Supernatural Liminality in Shakespeares Hamlet - Book Report/Review Example

Supernatural Liminality in Shakespeare's Hamlet The presence of the supernatural in Shakespeare's Hamlet is emblematic of the ambiguity of the play's subject matter. As Hamlet's father's ghost occupies a liminal state in reality, so does the marriage between Gertrude and Claudius and Hamlet's possible madness. Hamlet's indecision and inaction furthers this sense of incompletion. These concepts would not have been unfamiliar to Shakespeare's original audience, and thus the liminal state of the supernatural in relation to the living characters would have deepened the sense of dramatic tension and ambiguity about the tragedy's true meaning. Hamlet is a play completely awash in the supernatural. From the beginning of the play, the dramatic action is sparked by the presence of the ghost of Hamlet's father. As Walter N. King observes: Without the ghost, Hamlet would not be Hamlet'The ghost Hamlet submits himself to haunt the play, bringing to it a supernatural resonance absent from the revenge-play ghostliness Elizabethan audiences were familiar with'why it materialized when it does, what it demands of Hamlet-all these questions might seem beside the point were the ghost not endued with extraordinary imaginative reality. (King 22) Elizabethan audiences would have been familiar with ghosts, and most would have believed in them. (Clark 33) Shakespeare paid special attention to the ghost's characterization, as " [it was] ..in the interests of his plot, to make the ghost appear real and possible to all." (Clark 65) and he took pains to "'give it an immediate credibility," (King 22) Ghosts necessarily occupy a liminal state, that is, a state-between-states characterized by incompleteness, something neither this nor that. Hamlet's father is dead, but the spectre that confronts him has not yet passed over due to unfinished business regarding the circumstances of his death. It is between worlds. However, although original audiences probably believed in ghosts, the explanation for why ghosts appeared to people was likewise as ambiguous and liminal as the phantom presence of the dead king himself. Clark says of ghosts, "Their existence was nowhere seriously questioned. Men only differed over the explanation'departed spirits of those who had once lived'[or] the manifestation of some evil influence'in other words, the devils of the underworld." (Clark 31) This uncertainty is present in the text of the play. When the ghost first appears in act one, scene one, the guards and Horatio exclaim that it resembles the dead King, not that it definitely is the King. (1.1.41-48) They question as to its nature, and Horatio addresses it as an "illusion" (1.1.109) Richard Kearney observes, "We cannot be sure who speaks when the spectre speaks. There is a profound ambivalence about the origin and character of the ghost. Hamlet's friend Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy' (1.1.21). Or worse 'a guilty thing' (1.2.129). At best a 'spirit' (1.2.135)", one moment there, one moment gone, there and not there, present and absent, the past-as-present" (Kearney 158) Because the source of the play's central conflict is in question on so many levels, this permeates the entire play. This essential ambiguity and liminality is echoed again and again. This occurs immediately after the ghost disappears, when Claudius and Gertrude enter with Hamlet, still dressed in mourning. Claudius's first words in the play are to announce the wedding on the heels of the old King's death, first acknowledging public grief and then turning his attention elsewhere. It is significant that he introduces Gertrude to the company in liminal terms: . Therefore our sometimes sister, now our queen, The'imperial jointress of this warlike state, Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy, With one auspicious and one dropping eye, With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage In equal scale weighing delight and dole, Taken to wife. (1.2. 8-14) This duality of sister and queen, joy and sorrow, mirth in funeral and dirge in marriage, delight and dole, pronounce from the start that the marriage between Gertrude and Claudius is not legitimate; that it occupies a space between incest and legitimacy that is vague, shadowy, and unsavory. The duality, especially the ambiguous duality of relationships, is echoed in Hamlet's acerbic comment that he is "A little more than kin, and less than kind," to Claudius. (1.2.65) Later, when Horatio tells Hamlet, "My Lord, I came to see your father's funeral", Hamlet responds, "I pray thee do not mock me, fellow student; I think it was to see my mother's wedding." (1.2. 