Green Eggs & Hamlet

April 18, 2007 7:14 PM

Shakespeare's Hamlet reveals both a genuine (melancholy) Prince and a great schemer in the sense that he is able to feign madness. I've read it. And read it again. Still, I can't seem to pinpoint a place where we are are unsure if his words are part of the plan or just crazy talk. Can you point to me to a part? Also, what tipped you off? Thanks.
posted by time to put your air goggles on! to Writing & Language (25 answers total)

I remember a teacher of mine pointing to the conversation with Polonius where they're looking at clouds--Hamlet is blathering on, comparing them to animals, and--in one interpretation--Polonius looks at Hamlet out of the corner of his eye when he agrees: "Yes, very like a whale." At that point, said the teacher, Polonius may have caught on to the crazy talk.

I guess it's an ambiguity that depends on stage direction.
posted by Phred182 at 7:20 PM on April 18, 2007

Unless I am misremembering, Hamlet was prone to switching from iambic pentameter to outright prose when launching into one of his spiels of madness. But I could be wrong, it has been a while.
posted by internet!Hannah at 7:27 PM on April 18, 2007

I think the fact that he is a great schemer indicates that he's not melancholy at all.
posted by winston at 7:28 PM on April 18, 2007

In act 1, scene 5, lines 127-134, he first hears of his Dad's murder and speaks "Wild and whirling words."

And yet:

Again in act 1, scene 5, lines 166-180, he confides to best pal Horatio that he will "Feign madness".

YMMV.
posted by Dizzy at 7:29 PM on April 18, 2007

winston-- I disagree. While Hamlet is a great mind, he is prone to breakdowns in the play, which reveal is sad state.

Example: Act II, Scene I, 550-595
posted by time to put your air goggles on! at 7:31 PM on April 18, 2007

Well, he does say that there's a method to his madness, doesn't he?

On the other hand, it depends how complex you want to imagine his madness is...and how you define madness, really. Then, consider that the line with Shakespearean characters often blurs in terms of how witty the character is and how witty the author is.
posted by bingo at 7:43 PM on April 18, 2007

Shakespeare built an enormous amount of ambiguity into his works, double and triple meanings, layers and depth. That's what has kept his work such a rich area to mine.

Hamlet can be read either way. And even a third, if you listen to Twinkle Twinkle, Killer Kane - Hamlet, who senses that he will go mad if he doesn't find an outlet for his emotions, feigns insanity to a degree, exaggerating his moods and wild fancies.
posted by adipocere at 7:54 PM on April 18, 2007

For an excellent understanding of Hamlet (and drama in general), check out David Ball's Backwards and Forwards.
posted by dobbs at 8:22 PM on April 18, 2007

Well, in many places Hamlet's words are a little confusing, so that his listeners aren't quite sure whether he's messing with them, or really messed up himself. Others have pointed to his discussion with Polonius, and his words to Ophelia are also confusing to her along these lines.

Keep in mind however that the evidence for Hamlet's madness isn't just that some of the things he says don't make sense, it's also that his actions are sometimes really (and disturbingly) weird. His indifferent attitude towards his murder of Polonius, his strange and crushing rejection of Ophelia (he holds her at arm's length and stares at her like a picture), and the fact that Gertrude can't see the ghost of Hamlet's father, have all suggested to some the possibility that Hamlet is messed up. And of course, Hamlet sees his own delay in taking vengeance as a kind of mental failure.

The obsessive, morbid, and nervous character of many of Hamlet's speeches may also mark him as mad, more than the nonsensical character of what he says.

Finally, your question seems to imply that melancholia would prevent someone from putting words together properly; however melancholy is a term for a sort of depression or ennui that doesn't imply an inability to articulate sentences, and that in fact was often associated with intellectualism.
posted by washburn at 8:33 PM on April 18, 2007

Hamlet is not crazy. He's faking it the whole time. That is, right up until Act IV, Scene 4, when he sees Fortinbras' army, and he essentially realizes, "Holy shit, look at this crazy bastard and his army. What the hell am I doing?" Then he comes to his senses, throws off the act and vows to get to it.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 8:56 PM on April 18, 2007

If I recall correctly, I was taught that the ambiguity was part of the complexity and brilliance of the play. adipocere sounds the closest to what I got out of studying that play under my profs. Granted, they were all super-duper metalevel-crazy post-mod profs, but I still dig it.

