Textuality » 4A Interacting
The closet scene(act III, scene 4) is a scene which takes place in a closet. Hamlet wants to speak to his mother Gertrude about something private, hidden to the external world. Hamlet shows his mother two portaraits; one rapresents King Hamlet and the other one his uncle Claudius. Hamlet starts describing his father’s portraits because he feels more closer to king Hamlet rather then Claudius and because he wants to draw his mother’s attention on his father’s qualities. Halmet takes his father in high esteem.Right from the start Hamlet feels sicure and he uses an imperative tone to rebuke her.The use of “this” underlines that the two protagonist are very closer to the portraits (“ look here upon this picture and on this”). The use of the word “brothers” instead of the word men underlines that Claudius and king Hamlet are very differents even if they are Brothers. Hamlet focuses his mother’s attention on his father’s face; his lineaments are grace he was a great king that was able to command power, every God seemed to have given him a talent. There are lots of classical references ; Mars ( the god of war) , Hiperion (a god), Mercury. Hamlet his drawing his mother’s attention on his father brow that is grace .This adjective is connected to God and divinity. That underlines the high esteem that hamlet has of his father. The brow is the veicle for his father qualities.He tells Gertrude what a wonderful man was her husband ("this was your husband" )and that she should see the differences between Claudius and king hamlet. Then he starts to describe her new husband, (here is your husband")he describes Claudius as a disease that cannot be removed. Hamlet is making this comparison because he cannot understand that marriage. Shakespeare uses some repetitions ( have you eyes) to highlight the situation ,the speech of Hamlet and he adopts a critical tone to underline Gertrude’s mistake.He tells Gertrude that it cannot be love that she feels for Claudius as she is to old to have the passion and excitement for it, so it must be lust that she is feeling. Hamlet says :what judgement would step from this to this?" He cannot accept the choice of his mother and he is making a list of motivation to justifie his mother’s chioce. He thinks that madness happened to Gertrude, since she prefersClaudius to her previous husband. He asks his mother what kind of evil has deceived her in this game of blindman's bluff.Hamlet believes that all her senses have gone, and even if she has a part of her senses,she wouldn't be so confused in any case. Hamlet motivates her mother’s behavior saying that Nature has lost its natural order.