Decoding Hamlet in Three Questions Part 2.55 (Favorites 02: 05)

Picking up, once again, where we left off last time, and moving forward in order to get this finally done. (This is, by the way, part 3/3 of a post that is part 2/3 of a post that is part 2/3 that's part 2/4. Levels!)

detail of the engraving of Daniel Maclise's 1842 painting The Play-scene
image courtesy of wikipedia

We're in a character-by-character study of the question:

Question Two: What is the difference between behavior and character?

I clearly underestimated the number of words I had to type on this topic.  No such thing as too much content!

This ought to be a shorter entry than the preceding two entries, so we'll have some room for wrap-up discussion of the question before moving on.

Moving forward with the task at hand, there's the

PLAYERS

who are exactly what they seem, for a change.  But they exist only to play parts that they are not.  Are they different from any of the others, then?

Two CLOWNS, grave-diggers

image copyright Castle Rock Entertainment

These guys often come up in discussions of favorite characters from the play; the more talkative of the two certainly owns one of the best scenes of the entire play, and is notably the only character Hamlet can't manage to get the better of in a game of words.

Most importantly, they make a mockery of burying the dead, sing and laugh while digging graves, and talk lightly over the whole business while unearthing the bones of a jester.  Is that the way you're supposed to act in the internment business? (Played excellently by Billy Crystal in the '96 Branagh film -- the first time I grasped that the character really was supposed to be funny)

Anyone remember the

ENGLISH AMBASSADORS

at the end of the play?  "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead."  Not many more lines than this.  

I'm not really going to count these as characters -- more of a good opportunity for a cameo perhaps.

BUT - They walk in and say "What's the point of our coming all this way, there's no one here to thank us for our trouble in doing this good deed."  When you're dealing with the court, courtiers are never in short supply.

GERTRUDE, Queen of Denmark, and mother to Hamlet

image copyright Warners Brothers Home Entertainment

Possibly the most inscrutable suspect on the list, possibly the most important, and also the least.

She's the most inscrutable because she seems, at all times and in all scenes, to be doing her best to achieve two inconsistent goals: the preservation of Hamlet's life and happiness, and the preservation of her new husband Claudius's good standing as King in Denmark.  Easy to assume that she's in earnest, and doesn't realize these two goals are mutually exclusive; she's just trying to do what's right, and sees no reason why they should be working against each other.

But if she did know, and knew that in the end either Hamlet would be dead or Claudius, and she wanted to play both sides in order to preserve the good graces of either, whoever comes out on top, how would her behavior be different?

She's one of the only characters who doesn't get a single aside, a single monologue; everything she says she says to other characters, usually in reaction to someone else.

She's the most important suspect because, ultimately, all this trouble started with her.  The betrayal of the old king by Claudius started in her, the Queen's, bedroom.  Hamlet's primary source of anguish and distraction, before the ghost appears with its horrible vendetta, is the swiftness of her union with his uncle after his father's sudden death.

Someone, sometime, and I cannot find the reference just now, but it wasn't me, pointed out that Hamlet is only able to kill Claudius once Gertrude is dead.  There is certainly a drop of tension when the queen dies, and a lot of the momentum and steam seems to drain out of that action-movie sword-fight scene.  The King's death is almost anticlimactic, now that we know Hamlet will die, Laertes will die, and queen Gertrude, the reason Claudius began his betrayal, is dead by his continued poisonous schemes.

I think Hamlet is somewhat more complicated a character and a story than the Oedipus myth arc, although I don't think it's wrong to compare the two.  Again, the only person Hamlet obsesses over more than Claudius is his mother, and in a play stacked floor to ceiling with double meanings, there is no way to consistently claim that many of the lines Hamlet and Gertrude exchange in their closet mean only what they appear to mean, and not what they seem to suggest, about their relationship.

But I say also she's the least important suspect, since she has almost no control over the events of the story, and if every one of her lines were changed, or given to someone else, except maybe those wherein she declares to Hamlet that she does not see the ghost of his father, and the play would turn out almost exactly the same.

I choose personally to interpret Gertrude in a charitable light, as perhaps does the Ghost, who asks Hamlet to leave her out of the scheme for revenge.  She could have not known that her second husband killed her first, and in a circus of insane and unhappy people, I'll weigh at least that much good will in the balance against the miserable madness.

But what do you think?

OPHELIA, daughter to Polonius
It's a play of contrasts, to say the least.  We have Hamlet, who loses a father, isn't really insane (or is he though?) but pretends to be, and we have Ophelia, who loses a father, and apparently really does go mad, much to the horror of her brother and the other members of the court (absent Hamlet, to England, or some pirates whatever), and goes and drowns herself for no reason, or for grief.

image copyright Touchstone pictures

Could she be faking her madness like Hamlet?  It seems unlikely, what would it profit her to do so?  Of all the sad turns the play takes in its downward spiraling, Polonius's daughter's seems the most unfortunate and authentic.  I think she probably really does just go unhappily nuts in her own way; whether she could have snapped out of it or not if she'd lived may be an irrelevant question with the kingdom falling apart anyway.