I bet every performance/director/performer/medium, etc., etc., etc., will have a nuanced take on your question.

Sorry if that's not helpful. Maybe if you read it again, consider looking for the complex ambiguities that were written into the script and enjoy 'em for what they are.
posted by juliplease at 8:56 PM on April 18, 2007

I'm not certain what you're asking. This question seems to be why dramaturgy is a profession. Pretty much any of the madness of Hamlet could be genuine or bogus. He could be faking all of it, or he could be one of those psychotic cases that convinces himself he's in control when he ain't. That's why there are so many productions of Hamlet.

I guess another answer to your question would be to get five or ten different movies of Hamlet and look at pivotal scenes. We did this in my high school English class and there was a huge range for some of them - where in some cases Hamlet would be absolutely batshit and in others, he'd be winking at the camera and stuff, clearly self-aware. That's why this play is interesting to read.

I think I probably don't understand what you're asking because it seems like there's clearly no answer.
posted by crinklebat at 9:38 PM on April 18, 2007

He's played by Mel Gibson.

And Schwartzenegger. (I thought Mel Gibson did surprisingly OK as Hamlet.)
posted by kirkaracha at 10:02 PM on April 18, 2007

This sounds a whole lot like a homework assignment. I suspect the original form was a lot like

Shakespeare's Hamlet reveals both a genuine (melancholy) Prince and a great schemer in the sense that he is able to feign madness. Pinpoint a place where you are unsure if his words are part of the plan or are genuinely insane ramblings. Cite specific lines and provide evidence.

In case it's not, check out Hamlet's scenes with Rosencrantz & Guildenstern.
posted by booksandlibretti at 10:18 PM on April 18, 2007

I've read Hamlet, played Polonius in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, and worked tech on Heiner Mueller's Hamletmachine, which I think gives me at least 70% as much authority to speak out of my ass on this as anyone. I suspect that Hamlet is mostly in control of his faculties, but is both under so much mental stress, and also such a great method actor that he sometimes pushes himself over the edge, that the audience cannot say for certain whether he's sane or not at any given moment.
posted by Guy Smiley at 10:31 PM on April 18, 2007

I think Hamlet answers this question pretty well: "I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw." He is mad in comparison to the people around him, but they are mad relative to the rest of the world. This doesn't mean Hamlet isn't mad, but maybe sometimes trying to oppose the prevailing winds takes him in the direction of sanity.

Rosencrantz: To sum up: your father, whom you love, dies. You are his heir. You come back to find that hardly was the corpse cold before his young brother pops onto his throne and into his sheets, thereby offending both legal and natural practice. Now... why exactly are you behaving in this extraordinary manner?

Guildenstern: I can't imagine.

I didn't feel like I understood Hamlet until after I saw the (sometimes literally) behind-the-scenes interactions in Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead.
posted by foobario at 10:46 PM on April 18, 2007

Cool Papa Bell comes close to the mark. Hamlet is never out of control of his faculties. As he himself says, the madness is an affectation -- and errant disposition -- to (a.) keep people off guard, (b.) keep himself alive long enough to formulate a plan of action that won't get him killed. See, the problem is that Hamlet doesn't know who he can trust. He almost slips, he almost brings Horatio and Marcellus into his confidence -- but decides to play it safe and changes his mind almost in mid-sentence:


HAMLET ... But you'll be secret?

HORATIO MARCELLUS Ay, by heaven, my lord.

HAMLET There's ne'er a villain dwelling in all Denmark

(Hamlet's about to tell them about Claudius, but suddenly realizes he can't. He shifts gears and starts babbling nonsense:)

HAMLET ... But he's an arrant knave.


==========

kirkaracha: (I thought Mel Gibson did surprisingly OK as Hamlet.)

Most Bardologists agree. Frankly, I have no problem saying his was the very best filmed Hamlet; his version was really only marred by the abbreviated beginning that inexplicably cut out some key material. But his performance -- full a decisive energy -- presented Shakespeare's man of action, rather than the silly turn-of-the-century wishy-washy Freudian fop epitomized by Olivier & Gielgud.

For strict power-of-interpretation, I'd probably go with Kevin Kline's version. But that was a filmed stage production, so the comparison is unfair.

