Chelsie Xu English 2-C-Evans Dec.4, 2014 Orientation towards Death in Hamlet As a theme that develops Hamlet, meanings of death to different protagonists are shown by Shakespeare via various symbolism. The quickness and easiness to disguise make poison a perfect symbol for the contradictory impulse and fear within Claudius. For Hamlet, his pessimistic attitude towards the afterlife is changed after facing a nostalgic death: Yorick s skull. Meanwhile, in this rotten state of Denmark, Ophelia, a formerly innocent flower, has a preconceived season to which she will wilt. These symbols of death: poison, Yorick s skull, and flowers of Ophelia, reveal humans both innate and acquired ideologies towards inevitable death. Hamlet is connected to a dreadful atmosphere since the appearance of the ghost figure of Old Hamlet in the beginning, who claims to die from the poison of Claudius scheme: Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial, And in the porches of my ears did pour The leperous distilment, whose effect Holds such an enmity with blood of man (I, v) This primary and most principal murder, as the catalyst of the whole tragedy, thus introduces poison as the foremost means of killing and causing deaths. Unsurprisingly, poison appears again in the Mousetrap play: A poisons him I th garden for his estate (III, ii), as an element Hamlet designs into the play subconsciously to remind himself of revenge and to test his uncle s conscience. Towards this point, poison has developed the theme of death by making itself the symbol of betrayal and revenge that ultimately leads to everyone s death. Deeply, the usage of poison reflects a contradictory mind within the
murderers: greed and fear. Claudius uses poison as a disguise for his sin since it takes a brief amount of time to kill someone and fails to leave traces behind; however, with the belief that poison has covered their crimes perfectly, the murderers also get a chance to inflate their greed. As Claudius says, Can a person be forgiven and still keep the fruits of his crime? (III, iv), he is gluttonous for not only the power he murdered the Old King for, but also the forgiveness given by God for his immoralities. Though with much impulse pumped by greed, the fundamental fear of being exposed and being punished never disappears, which triggers the murderers to speed up the execution. As what Claudius says to Laertes, We should do when we would, for this would changes. (IV, vii), these words do not only show his urgency of killing Hamlet, but also reveal his worry of fear outweighing impulses. No matter it is fear or impulse shown when facing death, it swifts as quicksilver it courses through the natural gates and alleys of the body (I, v) as quickly as poison coursed through the victim s veins. Though poison is ultimately thought by murderers to be used for reassuring that they have covered the sin, it only creates more weak points and leads to their own deaths: Claudius is justly served. It is a poison temper d by himself. (V, ii) Claudius s death is unavoidable due to the tainted blood of his brother poisoned by himself on his hands. Compared to Claudius, Hamlet, his rival, focuses more on his own innate fear of death, which is shown clearly in his hesitation of vengeance. His fear comes from his doubt that the ghost is composed by his imagination, and his worry that if he kills his uncle without an appropriate reason, he himself will be punished by God in the afterlife. But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country from whose bourn No traveler returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, And lose the name of action. (III. i) The afterlife is a state of living towards which humans have instinctive fear of the unknown, plus that Hamlet has a phobia that is incited by the knowledge of his father suffering in Purgatory, which all trigger off Hamlet s continuous procrastination of facing death. It is not until the graveyard scene when he sees the skull of Yorick that he accepts the inevitability of death. At first, he mocks all the anonymous skulls, as what he has always been doing: acting like he is mad and playing with language, until he sees and touches Yorick s. It is his first time facing death with a direct sensation. With the skull held in his hand, he realizes everyone becomes dust after death no matter how great he or she was when they were alive. He faces death with a changed attitude from then on. Before, though he always talks about death: To be, or not to be (III, i), these words are only on an abstract level and he has never really dared to face death directly by either committing suicide or killing his uncle for revenge. After the graveyard experience, Hamlet faces and even mocks death with a grin, like the jester who made fun of himself. To this point, Hamlet is ready to kill and die for his own destination. If it be now, tis not to come; if it be not to come, It will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all. Let be. (V, ii) It is a relief of burden for Hamlet to finally accept his fated physical death since he has been dead inside already after such a period of time with no one to trust, to love, or to lean on. Contrasting all the other deaths full of blood and darkness, Ophelia s death is beautiful and pitiful. As a woman, I shall obey my Lord (I, iv) are words she utters constantly. She is pulled along by the men around her: she is used by Hamlet to
maintain his disguised madness; she has to obey Polonius and the king to test Hamlet s madness and therefore lose her lover ever after; she is preached by her brother to leave Hamlet. Nonetheless, Ophelia leans on to the innocence and beauty that are left in this world flowers to try to thrive in her ephemeral life; however, these flowers are most likely dead in a garden of weeds and thorns, as said in the analogy given by Hamlet: Ah fie, tis an unweeded garden That grows to seed ; things rank and gross in nature Possess it merely. (I, ii) The flowers represent the mortal desires and available pleasure that Ophelia clings on to for happiness and that she surrounds herself with to cope with the deteriorating world around her. Ophelia herself is the rose in this unweeded garden. Because of her womanhood, she gives out all her beauty and refinement to try to make others pleased, yet only makes herself used and misunderstood in the end. She does not have any right to express or even control her actions or words until she becomes mad: she uses her flowers to resemble her feelings towards Gertrude, Claudius and Laertes. She grabs the freedom and hope she has earned by sacrificing everything until the last point. As innocent and beautiful as flowers should be, Ophelia is destined to wilt in that world because she is the victim, the one being manipulated and cultivated by man. Her death is therefore passive though appears as a committed suicide: Or like a creature native and indued Unto that element: but long it could not be Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay To muddy death. (IV, vii) Her garments pull her down to death as even the clothes know how much order, usage, and abuse from men she has taken and absorbed, which she can no longer endure. Even to the last point, she holds on to the hope with herself strewn by flowers; however, this splash of bright color is fated to be blackened no matter how hard she has tried to
maintain her hopes. The death of such a melancholic beauty is fated in the rotten Denmark. Shakespeare used such distinctive, yet related, image and symbolic repetitions poison, the skull and flowers to illustrate Claudius s impulse of killing yet fear of death, Hamlet s acceptance of death after touching it and the contrasting bright, yet heavy, colors given by Ophelia s morally compelled death. Via such display of different orientations towards death, Shakespeare not only built different characteristics for each protagonist, but also revealed how human beings react to the inevitable nature of life through such a mortally heavy theme.