamlet. Ay, sir, but while the grass grows –the proverb is something musty. (iii.SceneII.L330-5).
Hamlet means that there is an old stale saying according to which the horse will starve if he has to wait till the grass grows for it to feed upon. This shows Hamlet’s desire to be the king.
Hamlet is a philosopher and not a man of action. But we must note that although Hamlet is not capable of planned and premeditated action as seen in his procrastination, he is capable of impulsive action. There are many things that we did not expect him to do because he is meditative and philosophical. But in these cases, he acts purely on impulse. He kills Polonius on the spur of the moment. He boards the pirate ship alone; he leaps into Ophelia’s grave after Laertes does so. Finally, he stabs Claudius. None of these actions are premeditated. Moreover, Hamlet is completely disregardful of the consequences of these actions.
While Hamlet is ‘speaking daggers’ with his mother he kills Polonius taking him to be the King hiding behind the arras. When he finds that he has killed an innocent man Hamlet has no remorse. He says:
thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell. (iii.SceneIV.L31).
The Revenge act is not accomplished as quickly as expected because Hamlet keeps procrastinating. Every time he finds an excuse to put off the act. He will wait till his conscience is fully satisfied he is not punishing an innocent man. This shows Hamlet’s philosophical nature and his intellectual depth as it also shows his unpredictable nature. Therefore he devises a plan. Hamlet engages the Gonzago players to perform an act called the Mouse Trap.
I’ll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle…
The play is the thing
When I’ll catch the conscience of the King.
(ActIII.SceneI.L590-601)
The play ‘the murder of Gonzago” convinces Hamlet of the truth of the Ghost’s story.
Hamlet is a philosopher and an idealist who lacks the courage to act. He puts off the revenge act when he sees his uncle alone praying. He does so on the ground that if he were to kill the king during prayer, he will send him to heaven.
Thus Hamlet’s irresolution is unmistakable. During the play, many circumstances goad him to action but Hamlet lacks the capacity for vigorous action.
Hamlet, by his ill luck, his error of judgment, and by his involvement in evil, has been the cause of misery to others. If he had been single-minded or ruthless like Fortinbras or Laertes he might have been able to accomplish his revenge without the trail of tragic deaths which he left behind. The more he thinks the more he is incapable of action. Thus, this noble prince, popular among the people of his country, drags himself and all those around him to untold misery and tragic death.
Laertes
Laertes, son of Polonius and the brother of hamlet’s beloved Ophelia is a noble young man. Laertes is a young man, just setting out into the world, full of youth’s sap, and eager for life; fond of his sister, and jealous of her honor and his own; obedient to his father, but scarcely listening to his advice – and with a certain worldly wisdom and insight into affairs of state, which left him above the ordinary, and prepare us for the swift action he takes when the sister he loves is drowned of her pain, and the father he honors is slain by Hamlet. He has suffered bitter sorrow at the murder of his father and the madness and the death of his sister, and we realize that any impetuous man would behave as he does to avenge these losses. He loves his father and his sister.
After the wedding celebration of Hamlet’s mother Gertrude and uncle, Claudius Laertes prepares to leave for France. Before leaving Laertes gives a long speech to his sister Ophelia instructing her to stay away from Hamlet’s profanation of love. He intends to protect his sister.
Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood,
A violet in the youth of primary nature,
For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favor,
Forward, not permanent, not lasting,
The perfume and suppliance of a minute,
No more. (Acta.SceneIII.L5-10)
He warns her against being taken in by the advances that Prince Hamlet has been making to her and tells her that, even if Hamlet is in love with her, the Prince may not be able to marry her because his choice of a wife is “circumscribed” by the position that he occupies as heir to the throne. Again, when he is bidding adieu Laertes warns his sister against Hamlet’s responses
…weigh that loss your honor may sustain
If with too credent ear you list his songs,
Or lose your heart or your chaste treasure open
To his unmastered importunity. (Acta.SceneIII.L29-32)
Again before leaving for France Laertes reminds Ophelia:
Farewell Ophelia and remember well
What I have said to you. (Acta.SceneIII.L84-5)
This shows how much he cares for his sister. His good intention of protecting her against evil is seen here.
When he returns from France he finds a reversal of the situation. His sister has gone mad, she is gone into depression which later transpires into suicide. Laertes says:
And so have I a noble father lost,
A sister driven into desp’rate terms,
Whose worth, if praises may go back again,
Stood challenger on mount of all the age
For her perfections. But my revenge will come.
(Act IV.SceneVI.L25-9)
The murder of Polonius incites Laertes to revenge. On his return, to Denmark, Laertes quickly goes to the King and accuses him of the murder of Polonius. Why, he asks, did the King not take action against Hamlet so far if Hamlet’s guilt is so certain? He wants quick action and is determined to take revenge. Laertes is a man of action. He declares:
Let come what comes, only I’ll be revenge
Most thoroughly for my father. (Activ.SceneV.L135-6)
Hamlet is the cause of all this. Laertes is determined to take revenge on him. He swings into action. Being a popular youth it is easy for him to acquire popular support in a rebellion against the King himself. In the fourth Act a messenger tells the queen:
…young Laertes, in a riotous head,
O’erbears your offices. The rabble call him lord,
And, as the world were now but to begin,
Antiquity forgot, custom not known –
They cry, ‘choose we! Laertes shall be the king. (Activ.SceneV.L101-6)
Thus we find that Laertes, despite the smoldering passion in him, is in full command of his senses.