Notice that Kenneth Branagh doesn't even get a polite smile. I was rooting for Claudius in his crap production.
posted by RavinDave at 11:31 PM on April 18, 2007

In the late forties, Borges wrote a series of pieces on Dante, one of which was entitled The False Problem of Ugolino, in reference to the poet's encounter with Count Ugolino Gherardesca, who he finds imprisoned in ice in the ninth circle [Canto XXXII-XXXIII]. Before his death, and as a capital punishment, Ugolino had been walled up inside a tower along with his children; Dante wonders if Ugolino had devoured any of them, in order to perhaps delay his own death from starvation. Without getting into semantics, Ugolino's answer is somewhat ambiguous, and Dante moves on further into Hell. Later commentators on Dante have tried to unpack the ambiguity of Ugolino's words, and find out whether or not (in Dante's eyes) he actually did commit cannibalism. Borges' point was that trying to uncover exactly whether the character in the Inferno actually did eat his children is a pointless exercise: the ambiguity was intentional in the text itself. Further, he then goes on to say something along the following lines (and bear with me, I don't have the text in front of me, so I'm pulling it from memory): the time of art is different from the time of reality. That is to say, in reality, when we take one particular option, the other possibilities are eliminated, and we continue down one particular path. In the time of art - of literature in this case - this doesn't happen: ambiguities don't necessarily need resolution, they can exist as ambiguities. One of the other examples Borges cites is Hamlet's madness: Hamlet can be, in the play, both mad and sane at the same time: the text, as art, does not necessarily demand resolution: in fact, it may encourage ambiguity (as adipocere and juliplease are arguing). Borges ultimate point is that if Hamlet (or Ugolino, for that matter), were people living in the world, walking around now, there could/would/should be an actual objective answer to whether or not they are mad or faking madness (or cannibals or not); because, however, the space they inhabit is different (it is art, which in this sense is more like dreams than waking), they can be both things at the same time.
Which is why we're still talking about this now, of course.
posted by hydatius at 12:00 AM on April 19, 2007

Shakespeare's main challenge in writing Hamlet was that the story of Hamlet was already extremely well-known. The story shows up in Saxo Grammaticus's Gesta Danorum; what's more, another version of Hamlet, likely by Thomas Kyd, had played on the London stages for years. If Shakespeare had strayed too far from the known plot, audiences would not have tolerated it.

We don't have a copy of Kyd's work, but in Saxo Grammaticus's book it's clear that Hamlet is absolutely, without question, faking it. There is no ambiguity whatsoever.

Some literary historians have written that Hamlet succeeds despite (or even because) Shakespeare couldn't imply with more than a handful of words that the character might very well be insane. He was constrained, the theory goes, by the fact that everyone "knew" Hamlet was faking it and would not have accepted a Hamlet who really was insane. So you have a writer/theatre manager trying to create a marketable product that audiences will accept while at the same time trying to add something of his own devising to the plot - without driving away the bulk of his ticket sales. No wonder the character is so ambiguous.

I'm not saying I agree with this, but the theory's out there.
posted by watsondog at 1:33 AM on April 19, 2007

The very second that Claudius appears with his politic speech accepting the kingship -- and rebuffing Hamlet's intent on going back to Wittenberg; keeping him under a watchful eye instead of risking the possibility he might raise an army abroad ... the audience is wondering two things:

1.) How did Claudius slip into the throne?
2.) How long until he kills Hamlet -- a very credible threat to his position.

Every groundling and bear-baiter in the theatre is saying: "I'm looking at a dead man." Hamlet's Fate is already sealed. Claudius knows his claim is inferior and that he only got it by courting the nobles and having his henchman apply pressure, call in favors and exploit Hamlet's absence (think of Polonius NOT as comic relief -- a mistake made by most modern productions -- but as an ultra-devious Elizabethan Karl Rove).

Bear these things mind -- things that would not really occur to a modern audience but would need no explanation to an Elizabethan crowd -- and you'll see that Hamlet, isolated and thwarted, has very few options beyond stalling for time. The "insanity ruse" accomplishes this admirably.

