Getting Into Character

As I listened to this radio show from This American Life, I realized how well it could connect to an analysis I read by Northrop Frye. The former spoke about the contrast between judging from actions and judging from character, having in mind Hamlet and Claudius. The radio show gave a glimpse of a prison production of Hamlet. What made the prison production so credible and real was the relationship the actors felt with their character. James Ward was asked if the reason he could play laertes so well was because so much of Laertes was inside of him, to which he replied, " I am Laertes, I am. I am." 
There was a direct relationship between the personal guilt of the actors and the guilt their characters were conveying.The prisoner who played King Hamlet even confessed that as he read the lines,  he was "the body up there" but the words were mostly coming from the man he killed, William Pride.  Here I found a similarity between the essay's thesis and the prisoners. Each prisoner, as well as Claudius, "is someone of great potential fatally blocked by something he has done and can never undo." Northrop speaks of the common assumption that what you've done is what you'll ever be. But this generalization is not shared by most prisoners. They see themselves as people who reached the lowest point of their life, and now only wish to come out of it and see how high they can get. They want to reach their full potential but feel their bad deeds are keeping them from reaching their maximum. They want defy the common generalization, seeking to be judged for their character, not for their actions. 

Little Hamlet

In the critical essay by Earnest Jones, it is stated that the psychological understanding of Hamlet's personality and behavior is a case of insanity. It wasn't in Shakespeare's intent to regard Hamlet as insane, but that is how us readers often interpret him. As seen in Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams, Hamlet suffers from psychoneurosis. According to Jones, "psychoneurosis means a state of mind where the person is unduly, and often painfully, driven or thwarted by the 'unconscious' part of his mind." One can relate this statement to Hamlet. His father's brutal murder gave action to his insanity. His thirst for revenge pushed Hamlet to manifest his emotions through desperate and impulsed actions. Hamlet's repressed childhood can explain the real reason behind him murdering his uncle. If as a child, "sane" Hamlet resented his father for taking some of his mother's affection, and secretly wished him out of the way, as years went by, these thoughts would be repressed and all traces of them "obliterated." But if "insane" Hamlet thought of such things as a child, then as the years went by, these thoughts would remain with him and therefore, explain his actions. If what Hamlet wanted was his mother's affection, then his father's death was only an excuse (even though it was first the cause) for his uncle's murder, leaving the audience with a feeling of pity and sympathy at the end of the play.  

Hamlet as a Dionysian man

According to Friedrich Nietzsche, Hamelet resembles the Dionysian man. Both gain knowledge, but refuse to take action, "for their action could not change anything in the eternal nature of things." (Nietzsche, 39) On the contrary, the Apolonian man would "take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing them end them." (Hamlet, 3:1:67-68) I do not agree with Nietsche that Hamlet represents the Dionysian man. When Hamlet is told the truth about his father's death, that it was his uncle who killed him and now is marrying his mother, he turns against his uncle. This shows how he, as the Apolonian man, strives to "set right a world that is out of joint." (Nietsche, 39) Here, in a desperate seek for revenge, Hamlet finds a motive for his actions. Even though Hamlet realizes that "action could not change anything in the eternal nature of things", meaning his father's death was something irreversible, he believes it is his destiny, the reason he was born. Therefore, I disagree with Nietsche's position that Hamlet is a Dionysian man.