Hamletmachine

The play Hamlet Machine by Heiner Muller portraits a life under totalitarian rule. It consists of dramatic monologs, dense with allusions to Shakespeare's play. For example it describes the funeral of Hamlet’s father: “The bells tolled the state-funeral, murderer and widow a couple, the councilors goose-stepping behind the highranking carcass' coffin, bawling with badly paid grief”.[1] He explicitly states how corrupted this society was especially because of the love relationship between the queen and the murderer of her husband. That relationship was not natural and it is an example of the moral hypocrisy. The queen cared only about her social position and it was the most important. Her roles of a mother and a wife were completely marginalized. She acted according to the laws of the new world order called patriarchy. Heiner Muller uses this motif because the same pattern is repeated and can be seen in our lives today. We still act according to the same laws of the patriarchal world, our emotions are shut down and we only see ourselves within the framework of our social position and economic status. All action throughout our history is bind to violence and oppression. We became so focused on individuality that we forgot everything about the spirit of community. In Muller’s play Hamlet sees himself from the opposite side of the line: “I look through the double doors of bullet-proof glass at the crowd pressing forward and smell the sweat of my fear. Choking with nausea, I shake my fist at myself who stands behind the bullet-proof glass. Shaking with fear and contempt, I see myself in the crowd pressing forward, foaming at the mouth, shaking my fist at myself.”[2] He is afraid of his image in the glass and responds with rage to totalitarianism but instead of taking any action he goes home to watch television. In Shakespear’s Hamlet inaction as a fatal flaw but the problem is that action leads to murder. The question is whether to act or not to act when whatever is...