Hamlet as a sovereign

[smiley]

hey guyss..

im doing a discussion at school based on the question, 'does hamlet aim to become the sovereign?' and really needed help..

i was hoping you guys would be full of opinions so please help

xx

[smiley]

can somebodyy pleaseee help ?

[Nightshade]

I have moved this thread to a more appropriate sub-forum.

[Gladys]

Originally Posted by smiley

im doing a discussion at school based on the question, 'does hamlet aim to become the sovereign?' and really needed help..

The following from II:2 suggests that Hamlet, who seeks to return to Wittenburg, lacks royal ambition.

* Hamlet. Denmark's a prison.

* Rosencrantz. Then is the world one.

* Hamlet. A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and
dungeons, Denmark being one o' th' worst.

* Rosencrantz. We think not so, my lord.

* Hamlet. Why, then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good
or bad but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison.

* Rosencrantz. Why, then your ambition makes it one. 'Tis too narrow for your
mind.

* Hamlet. O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a
king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

* Guildenstern. Which dreams indeed are ambition; for the very substance of
the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

* Hamlet. A dream itself is but a shadow.

* Rosencrantz. Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that
it is but a shadow's shadow.

* Hamlet. Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretch'd
heroes the beggars' shadows. Shall we to th' court? for, by my
fay, I cannot reason.

But from the quoted passage, how can Hamlet assert that 'Then are our beggars bodies', our beggars men of substance?

[Ray Eston Smith]

A part of Hamlet (the scholar from Wittenberg) dreads becoming king, but another part (Prince Hamlet the heir of his father and his uncle) does have "dreams of ambition." He fears those dreams will trouble him even after death: "For in that sleep of death what dreams may come."

He knows that royal ambitions to acquire land (like his father who killed Fortinbras Sr to acquire a piece of land, Hamlet's inheritance, and became "the question of these wars," and like Claudius who killed a brother to gain a kingdom) is a sin. But he also knows he is infected with that sin. He says of Osric:

.. 'tis a vice to
know him. He hath much land, and fertile: l
.....
spacious in the possession of dirt.

But Hamlet does know Osric and, as Hamlet says later, "to know a man well, were to know himself."

Hamlet tries to overcome his inherited ambitions, but it is difficult "for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it."

Thus, under the influence of his father's ghost, Hamlet says, "I am very
proud, revengeful, ambitious" - like father, like son.

Yet, when he is not "from himself taken away," Hamlet wants nothing more than to go "back to school in Wittenberg." His true self is like his fellow scholar, Horatio - "Horatio, or I do forget mysef." Horatio, "That no revenue hast but thy good spirits, / To feed and clothe thee?" Hamlet told Horatio:

Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice
And could of men distinguish, her ELECTION
Hath seal'd thee for herself; for thou hast been
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing,
A man that fortune's buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks: and blest are those
Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled,
That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee.

But later, in a rant against Claudius, Hamlet said,

He that hath kill'd my king and whored my mother,
Popp'd in between the ELECTION and my hopes,
Thrown out his angle for my proper life,

He is complaining that Claudius thwarted his ambition to be king. But the word "election" echoes its usage in the previous speech to Horatio. So "popp'd in between the ELECTION and my hopes" has a double meaning. To Prince Hamlet, his "hopes" are to "be as ourself [Claudius] in Denmark". But to Hamlet when he is not "from himself taken away," his "hopes" are to be as Horatio in Wittenberg.

- Ray