In each Shakespearian tragedy, there is at least one riddle, without having solved it, the character suffers and defeats. Generally, Hamlet’s riddles remain not only unsolved but, alas, even not noticed. And though many researchers speak about the “mysteriousness” of this play by Shakespeare, they simply do not see the riddles in the text as a rule. The main secret of hell (where Hamlet appeared) is the name of its winner. That is Christ. It also is “the easiest word,” capable of changing Hamlet’s soul. Alas, Hamlet does not understand this. And if so, the words told by Hamlet to his father become clear also:
Do not look upon me;
Lest with this piteous action you convert
My stern effects: then what I have to do
Will want true color; tears perchance for blood (III, 4).
It is worth mentioning that poison plays a special role in “Hamlet”. It is obvious that Hamlet is the representative of the new world. His new world is based on the principles of humanism. So, to my mind, poison is the so-called ‘bridge’ to this world. Hamlet brings a new era to his kingdom.
Klavdy, for four months, has ruined three generations of the Danish monarchs: old Hamlet, Prince Hamlet, and its successor. Two queens are also killed: one last, another – that could become the future. Certainly, after that, there should be a change of a dynasty. Everybody is punished, except for pragmatist Horatio who should become Polonium at Fortinbrace but will be worse than Polonium. Horatio has no soul, no children, and no friends. He is the person-function, the person-official, the newest person of the newest time attacking Europe.
Poison in the play has more than just the meaning of substance used to kill a person. But it symbolized greedy for power and riches. Poison is the feeling that kills people who can not appreciate the things that are really valuable in life – friendship, love, kindness.
It should be obligatorily mentioned that poisoning was not just a means of Hamlet’s revenge, but it carries the meaning of good that wins evil. Of course, there is still a riddle because even after the death of Hamlet’s enemies, he does not feel happy and easy. This revenge does not bring happiness to him, and he suffers. I think that the answer to this riddle is that his ways of revenge are not good.
It is an interesting fact that the problems touched by Shakespeare in his play “Hamlet” are of current importance even today. The problem of a fight between good and evil, betrayal and friendship will always exist and never disappear.
The tragedy can have improbable effects on our feelings; it forces them to turn constantly in the opposite, to be deceived in the expectations, to encounter contradictions, to fork; and when we experience “Hamlet,” it seems to us that we have gone through thousand human lives in one evening, and is exact – we had time to feel more, than in the whole years of our usual life. And when we together with the hero start to feel, then he does not belong to himself.
The most awful in the consciousness of the epoch was that the object of its deepest belief was the Person regenerated. Together with this consciousness fear of an act, with each step, the person further moved ahead in the depth of the imperfect world.