FREE ESSAY ON HAMLET'S INNER TERMOIL

HAMLET'S INNER TERMOIL

Within the play Hamlet there exists many puns and phrases, which have a double meaning.
Little ploys on words which tend to add a bit of entertainment to the dialogue of the
play. These forked tongue phrases are used by Shakespeare to cast an insight to the
characters in the play...to give them more depth and substance. However, most importantly
these phrases cause the reader or audience to think. They are able to show a double
meaning that not all people would pick up on, which is the purpose of the comments.
The Shakespearean theater is a physical manifestation of how Shakespeare catered to more
than one social class in his theatrical productions. These Shakespearean theaters have a
unique construction, which had specific seats for the wealthy, and likewise, a designated
separate standing section for the peasants. This definite separation of the classes is
also evident in Shakespeare's writing, in as such that the nobility of the productions
speak in poetic iambic pentameter, where as the peasants speak in ordinary prose. Perhaps
Shakespeare incorporated these double meanings to the lines of his characters with the
intent that only a select amount of his audience were meant to hear it in either its
double meaning, or its true meaning.
However, even when the tragic hero Hamlet's wordplay is intentional,
it is not always clear as to what purpose he uses it. To confuse or to clarify? Or to
control his own uncensored thoughts? The energy and turmoil of his mind brings words
thronging into speech, stretching, over-turning and contorting their implications.
Sometimes Hamlet has to struggle to use the simplest words repeatedly, as he tries to
force meaning to flow in a single channel. To Ophelia, after he has encountered her in
her loneliness, reading on a book, he repeats five times Get thee to a nunnery, varying
the phrase very little, simply reiterating what was already said by changing get to go.
This well known quote, to this day cannot be deciphered in its entirety, for nunnery is a
place where nuns live, yet it is also a brothel. Hamlet seems to knowingly cast a shade
of confusion into the minds of the audience...or is it in fact clarity within confusion.
That is, the audience is able to better understand the thoughts and inner struggle of
Hamlet via these conflicting terms.
After Hamlet has visited his mother all alone in her closet and killed Polonius, after
she has begged him to speak no more, and after his father's ghost has reappeared, Hamlet
repeats Good night five times, with still fewer changes in the phrase than Get thee to a
nunnery and those among accompanying words only.
So Hamlet seems to be struggling to contain his thoughts even by use of these simple
words, rather than enforcing a single and simple message as a first reading of the text
might suggest; and the words come to bear deeper, more ironic or more blatant meanings.
It is from these phrases, which even manage to confuse the complex mind of Hamlet that we
begin to get a glimpse into the intentions of Hamlets mind, and seeing just exactly the
way he ticks.
Much of the dramatic action of this tragedy is within the head of Hamlet, and wordplay
represents the amazing, contradictory, unsettled, mocking nature of that mind, as it is
torn by disappointment and positive love, as Hamlet seeks both acceptance and punishment,
action and stillness, and wishes for consummation and annihilation within a world he
perceives to be against him. He can be abruptly silent or vicious; he is capable of wild
laughter and tears, and also playing polite and sane. The narrative is a kind of mystery
and chase, so that, underneath the various guises of his wordplay, we are made keenly
aware of his inner dissatisfaction, and come to expect some resolution at the end of the
tragedy, some unambiguous giving out which will report Hamlet and his cause aright to the
unsatisfied among the reader / audience. Hamlet himself is aware of this expectation as
the end approaches, and this still further whets our anticipation for what is to become.
A commonly recurring theme throughout the play is that of honesty. It is introduced in
the beginning of the play and as the play continues, its use becomes more and more
common, as well as more and more ironic. This theme within the play itself is ironic, for
as Marcellus said Something is rotten in the state of Denmark and this corruption we see
so exhibited in the play is far from honest.
When Hamlet applies the word honest to the main characters of the play, his use of
becomes undeniably ironic, and much of the dark humor of the play derives from Hamlet's
wordplay. Polonius marks that though Hamlet's insults seem to make no sense, yet there is
method in 't. In Act II, it is Polonius that is the first target of Hamlet's irony of the
use of honest. Hamlet calls him first a fishmonger which itself has many meanings,
including the implication that Ophelia is a whore and Polonius is her pimp. And of
course, Polonius has employed his daughter in his plot to discover the depth of Hamlet's
madness. When Polonius says he is not a fishmonger, Hamlet replies Then I would you were
so honest a man. In other words, he wishes Polonius was as honest as a simple fish
seller, or even more insulting, as honest as the pimp Hamlet insinuated he was. In this
scene, Hamlet also uses this ironic meaning of honesty against Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern when he tells them ...I will not sort you with the rest of my servants, for,
to speak to you like an honest man, I am most dreadfully attended. He seems to mean that
he cannot speak to them with honesty, because they themselves are dishonest in their
intents.
Honesty resonates as a theme in Hamlet because nothing is, as it seems in Denmark. The
King deceives the world and pretends a legitimacy he does not have; Hamlet deceives the
court by feigning madness; Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern all try to deceive
Hamlet into revealing why he is distraught, and no one knows what is truth and what is a
lie. The world has not grown honest, as Rosencrantz claims, but dishonest, and no one who
lives in it can keep his honesty pure from the corrupting air.
Hamlet seems to be the character that uses the majority of such puns and phrases in the
play. These phrases, which have double meaning, could represent the inner turmoil, which
seems to be tearing Hamlet apart. By seeing a definite double meaning to many phrases in
the play, we are able to easily see that all is not as it should be. Hamlet's personality
is thrown into chaos. He is in mourning the death of his father, and then his mother
marries his uncle. He is enraged at her, and on top of all of this he sees the ghost of
his father commanding him to avenge his wrongful murder. Yet, amongst all this turmoil, I
believe that Hamlet was only playing the part of being crazy. He speaks in riddles and
plays on words in order to create a certain suspicion about his sanity. This abnormal
activity gives him the ability to sneak a few insults by without having to directly
confront his enemies. It seems to be quite a bit worse if the person who was insulted
isn't exactly sure whether or not they were just insulted. Hamlet is able to interject
these insults without even the other character noticing, which is the art of insult.
It is this unpredictability of action, these sporadic bouts of insanity and sanity, and
the inner turmoil brewing within Hamlet, that keeps the audience's interest. Nobody is
really sure whether or not Hamlet was insane. Many have theories and beliefs, but
Shakespeare never came out and said he definitely is or definitely is not sane... he only
hints. There are valid arguments on either side, for Hamlet Himself said I am mad but
north-northwest; that is he is only mad about one thing in particular.
The wordplay in Hamlet is a representation of the complexity of the minds of the
characters that Shakespeare created. It is a depiction of the inner turmoil within a
character struggling with sanity. However, more importantly it is necessary to keep in
mind that Shakespeare was a playwright and that the play on words did one thing in
particular, which is why Shakespeare lived to write so many plays...Hamlet, because of
its wording is entertaining...and that made all the difference.