The Imprisoned Hamlet

Prisons are like hospitals: they help cure patients to give them a second chance in life (although some might take longer than others). Just like our former president said, "America is the land of the second chance - and when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life." Prisons should be seen less as punishment and more as nourishment. That's why the acting of Hamlet in the prison was not only a great idea to help educate prisoners, but also a great way to reflect and learn from their mistakes by identifying with the characters of the play.

People would expect prisoners to be uneducated, illiterate murderers who are not willing to learn from their mistakes. Well, they could see us as privileged, ignorant people who are not willing to trust in them to be better people. That is our first problem in helping the prisoners. That's why the acting of Hamlet was brilliant. most of the actors were uneducated and there may have been a few problems in understanding the happenings of the play. But who knows, in the end, the prisoners might have understood better than others since they could have actually related Hamlet's (or any other character's) actions with their own. Their personal experiences were shown on stage.

One key concept of Hamlet is if the end justifies the means. Acting out the play, the prisoners were able to see the insanity of Hamlet bringing about tragic events and all the consequences for them. Like a domino effect, one tragic event causes another, and that one causes yet a worse one. Because of all the anxiety, anger and frustration builds up, Hamlet is unable to kill himself even if he wants to because he doesn't want to end up being like the unsatisfied spirit of his father that roams around Earth. Just like Hamlet's constraint, the prisoners are trapped in prison. And just like Hamlet growing insane and crazy, many people in prison could also lose sense of control over themselves. But, the third-person view of themselves through the play allowed the prisoners to realize many things that they hadn't realized before.

Just because someone is locked up in a prison doesn't mean that he/she is not a human. In fact, everyone lives in a sort of prison, just that some are bigger than others. Many people spend their whole lives living only in their own country, or even only in their own city. Prisoners spend their lives in prison. The only difference between the two is that one knows his/her limits while the other doesn't. Prisoners still have thoughts and feelings. They can still learn and educate their minds like us.

Fear of Being Fearful

Ghosts are like trials: they are innocent until proven guilty. And, once proven “guilty”, there is no going back. They are non-existent (innocent) until seen with one’s own eyes (guilty). Once they are seen, they cannot be unseen.

People have a tendency to pretend and even convince themselves to not believe in superstition. They are afraid that ghosts might actually exist. But, Hamlet views this aspect in a very different angle. When he sees the ghost of his dead father, he doesn't show any fear. At least, not the one that most people would feel. Instead of avoiding it and running away for sweet life, he runs towards it and starts to have a dialogue with it. It asks him to avenge his father's death by killing the murder, his uncle. Acting like the spirit's sycophant, Hamlet obsequiously tries to obey its orders. We can clearly see some kind of fear towards the spirit through his actions, but it's not because of the fear of death like normal people. He acts pretty normal about the existence of the ghost. In fact, he wants to voluntarily kill himself to have "freedom from the world" according to Northrop Frye. Frye believes that this strange fear for the ghost that Hamlet develops is actually "the fear that he might become just another such ghost." He's not afraid of the actual ghost, but of the possibility of becoming one once he is dead.

Whether you're Hamlet or an ordinary person portrayed in a typical Hollywood horror/ghost movie, the only conclusion I can come up with is that the appearances of ghosts, or any other supernatural event, will one way or another make you crazy and insane.

Hamlet Freud

I've come to notice throughout the past few weeks that psychology is one of the only subjects that can relate with almost any other subject. Even in literature.

In The interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud analyzes one of the greatest creations of tragic poetry, Shakespeare's Hamlet. Using the powers of psychology, Freud tries to understand Hamlet's behavior, even by relating it to the Oedipus Complex. He says that "Hamlet represents the type of man whose power of direct action is paralysed by an excessive development of his intellect." Long story short, he tells us that Hamlet can't get much done because he over thinks too much. Ironically, he implies it's a bad thing to do even though it's exactly what he does to be able to analyze and interpret the mind of Hamlet. He creates a paradox just as Hamlet does. In a way, Freud and Hamlet share parallel traits. In fact, it sometimes feels like Freud is only just analyzing himself. But, it would make sense of course, since psychology is based on the study of the behavior of human beings as a whole rather than the study of each individual being.



But just like Hamlet, there is one thing that Freud didn't really understand. After close examination he did find a logical reasoning in explaining the unusual crazy behaviors of Hamlet. I mean, it's natural for humans to feel that way when they are in the same situation as Hamlet. As a matter of fact, the crazy, yet intelligent, character of Hamlet actually seems to be a reflection and representation of the mind and feelings of Shakepeare since it was written immediately after his father's death. Furthermore, his son who died at an early age was named Hamnet (which really closely resembles the name Hamlet). But, Freud, the all-so-intelligent philosopher that impacted the world, had one thing that he couldn't quite grasp that Hamlet (nor Shakespeare) couldn't either. Freud once said, "the great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is 'What does a woman want?'”


