The Theme of Uncertainty

Hi there,
I was wondering if you'd mind answering a question...

How is the theme "uncertainty" explored in Hamlet?

thanks!
lucylucy :)

I have read it a long time ago and I can recall the major parts of the drama. The major character, Hamlet always procrastinates and for he cannot rely on anything. He cannot rely on what the apparition said and nor on his own conscience and everything becomes indecisive infinitely until something happens and that destroys everything else.

Yes the protagonist found nothing reliable and engages himself in thinking indefinitely and brings a cause to total destruction of himself and his own fellow-beings in the end.

Just about every major character endures uncertainity. Hamlet about the Ghost's reality, Claudius's guilt, Gertrude's integrity, and the wisdom of revenge. Claudius about Hamlet's intentions. Polonius about the intentions of Laertes and Hamlet. Ophelia about Hamlet's erratic behaviour to her. Gertrude about her husband and son. Horatio about the future. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern about Hamlet's state of mind.

Thanks for your help. I caught most of them, but...Could you specify a quote to substantiate the claim: Polonius about the intentions of Laertes and Hamlet. Ophelia about Hamlet's erratic behaviour to her. Gertrude about her husband and son. Horatio about the future.

You can use the search feature here when you read the online text version. Type in words that mean something like certain or uncertain (fear, doubt, sure, unsure,etc.) and it'll direct you to lines.

You are awesome!!!!!!!!!! Many thanks.:

I find Hamlet in everyone of us and our reality is a flimsy and opaque reality. And full of uncertainty too and we cannot at times rely on our senses too. They too deceive us. Yes, we all are Hamlets. The way Hamlets could not rely on his own eyes and ears. We too in a different predicament fail in our judgments remaining hemmed in a cloud of uncertainties. We love someone and who knows like Hamlet we cannot rely on our lovers. Hamlet was too sad when his mother and uncle did not mourn enough. If we look around in society we will come upon so many such Shakespearean dramas. Maybe the characters are different, the timing is dissimilar and the context is unlike but we are in a drama.

The wind of uncertainty is blowing all the time sweeping us here and there and we oscillate like a pendulum, and the frequency of oscillation is high and low. There are too many highs and lows and that is how an air of uncertainty keeps on breezing for eternity

Maybe I'm answering "a bit" too late!
However, the theme of uncertainty is explored throughout the whole play and as a result of that one can notice even language itself is uncertain.
It's curious noticing how Hamlet's extreme sharpness couples with skepticism: that leads one to assume he questions language itself and the word "DOUBT" may be one of the key words of the entire play.
Even DOUBT itself is put in doubt!
If you take his letter to Ophelia - the famous one starting with "Doubt thou the stars are tire..." - it has been said by many critics the word doubt has two meanings, both signifying "to doubt" in the modern way, and "to suspect".
Besides from language, the work itself is centered around the theme of "uncertainity" and Hamlet's inability to accomplish his revenge could be linked - if not caused by - the lack of certainties.
One could maybe say ethic itself is accompanied by doubt, so the whole thing could be summarized by the question "What's to be done?"

Of course, you've got "To be or not to be...". What more uncertainty could you want?

The big uncertainty that hangs over the play is what happens after death and how we can save our souls.