The dissonance in her character I'd like to emphasize instead is that between what she expects will happen when she follows instructions, pretty much the only thing she does in the play before she goes nuts, and what actually does happen.

She's told by Laertes to be wary of Hamlet, and she says she will.  Polonius shoves his nose into the matter, and straight up orders her to break off all communication with him, so as not to make him a fool, and she does this as well.

Then she confides the love letters Hamlet sent her to her father, and he turns around and shows them to the King and Queen as if they were no more than evidence in a trial, so much for respecting her feelings (to say nothing of making Polonius look like a fool, read the scene again, it's one of his most Tobias-like moments).

Then she agrees to the King's request to try and catch Hamlet in a delirium of love by rebuking and returning his letters and tokens while Polonius and the King look on, and because Hamlet sees straight through their charade, is raked utterly across the coals for it.  Hamlet denounces her, without revealing directly that he knows she's their spy, and she is heartbroken.

What did she expect?  Clearly Hamlet acts differently than she'd hoped he would, because of her grief, but it's hard to see how he could have acted otherwise.  We're left to suppose that she doesn't really understand the situation she's in, or else thought better of Hamlet's character than he was capable of delivering.  Either way, it's the last time we see her taking orders directly and following them without question; next is the play within a play, and Hamlet's crazy head is in her lap, Polonius looking obnoxiously on, next time after that, she's snapped.  Would she have continued to play nice if Polonius had lived?  I hope not.

Somewhat like the courtiers and followers of the crown, sucking up to the King because they want his favor and being ultimately destroyed for their efforts, Ophelia does everything that's asked of her because she thinks it's the right thing to do, and is ultimately repaid only in anguish and grief.  She's not obsequious, she's just doing her best, but she's still let down utterly because the men she looks up to and takes orders from are liars and mercenaries and fools.  The play is once again a story of a kingdom turned upside down and decaying from the inside out.

GHOST of Hamlet's Father
How do we interpret the motives of a ghost?

I choose instead to refer to the original entry in this series, in which the key point is Hamlet's interpretation of the ghost's appearance and instructions, and his resulting indecision, rather than drag the comparative merits of ghostly truthfulness or deceit back up at length.

I will leave the
LORDS, LADIES, OFFICERS, SOLDIERS, SAILORS, MESSENGERS, and ATTENDANTS
to your analysis, see if you can do anything to prove that their behavior and character are indicative of each other.

-

So that's the end of the list, and a much longer and more rambling analysis of it than I'd expected to make as well.

The question is, whats the difference between behavior and character?

Actors playing characters, and characters playing characters, and these having extra flashes of other characters in the midst of all else, too.

The answers we get from the list show that the two often could not be more different.  How can you trust anyone in such a den of deceitful, double-dealing, foolhardy crazies?  Almost no one in the play acts the way they really feel, or are trying in earnest to bring about what they want fairly and honestly.  And the deceit feeds on itself and grows and grows as the work goes on.

But I think the answer also point to three key indicators to tell them apart.

First is motive.  Why is the person acting the way that they are?  If it seems to have nothing to do with their benefit, suspect them at once, they are probably up to no good.  Seek always to figure out what the character stands to gain through their actions.  If it's apparently nothing, you probably need to seek further, or revaluate how you think they're acting.

Second is consistency.  If someone like Fortinbras is your indifferent but abiding enemy one minute, and your earnest best friend the next, for the love of God suspect them of having plans not in your best interest.  The same goes for Hamlet towards his family members,  Claudius towards Laertes (or anyone), or Laertes towards Hamlet at the end.  Keep points one and two in mind!

Third is stress level.  When the chips are down, when things get real, when the trouble is real and needs direct attention, watch how people act.  Sooner or later, if their superficial behavior has been running contrary to their real feelings beneath, they'll show you who they really are.

Ahh! Curse your sudden, but inevitable, betrayal!
image copyright 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

The unfortunate thing is the play's wild success comes partly from its fidelity to what we so often experience in real life.  Who can honestly say they've never acted a part they didn't really feel was the way they really felt inside?  That didn't accurately reflect who we think we truly are, deep down, and only really showed others what we want, or how we wish we are?

Well, among other things that's called behaving yourself.  To a certain extent we all do it all the time.

Maybe the real question Hamlet asks is, how often do we get to show the real selves we are to the world?  When we do, is it the self we believe we truly are?  Are we happy with what we see?