The Play within a Play: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - Essay Example

 The Play within a Play: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Whether classic or modern, the power of tragedy still works to capture our imaginations with unforgettable stories and in depth analyses of individual characters. As the action of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark unfolds, Shakespeare tells the story of the young prince of Denmark who is informed by the ghost of his father that his Uncle Claudius, now married to Hamlet’s mother, murdered his father with poison. The ghost demands vengeance, but Hamlet is unsure whether he should believe the ghost and begins to look for ways to prove that what the ghost says is true. At the same time, Hamlet knows he must also find a way to bring about the revenge that is demanded if the ghost is correct. Hamlet feigns insanity to discover the truth, but he also employs other means of trying to determine whether or not his uncle is guilty of the crimes the ghost has accused him of committing. One example of this can be found in Act III, scene II in the Mousetrap play, frequently referred to as the ‘play within the play’, in which Hamlet directs the players to act out the story of a man poisoning the king in order to marry the queen and seize power for himself. The function of the play is to uncover the conscience of the king, but Shakespeare also uses it to heighten the tension between Hamlet and the King and helps to expose one of Hamlet’s main themes, that of action versus inaction. In trying to prove that his uncle is guilty, Hamlet decides to use a troupe of players that have come to the castle. He first directs the players to perform a specific play that comes close to mimicking what he believes must have happened between his father and his uncle in Act 2, scene 2. He reveals his purpose for doing this in soliloquy that closes the Act: “I have heard that guilty creatures sitting at a play / Have by the very cunning of the scene / Been struck so to the soul that presently / They have proclaimed their malefactions / … / I’ll observe his looks. / I’ll tent him to the quick. If ‘a do blench, / I know my course / … / The play’s the thing / Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king” (II, ii, 575-578, 582-584, 590-591). In preparing for the performance, Hamlet provides the players with specific lines and actions to include within the overall play they are about to perform and gives them lengthy instructions as to the acting of it so as to make it seem as real as possible. “Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature. For anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as ‘twere, the mirror up to nature, to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure” (III, ii, 16-23). In these careful instructions to the players, it can be seen that Hamlet does not want them to perform a simply play, but instead wants it to be as realistic as possible. Since it has already been revealed that his purpose is to ‘catch the conscience of the king,’ he wants the play to seem like a retelling, in front of the guilty man’s eyes, of the actual events that took place rather than a lighthearted evening of fun. The play is effective in bringing about the results Hamlet was seeking. As the players act out for the second time, the play having started with a silent tableau of the main action, the instance of a grasping relative administering poison to the king by pouring it in his ears, King Claudius starts up from his chair, ends the play abruptly, demands more light and leaves the room. Hamlet’s desire for proof of guilt has been fulfilled. With the production of the play, his involvement in its staging and his ability to interpret its meaning to those around him during the course of it (Ophelia tells him “You are as good as a chorus, my lord” (III, ii, 236)), King Claudius is made aware of Hamlet’s suspicions regarding Claudius’ own actions regarding Hamlet’s father. This knowledge serves to heighten the tension within the play, forcing Hamlet to take some action or to be killed himself. While he had been allowed to mope around the castle as much as he wanted before, the king now understands the danger he is in if he allows Hamlet to continue in this way. The king immediately prepares to send Hamlet away with two of his most trusted guards to England. The king spells things out truthfully enough when he tells his guards “I like him not, nor stands it safe with us to let his madness range” (III, iii, 1-2). As the play progresses, however, it becomes clear that the king has no intention of allowing Hamlet to live free in England either. In his closing soliloquy in Act 4, the king indicates he holds great power in England as well as Denmark and how he intends to use it. “Our sovereign process, which imports at full by letters congruing to that effect the present death of Hamlet. Do it, England, for like the hectic in my blood he rages, and thou must cure me” (IV, iii, 62-66). The king cannot kill Hamlet in Denmark because, although he has been showing himself to be completely insane and possibly dangerous, the people still love him and to have him murdered there would call the king’s position into greater questioning than Hamlet’s play has caused. This decision of the king forces Hamlet’s hand. He might have stalled forever debating the good and the bad of revenge if the king hadn’t been made aware of Hamlet’s suspicions regarding the old king’s death and been forced to also plot Hamlet’s demise. Now, in order to save himself at least long enough to fulfill the requirements of revenge, Hamlet must decide upon a course of action quickly. Thus, the play within a play acts also to highlight one of the main themes associated with Hamlet, that of action versus inaction. While he provides justification for it at every turn, Hamlet is caught within an intellectual spiral that allows him little to no room for actual action. He works again and again to try to get himself into the fever pitch that will allow him to do what must be done with little or no real reward. “Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave, that I, the son of a dear father murdered, prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, must like a whore unpack my heart with words and fall a-cursing like a very drab” (II, ii, 568-572). This is also manifested in his unwillingness to take the ghost’s word that his father had been murdered. “The spirit that I have seen may be a devil, and the devil hath power t’ assume a pleasing shape, yea, and perhaps out of my weakness and my melancholy, as he is very potent with such spirits, abuses me to damn me” (II, ii, 584-589). Indeed, the play is the first true action Hamlet takes in determining whether or not to take revenge upon his uncle for the death of his father. Once he has the proof of the murderer’s guilt in the king’s reaction to the play and his subsequent plans to send Hamlet away to be murdered as well, he still finds himself delaying action. “I do not know why yet I live to say, ‘This thing’s to do,’ Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means to do’t” (IV, iv, 43-46). Even so, he continues to delay the inevitable, visiting the graveyard and fighting with Laertes. In the end, it is more the king’s action to rid himself of Hamlet than Hamlet’s action to exact vengeance that finally kills the king. The king’s poisoned swords and poisoned cup first kill the queen, then weaken Laertes into a confession and finally kill the king as well before Hamlet gives in to the poison within his own veins. The play within a play found in Hamlet serves as a turning point in the story that is justified in many ways. First, within the storyline, it provides Hamlet with the proof he needs that the ghost was in earnest in accusing King Claudius of killing the older king in order to gain riches, power and queen. However, this proof provided to Hamlet also serves to let the king know of Hamlet’s correct suspicions and therefore allows Shakespeare to increase the action of the play, adding a greater element of suspense and tension as the audience is left to wonder who will kill whom first. In addition, once the proof is offered and Hamlet is still to be found moping about the castle grounds trying to decide what to do rather than doing anything heightens the awareness of one of his main themes, that of action versus inaction. Even in the actual killing of the king, although it is accomplished by the hand of Hamlet, at this point it is almost a mute point. The weapon with which the deed is done is provided by the king’s own hand in an attempt to kill Hamlet, an attempt that will prove successful but not before Claudius himself is also dead. Hamlet has been forced to action not only by the confession of Laertes who openly admits the king’s complicity in the murder of himself and the queen and the impending death of Hamlet, but also by the poison that will soon render Hamlet powerless to act. It’s now or never for him and he finally overcomes his weakness enough to force the poison that is killing him upon his uncle, first with a sword wound given by the poisoned sword and then by forcing the king to drink the same potion that killed the queen. Read More