"The Murder of Gonzago" and Other Shady Scenes - AnnaKate Burleson
Hello everyone! I love Shakespeare so much! Now onto my blog post!
Hamlet as a character is so brilliantly written, in my opinion. The entire time the audience is left wondering if he's actually insane or if he's just a genius. Quite frankly, I feel like he's a little bit of both, but most true geniuses are off their rocker at least a little bit. I love him. One of my all-time favorite fictional characters.
Now let's talk about this play within a play.
The actors that have come to Denmark put on a show that is quite polarizing, to say the least. They told the tale of a king that is murdered by someone who wants to take over his kingdom. Claudius gets so upset watching it that he actually gets up and leaves, headed to his room. Guildenstern informs Hamlet of this, and then tells him that his mother wishes to see him in her chamber. Hamlet's plan to observe Claudius' response to this play is pretty brilliant, in my opinion, which makes me think he has to be at least a little bit in his right mind.
This is also when it is confirmed that Claudius actually did murder the late King Hamlet, which would also indirectly confirm the actual existence of Ghost-King Hamlet, both to the audience and to Hamlet himself. This is when the shift from thought to action begins to occur. Buckle up, kiddos. It's about to get GOOD.
But aside from the literal acting taking place in this scene, there is also a lot of symbolic acting taking place. Hamlet is acting like he's actually gone mad, and it's working. Everyone around him seems to think he's gone absolutely crazy, but the fact that his plan worked really effectively goes to show that he is fully capable of rational thought. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are also acting like they are genuinely looking out for Hamlet's best interest, but we can see that they are truly working hand-in-hand with the murderous King Claudius. Hamlet alludes to being able to see through them several times, and they seem to be simply too nice to be genuine. Hamlet is also beginning to act on his vengeance. Now that he has concrete confirmation of Claudius' guilt and the existence of the Ghost, he can move forward in avenging the unjust death of his father.
osten & breanna
Hamlet as a character is so brilliantly written, in my opinion. The entire time the audience is left wondering if he's actually insane or if he's just a genius. Quite frankly, I feel like he's a little bit of both, but most true geniuses are off their rocker at least a little bit. I love him. One of my all-time favorite fictional characters.
Now let's talk about this play within a play.
The actors that have come to Denmark put on a show that is quite polarizing, to say the least. They told the tale of a king that is murdered by someone who wants to take over his kingdom. Claudius gets so upset watching it that he actually gets up and leaves, headed to his room. Guildenstern informs Hamlet of this, and then tells him that his mother wishes to see him in her chamber. Hamlet's plan to observe Claudius' response to this play is pretty brilliant, in my opinion, which makes me think he has to be at least a little bit in his right mind.
This is also when it is confirmed that Claudius actually did murder the late King Hamlet, which would also indirectly confirm the actual existence of Ghost-King Hamlet, both to the audience and to Hamlet himself. This is when the shift from thought to action begins to occur. Buckle up, kiddos. It's about to get GOOD.
But aside from the literal acting taking place in this scene, there is also a lot of symbolic acting taking place. Hamlet is acting like he's actually gone mad, and it's working. Everyone around him seems to think he's gone absolutely crazy, but the fact that his plan worked really effectively goes to show that he is fully capable of rational thought. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are also acting like they are genuinely looking out for Hamlet's best interest, but we can see that they are truly working hand-in-hand with the murderous King Claudius. Hamlet alludes to being able to see through them several times, and they seem to be simply too nice to be genuine. Hamlet is also beginning to act on his vengeance. Now that he has concrete confirmation of Claudius' guilt and the existence of the Ghost, he can move forward in avenging the unjust death of his father.
osten & breanna
See, I struggle greatly with accepting Hamlet as sane. He is just too good at acting insane that I think he might slowly be turning that way. Either way, I love how you included the symbolic meaning of his different types of acting.
ReplyDeleteI loved reading your post and have the same questions you do. Hamlet really is a good actor, I struggle too with wondering whether he is sane or not. I think Zelda is right, he is just too good at acting insane.
ReplyDeleteMadison Flowers
Actors acting to be actors acting watching a play within a play of actors acting, one of whom is a murderous man who is an actor acting innocent to call out the actor acting in the play not within a play who acted innocent. Welcome to Shakespeare, ladies and gentlemen.
ReplyDeleteI like the specific wording you used to end the blog post... Murder the man who unjustly murdered. Hamlet never read Agamemnon, did he? That's what I consider to be the key fault in his rationale: he's willing to set off a new version of the House of Atreus and otherwise throw Denmark into leaderless turmoil while the nation is on the brink of war with Norway--all just for the sake of taking justice into his own hands and killing a king as though that would bring his father back or ease his postmortem torment. Methinks there's a better way of going about this.