"I, the son of a dear father murther'd,Prompted by revenge by heaven and hell,Must (like a whore) unpack my heart with wordsAnd fall a-cursing like a very drab,A scullion! [...]That guilty creatures, sitting at a play,Have by the very cunning of the sceneBeen struck so to the soul that presentlyThey have proclaim'd their malefactions [...]Before mine uncle. I'll observe his looks;I'll tent him to the quick. If he but blench,I know my course. The spirit I have seenMay be a devil; and the devil may hath power"
-The Tragedy of Hamlet (2.2. 1660-1674)
Grief and sorrow are the backing force behind why people feel that they deserve justice. Grief and sorrow have another side though; they can be formed from guilt. The quote from act 2 scene 2 in The Tragedy of Hamlet, show both sides of grief and sorrow. Hamlet is grieving over the death of his father and he feels that his fathers murder is not just. That feeling of revenge puts him in a position where he wants to get back with his uncle who killed him. Later in the verse, Hamlet describes his plan to make his uncles guilt come out. Guilt eats you up and causes you to feel sorrow for what you have done in the past. Hamlet has realized this and used it against his uncle. Hamlet's mourning process continues throughout the story.
Grieving and mourning is a long process that brings back memories, and brings along horrible days of mixed emotions. Everybody has a "bad" day every so often, and that is what the mourning process is; an accumulation of bad days back to back. In those days, you say things that you don't mean and you act in ways that you normally wouldn't. Hamlet says that "I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves, all; believe none of us" (3.1. 1817-1820). Leading up to Hamlet's speaking, he had a relatively bad day. He had taken part in a disagreement with Ophelia who is what he believes to be the love of his life. Hamlet had made this comment about himself that he may not have said if he were in his normal state of mind.
In this time in the mourning process, everything that at one point made you feel happy, seems to turn against you to become grief . Shakespeare describes this as "The passion ending, doth the purpose lose. The violence of either grief or joy, their own enactures with themselves destroy. Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament" (3.2. 2086-2089). Essentially, this means that grief and joy may bring us to action but, when the feelings of grief or joy are done, our encouragement to continue acting, disappears. This causes us to realize that joy turns into grief.
Nobody can go through life only grieving over the death of somebody such as a father or mother, nor could they go through life having endless joy. Everybody gets hit with melancholy or happiness at least once in their life. This is the cycle of mourning. You experience grief, sorrow, guilt, revenge, justice, and finally, happiness. Bad times start the mourning cycle, and good times end it. Each time something major happens negatively to you, the process restarts. You will find happiness once again though. The No Fear Shakespeare version of The Tragedy of Hamlet, says that "Joy turns into grief in a blink of an eye, and grief becomes joy just as quickly. This world is not made for either to last long in, and it's no surprise that even our loves changes along with our luck" (3.2. 185-190). Joy turns to grief and grief turns into joy just as easily.
Nobody can go through life only grieving over the death of somebody such as a father or mother, nor could they go through life having endless joy. Everybody gets hit with melancholy or happiness at least once in their life. This is the cycle of mourning. You experience grief, sorrow, guilt, revenge, justice, and finally, happiness. Bad times start the mourning cycle, and good times end it. Each time something major happens negatively to you, the process restarts. You will find happiness once again though. The No Fear Shakespeare version of The Tragedy of Hamlet, says that "Joy turns into grief in a blink of an eye, and grief becomes joy just as quickly. This world is not made for either to last long in, and it's no surprise that even our loves changes along with our luck" (3.2. 185-190). Joy turns to grief and grief turns into joy just as easily.
Your opening sentence is really powerful and it's hard to argue with it. You do a good job of making a connection so that your blog is meaningful even without the understanding of the entire play, and that's hard to do. You show how grief makes our desire for immediate justice very intense, and you show how it can drive people to feel like they need to become the creators of justice on their own. It's also true how you stay that Hamlet works really hard to make people feel guilt, including Gertrude, Claudius, and Ophelia. That seems to be really important to him.
ReplyDeleteIt would be great if you could bring in a link or some research on the grieving process that you summarize really well. But, research or an outside source will make that more authentic.
You bring in quotes incredibly well and cite them appropriately. You make them work for you. Your opening quote may be a little excessively long, so your readers may not read all of it right away.
Can you come up with a slightly better, more descriptive title? It would be fun to see what you can come up with that is a complete thought instead of a label. This isn't graded, but it would be fun to see what you could come up with.
This is a difficult subject, because it's tough to argue against the fact that Claudius needs to be "brought to justice" and that Hamlet is the one who should do it. However, you show how grief can cloud and complicate the decision making process and how our emotions can harm our thoughtfulness and our rationality.
This is a very good blog. If you brought in either modern research (with a link) or a modern day example or connection, you would benefit even more.
Thanks for your work here. This is an excellent blog. I really appreciate this.