The play Hamlet grows out of the tradition of the revenge tragedy, a great favorite of the Elizabethan audience. In the conventional revenge play, the focus is on the violent acts of revenge which spatter the stage with blood and make for predictable but fulfilling theater. In Hamlet, however, the central character is obsessed not with revenge but with detective work, and his self-indulgent over-scrupulousness is itself the source of the evil which follows.
The play begins, conventionally enough, with a problem: “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” The first major action in the play is the appearance of the ghost of Hamlet’s father, who comes to tell Hamlet that he has in fact been murdered by Hamlet’s uncle (and now step-father as well) – Claudius. The ghost orders Hamlet to revenge this “murder most foul” and let his soul cease its ghostly wanderings.
At this point, Hamlet should see a clear choice – kill his uncle and avenge his father’s death (and let his father’s tortured soul finally rest in peace), or decide that social stability is more important than revenge and let matters rest.
Which path does our Hamlet choose? Why neither, of course. He would rather play at detective than act as statesman. He masquerades as philosopher – “To be or not to be” – but the real question before him is practical rather than metaphysical. We know Claudius is guilty, and so quite obviously should Hamlet, but Hamlet persists in prolonging the play with amateur detective-work, including dragging in the pitiful “mouse-trap” play to “prove” Claudius’s guilt. Further, as the redundant evidence piles up (along with the bodies), Hamlet the amateur gumshoe is woefully unready for the kill. He wallows in hesitation, a hesitation in which too much is lost. The final score? Rather than cleanly eliminating Claudius, Hamlet brings about the deaths of his girl-friend, his girl-friend’s father, his best friend, and himself, along with assorted extras (whose lives are important presumably only to themselves, certainly not to our hero Hamlet).
Everyone acts very noble and tragic about Hamlet’s demise. Fortinbras even proclaims that if Hamlet had been crowned he would have “proved most royal.” What Poppycock! Would Ronald Reagan ever have saved the American medical students in Grenada if he had acted like Hamlet? It’s only too clear what kind of “leader” he would have been! Jerry Ford would have started looking good.
Is this any way to solve a case? Give me Dirty Harry anytime.
PAH - 1990