176-178). Facetiously, he says that "The funeral baked meats/Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables." (1.2.180-1) providing the audience with another image of duality and thus liminality: a feast that is for neither a funeral nor a wedding, but somehow for a travesty of both. Hamlet's reaction to the urging of his father's spectre immediately parallels this ongoing motif of opposing ideas: "I, with wings as swift/As meditation or the thoughts of love/May sweep to my revenge." (1.5.29-31). Meditation and the thoughts of love are hardly appropriate images to invoke when discussing avenging a father's murder, and yet the spectre replies, "I find thee apt;" (1.5.32). Hamlet's resulting inaction and questionable madness are the culmination of this duality and ambiguity. Everything about the conflict in the tragedy has been ambiguous thus far. Therefore, Hamlet waffles. He feigns madness-perhaps' To cause general disruption among the kingdom and to isolate himself from those who might harm him. In order to be a more effective weapon against his uncle, he must allow himself to be perceived as mentally powerless. Even his closest friend, Horatio, reports that Hamlet "'waxes desperate with imagination" (1.4.80). Later, he convinces Ophelia and her father, Polonius, of his madness, who reports his odd behavior to Claudius. (2.2.92-94) Yet scholars debate whether Hamlet's madness is real or assumed. For example, Anthony Brennan reflects on the moment in Act Three, when Hamlet stabs Polonius through a curtain, claiming he is a rat. (3.4.22-26) "What are we to make of this moment' Does Hamlet intend his lunge to be taken as an arbitrary act of total madness' Gertrude later explains it as an example of her son's 'brainish apprehension.' We may see in it, however, part of Hamlet's shrewdness in forming an action that can have an ambiguous interpretation." (Brennan 43) An Elizabethan folk saying had it that rats revealed themselves by running behind curtains: "In an age which has in its folklore the belief that rats reveal themselves behind a painted cloth, then the quickness of Hamlet's wit in suspecting a human rat behind the arras gains extra irony and piquancy. Hamlet is mad 'but north-north-west." (Brennan 44) Thus, folk beliefs underscore the ambiguity of his madness, following the theme of supernatural liminality. Rather than confront his uncle directly, he devises a play-within-a-play to judge the suspected assassin's reaction. If Hamlet were completely convinced of his father's ghost's veracity, there would be no need for this additional (and admittedly weak) proof of Claudius's guilt. Likewise, if Hamlet were completely confident of his ability to avenge his father, such weak charades would also be unnecessary. Thus, the action of the play lags in a netherworld of false starts and unclear motivations. This throws the original premise into even more doubt; is Hamlet truly mad' Was the spectre of the dead king truly Hamlet's father, or was he an evil spirit in disguise' Familiarity with the folk beliefs of the English Renaissance, whether they are of the uncertainty of the origin of ghosts or the belief in the habits of rats, illustrates the ambiguity inherent in the play's premise. Nothing can be assumed in Hamlet; audiences will never be entirely certain of much of what is presented in this tragedy. As in heaven and earth, there are more things in Hamlet than are dreamed of in modern philosophy. To the original audience of the play, however, this would have been clear, as they lived in a society that more than half-believed in the supernatural while questioning the origins and motives of its manifestations Works Cited Brennan, Anthony S. "HAMLET III. iv. 22-26." Explicator Spring 38 (1983): 43. Clark, Cumberland. Shakespeare and the Supernatural. New York, NY: Haskell House, 1971. Fernie, Ewan. "The Last Act." Spiritual Shakespeares. Ed. Ewan Fernie. New York: Routledge, 2005. Kearney, Richard. "Spectres of Hamlet." Spiritual Shakespeares. Ed. Ewan Fernie. New York: Routledge, 2005. King, Walter N. Hamlet's Search for Meaning. Athens, GA: University of Georgia P, 1982. Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. New York: Washington Square P, 2004. Read More