Laertes is a noble-minded person. Even Hamlet talks most reverentially of him Hamlet, however, speaks of Laertes with utmost regard:
That is Laertes, a very noble youth. Mark. (V.SceneI.L217)
Laertes wants to have revenge on the guilty. He wants to punish only his father’s enemy and nobody else. This shows his sense of justice.
none but his enemies. (Activ.SceneV.L143)
The king instigates Laertes against Hamlet. His scheme is that as soon as Hamlet returns to England Laertes should challenge Hamlet for a fight and kill him. Laertes says:
I will do’t.
I bought an unction of a mountebank
So mortal that but dip a knife in it,
Where it draws blood. (Activ.SceneVI.L138-42)
He will dip his sword in poison that will prove fatal for any mortal creature. This shows Laertes’s honest desire to take revenge on Hamlet.
Hamlet, however, speaks of Laertes with utmost regard:
That is Laertes, a very noble youth. Mark”. (A5 Sc 1 L 217)
Towards the end when Hamlet is on the verge of death, he says to Horatio:
But I am very sorry, good Horatio,
That to Laertes I forgot myself;
For by the image of my cause I see
The portraiture of his. I’ll court his favors”.(V.SceneII.L75-8)
Comparison
While Hamlet and Horatio are in some respects complementary in character, Laertes is a complete contrast to Hamlet. These three persons seem to form a triangle of forces, with each exerting strong pressures on the others. The character of Hamlet is many-faceted and very complex. Scholars have forever been analyzing it from different angles and they continue to have hairsplitting arguments. They will never tire of doing so. And there lies the success of the play.
The revenge motive is common among Hamlet and Laertes. Hamlet makes it a matter of scholarly study and keeps analyzing it, seeking evidence, and so on. The character of Laertes, on the other hand, is straightforward. He wants revenge and loses no time in going about it.
Both Hamlet and Laertes are judicious men. Both have been seriously wronged. Each has lost a father he loved. What aggravates their grief is that these murdered men were innocent.
Both want revenge. But Hamlet is a philosopher who broods over the murder. Hamlet lacks the capacity for vigorous action. He cannot react instantaneously. On the contrary, he misses the chances where he could have taken his revenge by killing Claudius. But every time he puts off an action. It is his procrastination that is the cause of his tragedy and also of those around him. In the revenge act of Laertes Hamlet saw the reflection of his revenge motive against King Claudius. When they come face to face Hamlet apologizes to Laertes.
Unlike Hamlet, Laertes has no scruples and needs no evidence to support his courses of action. This is clear from his readiness to believe Hamlet’s ultimate responsibility for all the tragic events that have taken place at the court during his absence and his willingness to go farther than the King to make sure that Hamlet is killed in the fencing match.
Structurally, the play of Hamlet is dominated by the pairing of various characters to reveal one as the foil of another. “I’ll be your foil, Laertes”, says Hamlet, punning on the resemblance that elsewhere he seriously acknowledges. Laertes has returned from abroad to help celebrate the royal wedding; he loses his father by violent means and seeks vengeance. The common people, usually loyal to young Hamlet, are roused to new hero worship upon the occasion of Laertes’s second return to Denmark. Laertes is burdened with a responsibility like Hamlet’s, moves to expedient action without scruple. He turns at first on Claudius, who is technically innocent of Polonius’s death. The popular insurrection will simultaneously feed Laertes’s revenge and his ambition. Presented with untested and partial evidence concerning Hamlet’s part in Polonius’s murder Laertes would “cut his throat in the church”. He does grapple with Hamlet in the graveyard, striking the first blow and prompting Hamlet to assure his rival that he is not “splenetic and rash”. More than that, Laertes connives with the King in underhanded murder; it is Laertes who thinks of poisoning the sword’s point with an unction already bought of a mountebank.”
In the revenge act of Laertes Hamlet saw the reflection of his revenge motive against King Claudius. When they come face to face Hamlet apologizes to Laertes. He pleads with madness as an excuse for his misbehavior. He admits that he has offended Laertes’s sense of honor and aggravated his grievance against himself. He should be forgiven because he was not in his senses.
Wasn’t Hamlet wrong’d Laertes? Never Hamlet.
If Hamlet from himself be taken away,
And when he’s not himself does wrong Laertes,
Then Hamlet does it not. Hamlet denies it.
Who does it then? His madness. (V.SceneV.L 228-35)
While playing the fighting match, Laertes gets a chance to kill Hamlet as Hamlet is talking to his mother who is urging him to have a drink. As Hamlet is distracted a little, Laertes tells the king that it is his chance,
Laertes. my lord, I’ll hit him now.
King. I do not think
Laertes.
[Aside]And yet it is almost against my conscience.
(V.SceneII.L298-30)
They fight again and Laertes slays Hamlet.
Throughout the play, while Hamlet keeps us wondering and puzzled, especially his so-called antic disposition or feigned madness, his procrastination, Laertes takes our sympathy and admiration. Both Hamlet and Laertes are successful in their revenge plots, and they both pay for these plots with their lives.
Finally, While Hamlet seems to believe in the proverb that Vengeance is the dish that should be eaten cold, Laertes agrees with the saying that Revenge is a kind of wild justice
The early Elizabethan period saw an intellectual revival of interest in the Latin and Greek classics. Seneca, the Roman dramatist produced the tragic effect by horrifying incidents e.g. arrival of the ghost, bloody actions, and ranting speeches.revenge was the main motive in his works.