It is a commonly accepted opinion that William Shakespeare is the greatest writer to ever live. Having written many of the most popular plays ever read, ranging from Macbeth to Romeo and Juliet, one cannot doubt the quality of his play Hamlet, which is considered one of the greatest plays, specifically tragedies, ever written. Shakespeare encompasses a great number of themes into Hamlet, two of which are the way mortality is a motivation for the characters, and another being the way women were treated during the Elizabethan period of time.
The first important theme in the book is that of how mortality affects the characters’ lives, specifically Hamlet’s. Hamlet is constantly enthralled by the idea of death and actually wishes to die for a large portion of the play. During the to be or not to be monologue, Hamlet lets us view his thought process about why he should or should not kill himself. He decides that death is the choice he would take if he had an option, but since suicide is a sin and he wants to save his soul for heaven, he chooses not to kill himself.
Hamlet mentions that death is basically the same thing as a long sleep, the only differences are that one never wakes up from death and that the dreams that come with death are the most uncertain thing about life, and the one thing that humans will never truly know about.
Hamlet’s concern with death and mortality range from himself unto other characters such as Claudius, who he must kill, and his own father King Hamlet. For some reason Hamlet has great trouble ending the life of the one person he is supposed to kill and he wanders how and why soldiers can fight and kill each other with ease over land that doesn’t even belong to or effect them. One of the best passages about mortality comes from Claudius early in the play when says to Hamlet:
But you must know your father lost a father,
That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound
In filial obligation for some term
To do obsequious sorrow.
(Shakespeare I.ii.24)
Claudius is trying to get Hamlet to understand that life is about death and death of loved ones is an inevitable part of life. Claudius has his own motives for wanting Hamlet to believe this and become happy, but with or without selfish motives, what Claudius says to Hamlet in this passage is a very important part of the theme of the play. It even goes as far as to represent the main theme of the movie The Lion King, which is the circle of life.
The theme of mortality is also represented in a much more negative view by the main character Hamlet. He is incredibly depressed about his father’s murder and wishes not to live any more when he expresses this point of view:
Oh, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew,
Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
His cannon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God, God!
(Shakespeare I.ii.26)
Hamlet is basically saying he would rather die than live and in death he would find piece in nothingness. He also mentions how he wishes god had not made it a sin to commit suicide. The morality of man: the fact that eventually we all have to die, is what motivates Hamlet in a way. His responsibilities as the main character of a revenge play revolve around death and murder and the idea of mortality.
After having killed Polonius, thinking he was Claudius, Hamlet makes jokes about death that show he is not afraid of death and help keep on the idea that he is mad. Shakespeare is also speaking to the reader through Hamlet about his viewpoints on death and the mortality of man, especially during passages such as the following:
Hamlet: A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.
Claudius: What dost you mean by this?
Hamlet: Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.
(Shakespeare.IV.iii.222)
Hamlet is saying that no man, be him king or peasant, can escape mortality and eventual death that life ensures. Along with the theme of mortality, Shakespeare also touches on the way women were treated during Elizabethan times.
During the point in time when Hamlet took place, women had a much different role in society than they do today. It was the woman’s job to stay at home and take care of the children, prepare the food, clean the house, and simply do as her husband asked of her to do without question. Woman did not really have much of an option in regards to getting out of an unhappy relationship or deciding not to have children if the man they are with wants a child.
Women’s lives were ran by men. Emotions such as true love for one’s spouse were not as important to the men and were withheld from the women. Polonius sets a good example as a domineering male father figure in the play who controls his daughter’s life to the extent that she isn’t even allowed to talk to the man she believes is in love with her, and he even makes fun of the situation when he says:
Polonius: Marry, well bethought.
‘Tis told me he hath very oft of late
Given private time to you, and you yourself
Have of your audience been most free and bounteous.
If it be so as so ’tis put on me-
And that in way of caution- I must tell you,
You don not understand yourself so clearly
As it behooves my daughter and your honor.
What is between you? Give me up the truth.
(Shakespeare.I.iii.46)
Even Hamlet talks to his mother as if he is far superior to her, an example being when he says, “…frailty, thy name is woman!” (Shakespeare.I.ii.28) In the tragedy Hamlet, many themes emerge, with the ill treatment of women being one of the most important (Elizabethan Women).
Although sometimes on the verge of being a comedy, Hamlet is in fact a tragedy. When looking at a definition of tragedy it is very apparent that the story of Hamlet is correctly labeled as such. “A literary tragedy presents courageous individuals who confront powerful forces within or outside themselves wit a dignity that reveals the breadth and depth of the human spirit in the face of failure, defeat, and even death (Tragedy 1117). Hamlet is the “courageous individual” who is not afraid of death and finishes his duty in the face of death and when up against much adversity, whether it be from within and from other characters.
Although Hamlet does eventually complete his task, he would not be a true tragic hero without having a tragic flaw, which I believe to be procrastination. If Hamlet would have simply murdered Claudius the first time that he was planning on it, while Claudius was praying in his room, then everything would have been fine and no other characters would have died. Instead, however, Hamlet chose to procrastinate, which ended up being his most tragic flaw and eventually cost the lives of many others than just Claudius.
Shakespeare’s Hamlet can be called one of the greatest tragedies ever written. It includes several meaningful themes, two of which have been explained in this paper. It also provides a very good example of a Shakespearean tragedy. It is still being read, hundreds of years after having been written, due to the fact that it includes so many elements of outstanding literature, many of which Shakespeare demonstrates better than any author has before or since his time.
