Shakespeare’s Hamlet: Everything You Need to Know About the Tragedy

Hamlet is William Shakespeare’s longest play. The work has also been the subject of various psychological and philosophical interpretations. The role of its anguished protagonist Hamlet, who oscillates between madness and clarity, challenges even the most skillful actors. In this article, we will introduce you to the plot, themes, and characters of this theatrical masterpiece. We will also delve into various interpretations and adaptations of the Shakespearean tragedy.

“To be or not to be, that is the question.” This sentence, uttered by Hamlet, the anguished prince in Shakespeare’s play of the same title, is so well-known that it has made its way into several movies, songs, and marketing campaigns.

The plot of Hamlet centers around the young prince of Denmark. When the play starts, Hamlet is still grieving the death of his recently deceased father. But as Hamlet quickly learns, his father was murdered by his brother, who has since taken over the throne of Denmark and married Hamlet’s mother. Unsure of what to do, Hamlet decides to pretend that he has gone insane. In the meantime, he starts planning his revenge. After a few more plot twists involving a theater performance and the accidental murder of several people, there is a big showdown during which Hamlet, his mother, and his uncle die.

While the ghost has aggravated Hamlet’s worst suspicions, the young prince is still unsure whether his father has been murdered. As a way of testing the theory, he asks a group of actors to enact a play that shows the killing of a king by his very own brother. His uncle’s extreme reaction to the scene leaves Hamlet without a doubt about his guilt. As the action gathers momentum, Hamlet starts acting increasingly impulsive. Among other things, he pushes Ophelia away, telling her to go to a convent.

Hamlet briefly considers killing his uncle right then and there. When he finds him, the latter is praying on his knees. The prince decides to wait for a more opportune moment and goes to confront his mother instead. During their harsh exchange of words, Hamlet’s mother starts fearing for her life and cries out.

Ophelia’s father, who happens to be hiding behind a curtain, also cries out. Without checking who it is, Hamlet stabs the intruder. Once he discovers that the person he has killed is not his uncle, the prince seems to regret his rash action. However, he continues to accuse his mother of disrespecting his deceased father, and their conversation grows increasingly heated. To make matters even more dramatic, Hamlet has another vision of his father’s ghost, causing his mother to declare him insane

Hamlet Escapes 

In order to get rid of him, Hamlet’s uncle sends the prince to England. Unbeknownst to Hamlet, he has already made plans to have his troublesome relative killed on arrival. On his journey, Hamlet is accompanied by his childhood friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, but he has long grown distrustful of them. Given that his uncle has previously instructed them to spy on him, his suspicions are not ungrounded. When Hamlet discovers a letter with the instruction to kill him upon arrival, he rewrites the letter, instructing the executioners to kill his friends instead. When the ship is attacked by pirates, Hamlet escapes and returns to Denmark with the mission of confronting his uncle. This time, he wants to resolve the matter once and for all.

When Ophelia, whose mental health has already been deteriorating, finds out about her father’s death, she goes insane and drowns herself. Her brother Laertes, who is grief-stricken over his father’s murder and his sister’s suicide, vows to seek revenge against Hamlet. Together with Hamlet’s uncle, he comes up with a plan to challenge the prince to a duel and kill him with the help of a poisonous blade.

The Big Showdown 

In the final scene of the play, Hamlet and Laertes engage in a duel. During the fight, Hamlet’s uncle offers the prince a cup of poisoned wine. After Hamlet refuses the wine, his mother drinks the liquid from the poisoned cup and dies. Although it looks like Hamlet is winning the duel, he is struck with a poisoned blade. Before taking his last breath, he manages to kill his uncle by forcing him to drink from the poisoned cup. At the end of the play, the entire royal family is dead and Denmark is once more left without a king.

Reinterpreting the Character of Hamlet 

In the world of theater, the role of Hamlet is considered one of the most difficult feats for any actor. Hamlet has been portrayed by actors like Laurence Olivier, Mel Gibson, and Jude Law, as well as various actresses. But what exactly is it that makes this character so difficult to play?

Part of the pull lies in the fact that Hamlet is both the hero and the anti-hero of the play. While his anguish over his father’s death and his wish for revenge are deeply relatable, he also accidentally kills various innocent people and drives his love interest Ophelia into suicide. The famous character has even given famous psychologists like Jaques Lacan a reason to write about him. While a superficial analysis would pinpoint Hamlet’s uncle as the antagonist of the play, a closer look shows us that Hamlet’s own mind is his own worst enemy. Tortured by indecisiveness and uncertainty, Hamlet decides to feign madness as a way of figuring out his next steps. But depending on the production and the actor’s interpretation, Hamlet’s madness is in fact a psychosis that continues to pull him and everyone around him down.

Whether one interprets Hamlet as a tragic hero, a self-righteous narcissist, or simply a person suffering from a mental illness depends on how one chooses to interpret the play. And yet, one thing can be said for sure: Shakespeare’s skillful pen has created a character who seems to encompass the messy and contradictory nature of the human experience like no other.

While the tragedy of Hamlet primarily focuses on the protagonist’s anguish over his father’s death, the play also features a complicated dynamic between the Danish prince and his love interest, Ophelia. In many ways, Ophelia becomes the victim of Hamlet’s madness and the machinations of her father and brother. For one thing, the young woman’s father uses her in his quest to find the reason behind Hamlet’s madness. He also pushes her to renounce her love for Hamlet, which ends up destabilizing Hamlet even more. When Hamlet kills Ophelia’s father, the young woman can no longer hold it together and ends up committing suicide.

Traditionally, Ophelia has often been interpreted as nothing more than a supporting role whose sole purpose lies in shedding light on the protagonist. On the other hand, some feminist critics consider her treatment under the hands of Hamlet to be a prime example of the objectification and lack of agency experienced by women of the time. Another interesting interpretation is given by the scholar Tynelle Ann Olivas, who argues that Ophelia manages to reclaim some agency by going mad. In a world where women are supposed to keep quiet and deny their own needs, her newfound insanity gives Ophelia the freedom she has previously been denied. In this interpretation, Ophelia’s death represents a reclamation of her own body and subjectivity.

Famous Adaptations of Hamlet 

The story of treason and revenge has given rise to quite a few adaptations in the realm of theater and film. Most famously, Disney’s Lion King is loosely based on Shakespeare’s drama about the murder of a king by his brother. Other famous film adaptations include the 1948 film starring Lawrence Olivier, the Indian film Haider (2014), and a highly acclaimed version released in the Soviet Union during the 1960s. Interestingly, several artists have also decided to retell the story of Hamlet from a different perspective. The resulting works include the 2018 film Ophelia and the Tom Stoppard play Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which takes on the viewpoint of two of Hamlet’s minor characters.

While Hamlet touches on universal themes like grief, revenge, and madness, it also opens up the complicated emotions that come up when a parent remarries. Psychologists like Sigmund Freud have even gone so far as to interpret Hamlet’s agony as an expression of his incestuous desire towards his mother. And while it remains to be seen what new meanings future generations will find in Shakespeare’s play, we can be sure that this story will continue to fill the stages and film screens around the world.