Significant Issues In Hamlet

I am taking a college Shakespeare course. I am being asked to identify and Discuss two significant issues in Hamlet. These are ideas which SHAKESPEARE is asking the audience to wrestle with. I have few ideas of but own but I was wondering if anyone else had any ideas that they would like to share. These ideas are suppossed to be significant in todays world also. One idea i have was the issue or to be or not to be. I feel that although it is hamlet's soliloquy he is also asking the audience wrestle with the idea of just blindly following A king (president now days) into a war. If anyone can elaborate or give me any other ideas I would greatly appreciate it.
Kelsey

I was also wondering How did shakespeare build humor into this otherwise somber play? I'm not really seeing any humor. The onlyhumor is see is the play on words in almost all the scenes

Kelsey, hi,

I´m teaching Hamlet at the moment, so maybe I can help.
Issues: Death, attitudes towards death, political corruption and Shakespeare´s portrayal of court life , revenge, language/languages in Hamlet, acting/playing, madness. There are a lot more too.

As for the comedy, look at Act 5, scene 1 (the graveyard scene). The role of the gravedigger was played by Armin, the clown in Shakespeare´s company. His riddling with his mate and the witty exchanges he has with Hamlet are pretty funny. Although, it´s black humour as they´re in a graveyard and after all Hamlet doesn´t know it actually Ophelia´s grave at this point.

Hamlet himself appropriates much of the traditional clowning role, you´re right about his witty double meanings but he takes the piss out of Polonius quite mercilessly and this can be played in a very funny way. In his mad moments
he can be outrageous and funny too.

A play of Hamlet´s tragic depth, does, after all, need some comedy to lighten the burden of all that philosophising about death.

Hope this helps a bit.

Thank you very much for that insight. I am a homeschooled student and I have just switched to independant study. This class can be fairly difficult to do by yourself. This website will hopfully give me a better opportunity to have the discussion benefits that I'm missing in a class room setting. The part that is fairly aggravating is that Shakespeare seems to refuse to make any of the moral delemmias easy to answer. He wants theaudience to wrestle with today's issues whether it be his time or now, because his issues are still significant today. Of the significant issues like political corruption, a HUGE problem in today's world. Death, hamlet in the play seems to be unafraid of death, he is almost "asking for it" to come and take him. Then revenge, revenge seems like something that had to do with reputaion back then. Revenge is still an issue today because some people refuse to let things go, but how else is the revenge significant in the play?

Maybe a good choice would be something about "courage." He gets after himself in that monologue where he tells about an actor producing tears just by pretending, whereas he has a real reason to have tears and act, but can't:

"Oh what a rogue and peasant slave am I? ..."

Later he calls himself "pidgeon-livered" and that he lacks gall to make oppression bitter. Also, he says he "peeks like John-a-dreams." I once knew what that means, not now, but assume it's not very complimentary towards himself.

I see how this speech is significant, but how does shakespeare get "double mileage" out of his seech? I guess the question is kind of confusing and I just dont know what I'm being asked for. Any help is appreciated.

Two big issues in the play are (1) turning resolution into action and (2) the dualities of the human condition. The first is more commonly interpreted as Hamlet's delay though delay is also an issue with Fortinbras, Claudius, Laertes, Pyrrhus and Lucianus. The second is more pervasive and finds expression through structure, character, and language. If you're interested in more detail I can be more specific.

A question that comes up a lot for AS is whether revenge and justice are compatible. This idea runs through much of the play. I hope that helps...

I believe that two main themes that run through-out the play would be question of "why we are here on earth, and what becomes of us when we die." I believe the graveyard scene with Hamlet and Yoric deminstrates this. Hamlet is constantly wrestling with the issue of life's purpose and the idea that everyone is equal in death.
Another prominent theme would be that of suicide. Hamlet struggles with this question (in to be or not to be speech), and other character's disscuss this theme, during Ophelia's funeral and also Hamlet touches on this with the gravedigger

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Originally Posted by Kelsey22

I am taking a college Shakespeare course. I am being asked to identify and Discuss two significant issues in Hamlet. These are ideas which SHAKESPEARE is asking the audience to wrestle with. I have few ideas of but own but I was wondering if anyone else had any ideas that they would like to share. These ideas are suppossed to be significant in todays world also. One idea i have was the issue or to be or not to be. I feel that although it is hamlet's soliloquy he is also asking the audience wrestle with the idea of just blindly following A king (president now days) into a war. If anyone can elaborate or give me any other ideas I would greatly appreciate it.
Kelsey

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My class that is reading Hamlet right now has a different outlook on the famous 'to be or not to be' speech. It is believed that in this scene Hamlet is asking the audience what they think will happen when they die. Meaning, are we put on this world for a reason, or are we just biding our time to become nothing more than dust. Or rather, does it matter if we take our own lives to go into eternal rest.

