Pastiche of Hamlet
Oh, mother! What have you done? Are you mad? Have you forgotten that this evil man is my father’s brother? How could you? Probably, this is all you could have done relying on your small brain! The most ambiguous thing is that you could have waited a bit. Why have you married this cad? The father’s grave is still fresh and the grass has not grown yet; the flowers on his grave are still fresh and smell sweet as if they were put there yesterday. I don not blame you for your desire to be happy even after his death… Who am I trying to deceive? I blame you… Yes, I blame you and your new husband because it is your fault. This is all your fault and you are the ones to blame! Do not close this page because it would be interesting for you to learn something about yourself and your new husband.
You should not have believed the sweet words of this liar for I know the truth and can prove it. I saw the ghost of my father, the true owner of this empire and he told me about the genuine reasons of his death. Well, you have a right to think that I am insane and that my thoughts have mixed because of sorrow and pain. The thoughts are not as clear as before, this is the real truth. You can tell everyone that your son is mad, though I am not a drunkard and not a drug addict; I am the son of my father and want the truth to be available to everyone. That is why you all can now read this message on my official website which is aimed at revealing the genuine reasons of some things happening in my life.
Now I am talking to you, my dear mother! You knew the truth from the very beginning of this mysterious adventure. I believe that you should have suspected this cad who now calls himself your husband. What is wrong with you? Are you afraid of him? You are the one who could have called police but you have done nothing because you believed this have been the best decision for all of us. Did you ask me or dad whether we wanted to live the life you have chosen with my uncle (or should I now call him ‘father’?)? Everything in this world has its reasons and consequences and I believe that you will be punished someday for your cruel intentions and for all those evil things you have already done or would like to do after reading this message. To detect a deadly poison in the blood of my father was not an easy task, though the modern technologies allowed me to do that. I have the evidence of your crime and you will go to the jail. All crimes should be punished in accordance with the laws for legal issues are the only things left to fight with unfair actions of people like you.
Explanation and Defense of the Pastiche
The main reason I have chosen the Tragedy of the Prince of Denmark written by William Shakespeare to follow its thematic elements is the depth of emotions and feelings revealed through monologues and dialogues of the tragic characters. So, I believe it is necessary to give some brief summary so that the readers could understand what elements were borrowed from the tragedy. However, it seems that everyone has read or have heard about the tragedy in different interpretations; which means that the plot is known to the most part of my audience. Nevertheless, I want to introduce my vision of the main character, his intentions, and his emotions because the emotions and feelings present the main value of the tragedy. The true king is dead, the prince is deceived, the queen is spellbound with sweet melodic speeches of the king’s brother; it seems that everyone is under a spell which can be cast away with the common sense brought by Hamlet.
The main character of the tragedy is Hamlet, a young man who comes to know about the real reasons of his father’s death from the ghost that claims to be the spirit of his father. It is unclear whether Hamlet believes the ghost or not, though he starts to revenge his father’s murder. The characters that happen to be under attack are Hamlet’s mother and his uncle who is considered to the main suspect and who gets married with Hamlet’s mother. Though the story seems to be tangled and intricate, it is clear who the bad guy is and who is the good one. Thus, Hamlet is a good son who wants to take care of his mother instead of suspecting her in collusion with the murderer of his father. The protagonist founds himself guilty in disability to fight with the evil presented by evil people.
So, the story that I have invented does not follow neither style, nor genre of the original piece of literature. However, the theme is the most obvious element which can be found on the pastiche. The most difficult part was to capture the emotions of the young man who blames the whole world in the unfairness of events that took place in his life. I hope the despair is clear as well as his resoluteness and vigour to punish the people who, as he supposes, are guilty in this cruel manslaughter. I wanted to take the theme and present the modern vision of it when a teenager is unable to make decisions by himself as he is not an adult and cannot teach his parents what to do.
The tragedy of the real Hamlet was the idea of revenge, whereas the pastiche is aimed at letting the readers know about the feelings of a teenager who finds his mother being married to his uncle after his father’s death. The message is posted on the webpage of Hamlet; this message is for both the society which does not want to recognise the outrageous injustice that takes place every day and has not been punished yet and for his mother. Gertrude can be viewed either as a victim of a deceitful Claudius, or as his accomplice in the cruel crime. The message is supposed to be a cry from the heart of Hamlet, his call for help and understanding. I believe that you have noticed that the name of Claudius is not mentioned in the pastiche. This was done in order to make his image a common one or, if you want, to introduce an image of a common criminal that can be found in the streets.
Difficulties in Work
It is necessary to indicate the most difficult parts of work that were successfully solved. The understanding of Shakespeare has to be evaluated with the help of some extra assessment scale because the number of themes discussed and the number of problems raised by the author are enormous. Consequently, it is possible to choose the most appropriate topic for discussion within the plays written by William Shakespeare. Hamlet is undoubtedly of great value for comprehension of the reasons of a young man’s revenge. As the pastiche is created in order to transfer some thematic elements of the tragedy into the modern world with a different understanding of certain aspects of life, I found it relevant to make the king an owner of some business and the justice can be re-established by police.
The most problematic element was to make the main character encounter a ghost of his father and make everyone believe that he is not under the influence of drugs and alcohol. As the time of Shakespeare made the existence of spirits and ghosts a normal thing, the modern comprehension of the situation incorporates madness into the person who claims to have seen a ghost. Another element which I consider successful is that the phrase from Hamlet’s monologue in the play when he talked about the old shoes of his mother meaning that too little time has passed; this part was interpreted with the help of the image of the fresh grave. Finally, it was very interesting to transfer Shakespearean elements into the modern world which is alien to Hamlet and his revenge.
Work Cited
Lawall, Sarahl. The Norton Anthology of Western Literature: Beginnings through the Renaissance. Volume 1. 8th ed. London: W.W. Norton, 2005.