...Yes, not even the most intelligent people in the world could answer that after all these years of existing on Earth. One of Hamlet's source of insanity comes from the disappointing behavior and actions of his mom. After the king's death, Hamlet's mom goes off to marry her supposedly beloved dead husband's brother. Not even the great power of psychology can explain that.

Anyway, besides that, we can trust Freud on the understanding of Hamlet's mind. His analysis might even be the most accurate one compared to all the others. After all, Freud easily empathizes with Hamlet, unlike most people who tend to feel sympathy instead.

Sidenotes

I found some sites that may be irrelevant to many, but still decided to post them up for personal reasons. So, here they are. The first one is a scene-by-scene summary of the Hamlet and the basic analysis of its general themes. The second one is an explanation of all (or at least most of) the puns and paradoxes within the play. Enjoy.

http://www.pathguy.com/hamlet.htm

http://www.shakespeare-navigators.com/hamlet/Pap.html

Hamlet: Entire Play

http://shakespeare.mit.edu/hamlet/full.html

An Obscure Window to the Prince's Past

Have you ever heard of a tale about an unfortunate prince whose uncle takes his dead (murdered) father's throne and marries his mother? No, it's not Prince Charming. This one's a bit more tragic: eight people, including the main character, end up dying in the course of the story. Although the story plot may seem a bit harsh or boring at times, the author's dynamic usage of literary devices keeps the reader entertained and puzzles the minds of many. Yes, it's the one and only play that we all know of: Shakespeare's Hamlet.
What makes this play so interesting is the surplus amount of different aspects and personalities that the main character, Hamlet, has. In one of the scenes, Hamlet goes through six different states of minds in only one soliloquy. Hamlet's indecisive personality is exceedingly diverse that even Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, a great actor who once took Hamlet's role while presenting the play, had problems fully analyzing him.

For the most part, I do agree with Goethe's analysis on Hamlet. But, the strategy he used seems to be a bit ambiguous and inaccurate. He first tried to characterize how Hamlet was before the king's death (before the beginning of the play) by using small hints scattered all around the whole book. He then stepped in the shoes of the made-up "past Hamlet" and tried to imagine what it would feel like to be in his situation. Then, he assumed that Hamlet would have probably felt the same way as he did. This strategy might seem ingenious, and I have to admit, it was a pretty clever idea, but the hints shown in the play about Hamlet's past personality is minimal. In fact, one can argue that his multiple-sided personality was exactly the same before his father's death. There are many scenes that show the reader that Hamlet doesn't actually feel much of anything, but is rather smart in getting what he wants Furthermore, Goethe, ironically, contradicts his own method of using Hamlet's past to develop his character. He stated, "his past condition he remembers as a vanished dream."
He just implied that Hamlet's past has nothing to do with his present condition and yet, he tries to use little insinuations about the past to determine the peculiar idiosyncrasies of the character.

Sounds like a hypocrite to me. But who knows, maybe Goethe is following Shakespeare's guidelines of literary devices and using irony himself to interpret Hamlet's feelings. He just doesn't know it.

Darcy and Elizabeth

Yes! I finally finished the book! The final chapters went by a bit slowly. The ending was slightly (if not, very) predictable, but it was enjoyable since it at least had some kind of a moral teaching (unlike modern-day chick flicks).

After all the problems between Lydia and Wickham, Darcy’s proposal towards Elizabeth seems unexpected and improbable among the characters. However, after the two marriages in a row (Lydia/Wickham and Bingley/Jane) and the general flow of the book, the reader can suspect the upcoming marriage.
This also coincides with the earlier foreshadowing, in which Elizabeth stated that Darcy’s house was “a large, handsome stone building, standing well on rising ground, and backed by a ridge of high woody hills; and in front, a stream of some natural importance was swelled into greater, but without any artificial appearance. Its banks were neither formal nor falsely adorned. Elizabeth was delighted. She had never seen a place for which nature had done more, or where natural beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste.” Maybe we, as readers, always knew, in a small part of the brain, how the book was going to end from an earlier portion of the book.

In the end, it wasn’t really about business as it was in the beginning. In the beginning, it was about the money, the wealth and the social class. However, it seemed that these things did not matter (as much) by the conclusion of the book. True love actually blossomed after all the events took place. Only after Dancy overcame his pride and Elizabeth her prejudice was the true love possible. In other words, the title of this book could as well have been ‘Dancy and Elizabeth’.