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Originally Posted by Hyatt07

My class that is reading Hamlet right now has a different outlook on the famous 'to be or not to be' speech. It is believed that in this scene Hamlet is asking the audience what they think will happen when they die. Meaning, are we put on this world for a reason, or are we just biding our time to become nothing more than dust. Or rather, does it matter if we take our own lives to go into eternal rest.

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To me I view the speech as more of a debate on whether or not to commit suicide. I personally believe that Shakespeare left most of his work open to interpretation. As many ideas that there are about these plays, this is the only explanation that makes sense.

I think one of the main issues in Hamlet would be the quest for truth. This is a theme present in stories through the ages. Hope this give you something to work off of.
-Amelia

Suicide has to be mentioned. It is mentioned or implied way too much in the play to not be considered an issue.

I think Ophelia's death was a little suspicious and it strikes me as more of a suicide than an accident.

In addition, the graveyard scene in Act V questions the morality of suicide. Is it right or wrong? I think Shakespeare was trying to make the audience think about that.

I'm not condoning suicide, but in the play, you begin to wonder if it is the right thing for certain characters to do. For a few of them, it makes perfect sense to me.

I think we are missing a primary aspect, which is dealing with loss. In the play Hamlet, Fortinbras, and Laertes all lose their fathers to the hands of another man. While they deal with it in slightly different ways, it all comes down to revenge. It consumes them in all of their actions and affects their relationships with others from there on out.

"to be or not to be..."...haha, 'the proverb is somewhat musty'. Our struggle to unlock its existential meanings never ends does it? Well, to my opinion. Probably flawed and dismally obvious...ah well. This question is one of those great philosophical questions- and, characteristically, it has no answer (or, at least, that man can find). Note, at the end of his soliloquy, he hasn't exactly answered 'to be or not to be'- he has only resigned himself to inaction, because what he doesn't know frightens him more than what he does know. It is, all in all, a pointless quest for a truth that shall perpetually remain hidden.
also...What makes us struggle onward, when it would be so easy to die? Why do we choose to live?
If you are asked to link on the play itself, and not just decrypt a single line, it is crucial that you touch on hamlet's state of mind at this stage. Melancholy has completely percolated character, and it is because of the corruption that surrounds him that his mind is thrown into such agonizing meditations.

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Originally Posted by byquist

Maybe a good choice would be something about "courage." He gets after himself in that monologue where he tells about an actor producing tears just by pretending, whereas he has a real reason to have tears and act, but can't:

"Oh what a rogue and peasant slave am I? ..."

Later he calls himself "pidgeon-livered" and that he lacks gall to make oppression bitter. Also, he says he "peeks like John-a-dreams." I once knew what that means, not now, but assume it's not very complimentary towards himself.

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Hamlet is referring to notions about the body that were widely held at the time. According to the theory of bodily humours, different organs were believed to produce substances that influenced personality and behavior. The liver was thought to produce blood, and blood could make a man cheerful, optomistic, and full of life. Too much blood, though, made him headstrong and incautious; too little blood made him meek and passive. The metaphor "pidgeon-livered" describes someone whose liver is so under-sized, that he has the timidity of a pidgeon, i.e., he's faint hearted.

It was thought that gall, or yellow bile, was produced by the spleen. People associated an excess of gall with those who were violent, vengeful, and ambitious. When Hamlet says he "lacks the gall to make oppression bitter" he means that he doesn't have what it takes to take revenge on Claudius. "To make oppression bitter" refers to turning the tables on a oppressor, who, once overwhelmed, faces the bitterness of defeat.

"John-a-dreams" is more or less a slang phrase, popular in Shakespeare's day, that describes someone who day-dreams rather than takes action."

So you're right. Hamlet is being hard on himself.