Tuesday, December 11, 2018
Death As the "Great Equalizer" in Hamlet
Throughout the play, Shakespeare (through Hamlet) makes many statements about the nature of death, specifically that it truly is the "great equalizer." In Act IV, Scene III, right after Hamlet has killed Polonius, the King asks Hamlet where Polonius is (despite knowing the answer). Hamlet answers, "'At supper [...] not where he eats, but where he is eaten. [...] Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service--two dishes, but to one table. That's the end'" (Shakespeare 98). Here, Hamlet is questioning the true nature or purpose of social status and wealth. Neither is eternal; no matter how rich or powerful we are, we are all going to die eventually (and be eaten by maggots in the soil of the Earth). Later on, in Act V, Scene I, when Hamlet and Horatio are in the graveyard, Hamlet picks up a skull and again questions the meaning of life: "'To what base uses we may return, Horatio! [...] Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth to dust [...] Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay [...]'" (126). Here, Hamlet references two great leaders of the past, Alexander the Great and Caesar. While they were magnificent figures in life, they shared the same fate as Yorick, the old court jester Hamlet once knew. Hamlet's sentiment that Alexander "returneth to dust" echoes the Book of Genesis's famous quote, "For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return." In Hamlet, Shakespeare conveys that no matter our station in life, we will all die--a sad but true reality.
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It is intriguing to ponder the philosophy that is proposed in Hamlet: that of the idea that to dust we all shall return. Lainey did a great job of reflecting on that, and to further the discussion, it is important to consider the question of morality and of afterlife that is present in Hamlet in addition to the mortality and inevitable deaths of Shakespeare's characters. The best example of the consideration of morality as relating to Christianity, for example, is definitely Hamlet's thought process when he almost murders Claudius in prayer. Hamlet purposefully doesn't kill Claudius then because if he dies in prayer, it is believed that Claudius would go to heaven. This, of course, is drastically different from a more modern take on Christianity and salvation, proving that the nature of religious beliefs change greatly over time but also noting that Shakespeare had his "finger on the pulse" when he wrote Hamlet.
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