Hamlet

[shelby10]

Any familar with this play might be able to help me out.

Act 2
If Hamlet tries to use the play to "catch the conscience of the king," what is Shakespeare trying to do to our consciences in the larger play?

Anyone?

[Redzeppelin]

Any familar with this play might be able to help me out.

Act 2
If Hamlet tries to use the play to "catch the conscience of the king," what is Shakespeare trying to do to our consciences in the larger play?

Anyone?

Difficult to answer because "conscience" implies some reflection on right/wrong behavior - how have I as viewer of the play become involved in right/wrong behavior? Your question seems to imply that my conscience is supposed to be affected by the play - but how can that be without some moral problem for my conscience to engage with?

[Bastet]

Well, maybe the moral problem is whether Hamlet's actions (the few he performs in comparison to his continuous reflection) are right. If you think about it, he's trying to avenge his father's death, which might be seen as a good, heroic action according to the standards of his time. However, does the end justifies the means by which he gets his revenge? Think of all the people who die in the process... Ophelia, for instance.

[Redzeppelin]

Well, maybe the moral problem is whether Hamlet's actions (the few he performs in comparison to his continuous reflection) are right. If you think about it, he's trying to avenge his father's death, which might be seen as a good, heroic action according to the standards of his time. However, does the end justifies the means by which he gets his revenge? Think of all the people who die in the process... Ophelia, for instance.


True: but the only death we can really implicate Hamlet for is the killing of Polonious - it was unintentional (in that Hamlet thought he was stabbing Claudius) and even he acknowledged that he would be called to account for the homocide. But the others? Collateral damage for their own scheming (except for Ophelia - the only innocent victim of the play). The "Mousetrap" reveals Claudius' guilt, Gertrude dies due to Claudius' treachery, Laertes dies through chance (the switched foils).

[Ray Eston Smith]

What was on Hamlet's conscience? Whether "to be or not to be"...."so much like the king that was and is the question of these wars." Shakespeare wanted the audience to think about whether they should blindly follow the King (or Queen or Pope or President) into wars "to gain a little patch of ground that hath in it no profit but the name"..."which is not tomb enough and continent to hide the slain." The issue in Shakespeare's time was the land that Henry VIII had confiscated from the monasteries a generation earlier. A dozen years before Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, Phillip II of Spain launched his Armada against England in an attempt to regain that land. The religious wars raging across Europe were really about land. For more details, please see http://academia.wikia.com/wiki/Be_All_My_Sins_Remembered

- Ray Eston Smith Jr

[schadenfreude]

I think that the play demonstrates how easy it is to lose our morality, especially when we are obliged to take revenge. Hamlet is quite abominable when he shows no remorse for killing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, even Horatio is a little shocked. Laertes also dismisses his conscience when he plans his duel-scheme with Claudius, although he regains his honour in the end when he renounces Claudius. Shakespeare seems to be commenting on the difficulty of balancing integrity with ideas such as honour, revenge and ambition.