• Hamlet: possible interpretations of the play

Hamlet is one of the most performed plays in history. There are several interpretations, one of which was very common at Shakespeare’s time. This one is the idea of the play as a revenge tragedy: why is it likely? At that time, life was conceived in terms of hell and heaven. If you made something bad, it was obvious you’d end in hell. The play and the interplay between good and bad. Hamlet met his father’s ghost: he understood evil was in his uncle Claudius and good in his father. King Hamlet was the natural and real king, while his uncle had murdered his father to usurp the throne. Therefore, according to the mentality of that time, Hamlet was asked to revenge him. Mentality was deeply affected by Christianity. Also, there was something wrong with Hamlet – he often thought of death (his mind was in pain and in distress) and he didn’t know how to cope with the world around him. People wondered what’s wrong with him. At first, he seems to be sad because of his father’s funeral: why is the father’s figure so important for a young man? What does he represent? Father – mother – son: what does it mean today? What did it mean then? The father figure is a representation for limits: he says, whatever the gender of the child, what is / is not permitted. He is embodiment for the social rules. [es. In Friuli è la madre ad avere molta importanza, cosa dovuta al ruolo delle donne durante e dopo la Guerra.] In Shakespeare’s time, the father is a reference point: he has to take care of his family and assure them a living. If a father, as in the case with Hamlet, is also a king, he becomes a reference for the country: he is responsible to keep the country together. So, if a country loses a king, it loses stability and becomes something floating with no roots, and therefore subject to any danger. When Hamlet got the suspicious that Claudius was the murderer, Claudius becomes the icon of evil – Hamlet would like to react. After the meeting with the ghost, this need becomes obsessive. From the moment his doubts went on, everything is wrong for Hamlet and nothing seems to fit him and he starts to show a strange behavior: nobody understands him because of his reactions. Why does he insist on his father’s death? If there wasn’t the father’s loss, there wouldn’t have been a tragedy. But where do doubts start? They start in our minds: this is what Shakespeare, in a modern attitude, communicated in a dramatic way through the play. The play offers the perfect embodiment of the Renaissance. A human being with his weaknesses, fears, doubts and uncertainties becomes the core of the text. In Shakespeare’s plays, tragedy is always the consequence of a flow in a character: what is Hamlet’s? It is his inability to make a decision. If one can’t decide, one can’t take the decision that can make him/her act one way or another. Hamlet’s mind becomes the setting of the scene and we are asked as readers to read his mind. Therefore we feel empathy with him, because we recognize ourselves in Hamlet: there is a partial identification with him. How could Shakespeare recreate Hamlet’s mind on stage? If one wants to write a play and represent a mind, one has to find the means to tell all of this: he uses soliloquy and allows the audience to hear something that is only in Hamlet’s mind.

Performance (n.) = rappresentazione teatrale

To perform (v.)

“To be or not to be” is a monologue, but on stage Shakespeare uses soliloquy.
What about Hamlet’s relationship with his mother, Gertrude? The woman came after the man at that time, but Shakespeare gave her a key position anyway. Hamlet is not happy with his mother married to Claudius. She appears to be accomplice to the murder, because she didn’t do anything to prevent it. (See Eliot’s opinion)

To make matters worse = a peggiorare la situazione

Upon (on) hearing = quando sente (venire a sapere)

To swear, swore, sworn = giurare

Erratically = (adj) irregular in performance, behaviour, or attitude; inconsistent and unpredictable; having no fixed or regular course; wandering

To show up = mostrarsi