Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Hamlet Senior's Murder by Claudius seems to represent Biblical Stories
Hamlet Senior was murdered by his brother Claudius while he was in a garden laying down. Claudius came and poured poison in his ear to kill him. This sounds a lot like two biblical stories that we are all familiar with. The first is the story of Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit in the garden. A serpent came and told them to eat it. Claudius also blames Hamlet's death on a serpent that bites him in the garden. The other biblical story this reminded me of was Cain and Abel. Just as Cain killing Abel was the murder of one's brother, Claudius also murders his brother. I found it interesting that the play of Hamlet included elements that reminded me so much of Christian Biblical stories. It made me wonder how much religion influenced Shakespeare in his writing.
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4 comments:
I definitely agree that there are connections between biblical stories and Hamlet. Of course, Cain was the first murderer when he killed his brother Abel, just like Claudius killed Old Hamlet. For Cain, justice was served when he and his descendants bore the mark of Cain. For Claudius, his justice is served in his death. As for the garden, I think the setting alludes to Adam and Eve's fall from grace. Eve's deception in the garden led to the downfall of mankind, while Old Hamlet's murder led to the downfall of Young Hamlet.
As an important work of literature, it is no surprise that there are multiple biblical allusions throughout the play. I feel like many of the works we will read this year overlap and have references to each other. If I am not mistaken te bible is the most popular book in the world, so it is usually something that everyone would understand, so Shakespeare would have found it to be an easy reference point for everyone to understand. As for Cain killing able, it is a perfect parallel to Claudius killing "Old Hamlet." If anything I would be surprised if he didn't use it as a comparison.
I think the allusion to the two biblical stories is a very possible chance as we talked about how as writing progressed, many writers borrowed from past pieces of work (kinda the way Shakespeare did as he adopted the story of Hamlet from some pre-1604 arthur). I believe the two biblical allusions serve to carry out the plot of Hamlet. In the story of Cain and Abel, Cain was burdened by guilt as he could not escape God, similar to the way Claudius could not escape the burden he faced from holding the murder of his brother a secret. This could show how guilt caused the eventual downfall of Claudius as he began by panicking when he discovered Hamlet knew of his wrongdoings, which eventually ended in his own death. Like Madeline said, Justice has been served, as it often is in much of the literature we have read.
Sorry but those are two of the vaguest connections possible. I see where you are going with it, and that idea of the adam and eve connection is interesting. What could shakespeare being saying with that? possibly that the murder of hamlet sr was sort of the beginning of denmark's fall from prosperity and peace?
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