There is no doubt he was rattle by the ghost -- but rattled != insane. Besides, he flatly SAYS it's a ruse at least two or three times.
posted by RavinDave at 1:59 AM on April 19, 2007

a place where we are are unsure if his words are part of the plan or just crazy talk

How about the bit right at the end of Act I just after he's rejoined his friends after seeing the ghost? Hamlet is clearly shaken, and (as RavinDave said) wondering how far to trust his friends: he asks them to swear on his sword never to "make known what you have seen tonight"; Horatio and Marcellus agree; they're about to take the oath, and the Ghost's voice is heard under the stage, echoing "Swear! Swear by his sword." This happens four times, and the first three times Hamlet quickly moves his friends to a different part of the stage to lay their hands on his sword and start the oath again. It's unclear whether Marcellus and Horatio can hear the Ghost at this point; Hamlet is the only one who comments on it.

It's worth noting that it's only after this whole rigmarole that Hamlet informs Marcellus and Horatio of his plan "to put an antick disposition on."
posted by Pallas Athena at 10:37 AM on April 19, 2007

Hamlet's "mad" lines ("very like a whale") are obviously feigned. He says so in advance to Horatio. Even dull old Polonius comments "though this be madness, yet there's method in't."

I agree with washburn, however, that some of his actions are mad. His response to Caludius's plan to have him killed is to have Rosencranz and Guildenstern killed in his place, joking cynically that "'Tis sport to have the engineer hoist with his own petard" [i.e., blown up with his own bomb]. He's forced into mad actions by Caludius's evil.

He may be genuinely mad in his treatment of Ophelia. In Elizabethan usage, a "nunnery" was a brothel, not a convent. His cry "Get thee to a nunnery" means "go be a whore," which in turn drives her to madness and suicide.

Once the first murder (of old Hamlet) is done, the tragedy plays itself out, driving everyone mad and leaving them all dead.
posted by KRS at 12:11 PM on April 19, 2007

Regarding the Ophelia scene ...

There's a problem when you read the play and see it on the printed page. It's extremely easy (alas!) to miss things that are brought out in a live performance.

There are actually two scenes going on simultaneously. Hamlet may be "speaking" to Ophelia, but he's "talking" to Claudius (whom he assumes to be hidden behind the arras, either in person or in the proxy of Polonius). He knows he's been set up. He knows Ophelia betrayed him. (Whether it's fair for him to blame her for obediently following Polonius's demand is immaterial; in Hamlet's eyes she "whored" herself out and is no different than Rose and Guildy).

In short, reread the scene an imagine Hamlet catching a glimpse of someone behind the curtain. Suddenly, inscrutable lines take on lucid meaning.
posted by RavinDave at 1:18 PM on April 19, 2007

I totally agree with RavinDave.
posted by time to put your air goggles on! at 7:09 PM on April 19, 2007

Hamlet, isolated and thwarted, has very few options beyond stalling for time. The "insanity ruse" accomplishes this admirably.

Hm. Having just read Stephen Greenblatt's chapter on Hamlet in Will in the World, it might be worth noting in the interests of diversity of opinion that Greenblatt's interpretation of Hamlet's madness (p. 303-307) directly undermines RavinDave's contention that Hamlet's insanity ploy "accomplishes admirably" a need to stall for time. Greenblatt does note the coherence of that plot device in the medieval source Shakespeare used (in which Hamlet is a young boy when his father is publicly murdered, and so pretends for years to be insane while he bides his time and prepares his revenge), but points out that in Shakespeare's retelling, the murder is secret and Hamlet's uncle has no reason to suspect anyone knows he's guilty:

...in Shakespeare's version, Hamlet's feigned madness is no longer coherently tactical. Shakespeare in effect wrecked the compelling and coherent plot with which his sources conveniently provided him. And out of the wreckage he constructed what most modern audiences would regard as the best play he had ever written. Far from offering a cover, the antic disposition leads the murderer to set close watch upon Hamlet...Instead of leading the court to ignore him [as in the original source material, when Hamlet was a young boy], Hamlet's madness becomes the object of everyone's endless speculation.

[...] By excising the rationale for Hamlet's madness, Shakespeare made it the central focus of the entire tragedy.

I can't do his argument justice here, of course. Greenblatt also disagrees that "Hamlet is never out of control of his faculties," noting that Hamlet "never seems more genuinely insane" than when he's talking to his mother about hiding his strategy and encouraging her in detail to canoodle with his uncle.

Anyway, I'm not equipped to judge between competing Hamlet interpretations, but thought it was worth pointing to an interesting interpretation that problematizes what might be a slightly too neat and simple take from RavinDave.
posted by mediareport at 8:57 PM on April 21, 2007