Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Shakespeare’s play Hamlet has become the most popular of his plays over the years. It is as popular now, if not more popular, than at the first performances in the early 1600’s and this shows that Hamlet is still popular with contemporary audiences even 400 years after it was written. There are many reasons why Hamlet is still relevant to contemporary audiences and these are expressed through the narrative conventions of Hamlet. As there are so many conventions present in Hamlet it is best summarized by a quote from Kenneth Branagh, ‘It has everything- intrigues, romance, politics, violence, revenge, jealousy, wit. It plays itself out on such a grand scale.’

Shakespeare is the best known play write to this day and his plays are still popular 400 years later. He achieves this by incorporating an intriguing plotline and in the play Hamlet he uses many techniques to captivate the audience and that is why it has been so successful. Firstly, he keeps the suspense at a high level throughout the play by having cliff-hanging moments followed by a humorous scene and this engages you in the play and makes you want to never stop watching it. The plot also deals with universal human concerns and these apply to any time period between 1600 and 2008 and potentially beyond. There has always been murder, revenge, love and tragedy and because of this, everyone could relate to it.

Hamlet’s characterization is also a very important characteristic to Hamlet and adds to the popularity of the play. Even at our first encounter with Hamlet, it sets the tone for the whole play. Even without Shakespeare providing an elaborate description of Hamlet's features, we can envision his pale face, tousled hair, and intense, brooding eyes. Dressed in black, Hamlet displays all the ' moods and shapes of grief'. Hamlet's tremendous grief is intensified by this lack of feeling by those around him, and more significantly, by the cold-hearted actions of his mother, who married her brother-in-law within a month of her husband's death. This act of treachery by Gertrude, whom Hamlet obviously loved greatly at one time, rips the very fabric of Hamlet's being, and he tortures himself with memories of his late father's tenderness towards his mother:

So excellent a king, that was to this Hyperion to a satyr, so loving to my mother, That he might not beteem the winds of heaven Visit her face too roughly; heaven and earth, Must I remember?... (I,ii,141-45)

The respect and awe Hamlet has for his father is seen in the passage above, as the Prince compares the late king to Hyperion, a Titan in classical mythology. The godlike view of his father is enhanced by the comparison of Claudius to Hyperion's antithesis, the satyr, a creature half-goat and half-man, known for its drunken and lustful behavior -- the behaviors of the new king, Claudius. It is no wonder, then, that Hamlet develops disgust for, not only Claudius the man, but all of the behaviors and excesses associated with Claudius. All these things deal with the dark aspects of human nature, and give us cause to think about our own all too human condition and this.

Hamlet’s major antagonist is a shrewd, lustful, conniving king who contrasts sharply with the other male characters in the play. Whereas most of the other important men in Hamlet are preoccupied with ideas of justice, revenge, and moral balance, Claudius is bent upon maintaining his own supreme power. The old King Hamlet was suggestively a stern warrior, but Claudius is a corrupt politician whose main weapon is his ability to manipulate others through his skillful use of language. Claudius’s speech is compared to poison being poured in the ear, the very method he used to murder Hamlet’s father. Claudius’s love for Gertrude may be sincere, but it also seems likely that he married her as a strategic move, to help him win the throne away from Hamlet after the death of the king. As the play progresses, Claudius’s mounting fear of Hamlet’s insanity leads him to ever greater self-preoccupation; when Gertrude tells him that Hamlet has killed Polonius, Claudius does not remark that Gertrude might have been in danger, but only that he would have been in danger had he been in the room. He tells Laertes the same thing as he attempts to soothe the young man’s anger after his father’s death. Claudius is ultimately too crafty for his own good. In Act V, scene ii, rather than allowing Laertes only two methods of killing Hamlet, the sharpened sword and the poison on the blade, Claudius insists on a third, the poisoned goblet. When Gertrude inadvertently drinks the poison and dies, Hamlet is at last able to bring himself to kill Claudius, and the king is felled by his own cowardly invention.

Themes are a crucial part of a narrative and death is the most effective theme that Shakespeare incorporates as it is used to create mystery. There is always the uncertainty of death as no one actually knows what occurs and Shakespeare has portrayed both aspects of death in Hamlet. The spiritual aftermath of death, embodied in the ghost, and the physical remainders of the dead, such as by Yorick’s skull and the decaying corpses in the cemetery. Death is both the cause and the consequence of revenge. It is closely tied to the theme of revenge and justice. The theme of death is present throughout the play as Claudius’s murder of King Hamlet initiates Hamlet’s quest for revenge, and Claudius’s death is the end of that quest. In his famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy (III, i, 56-89), Hamlet philosophically concludes that no one would choose to endure the pain of life if he or she were not afraid of what will come after death, and that it is this fear which leads him thinking about suicide however Christian beliefs restrain him from this act.

The notion of avenging the wrongful killing of another was one commonly recognised in Elizabethan times and Hamlet takes this concept to extremes as a theme in Hamlet. Hamlet must seek vengeance for his father’s murder and this is shown in the text when the ghost is telling Hamlet about his death.
"Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder" (I, iv, 25)

This becomes his sole purpose and he seems to forget all other aspects of his life, even his love for Ophelia. His actions become inconsequential to him, even though they mean the ruining of his own life. During his quest for revenge, he accidentally murders his lover’s father, Polonius, sparking Polonius’ son Laertes to seek vengeance against him. A circle of retribution with Laertes begins, as he teams-up with Claudius to avenge Polonius and Ophelia while Claudius is also anxious to be rid of the melancholy Prince. In essence, where do the killings end? If for every murder there must be a retaliatory killing, the vicious circle would never end.

The setting is also an extremely important aspect of the play Hamlet as it brings together all the aspects outlined above and adds extra emphasis. Hamlet was first written and composed in the early 1600’s and the setting gives us an insight into life as it was in the Elizabethan Era. This will draw more people to read Hamlet as they want to see how life was like in the Elizabethan Era and even though it is an exciting foreign time, place and context it still holds thematic relevance. The setting can also give us an insight into plot developments such as the graveyard setting in act five brings foreboding mood and an almost foreshadowing of what is to happen.

All these narrative conventions themes, plot, characters and setting all add to the dramatization of Hamlet and make it a popular play. So much so that it is still relevant to contemporary audiences 400 years after it is written.