Hamlet Death

Hamlet as a Death-Infected Source of the Rottenness in Elsinore

A second possibility concerning Hamlet’s estrangement from the goings on in Elsinore is that the source of the problem is not the corruption in Elsinore but some deep inadequacy in Hamlet himself. The world of Elsinore is indeed full of compromises and evasions and political intrigue. But it is a recognizably normal adult world, and it does possess some important worth in the love of Gertrude and Claudius, in the respect and popularity of Claudius, in his political effectiveness, and perhaps in the loyalty of Polonius to the King and in his concern for his own family (even if we find that concern often overly pragmatic and emotionally limiting). Hamlet’s displacement from that world is thus, not so much an indication of his noble, sympathetic character, as a sign of his emotional or intellectual inadequacy. He is, more than anyone else, the source of something rotten in the state of Denmark.

In exploring this possibility we might like to consider, for example, that Hamlet is a multiple killer, who takes seven lives for one. He kills without any compunction, a response that surprises even Horatio. He has what one critic (Wilson Knight) has called a “death infected” imagination, always dwelling on the futility, aridity, and pointlessness of life. Far from having an uplifting philosophical or poetical nature, he is morbidly obsessed with the fact that he can find no adequate reason for living in the he world. He is also, in a very real sense, the biggest liar in the play. For all his talk of the deceptive world of Elsinore and the tactics of Polonius, Hamlet himself is always acting, deceiving, lying, shielding himself from people and using people to promote his own ends. And most significant of all, he has a very warped sense of female sexuality, talking of it always in gross terms which indicate an enormous disgust. Hamlet’s actions are destructive of others and ultimately self-destructive. For...