The Dichotomy of Death in Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Taking Communion is a symbolic act representing the followers’ oneness with Christ. By consuming his body, they are remembering the sacrifice he made and reminding themselves of the truth in their faith. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the dead Kings body serves a similar purpose. Although he is not eaten, his body epitomizes the moral righteousness of Denmark. When he is buried and forgotten, sin begins to pervade the state as the rotten truth of his death remains hidden. Although regular funeral practices have been followed, his soul is not resolved to pass on because of the buried wrong. The ghost’s appearance is unnatural because it defies death, but it is necessary to reveal the truth. Hamlet struggles with his task of killing his uncle because murder is unnatural, as an evil act, but a natural following of retribution law for the murder of his father. Based on the Ghost’s directions, as the bearer of truth, we would think that retribution is the cure for moral corruption. Yet, at the end of the play, all the characters but Horatio are dead. Is this the equal opposite reaction of the original sin? Or did all the acts of so-called ‘retribution’ exacerbate the issue, and render everyone guilty? As the King’s body rots underground, so does the moral state of Denmark, infected by sin. Shakespeare uses the dichotomy of death, as a process unsettling to the living, but normal in the natural world, to illustrate the complexities of moral correctness and whether dubious acts of retribution can restore order.

To Hamlet, his father is the epitome of morality and leadership. The court’s hasty advancement from mourning seems to him a demonstration of Denmark’s impending downfall, a symptom of his uncle’s sins. Although everyone around Prince Hamlet has moved on, he is still preoccupied, obsessing over his father’s legacy, and his responsibility to maintain it. He pronounces, “Then there's/ hope a great man's memory may outlive his life/ half a year.”(III, ii, 139-141), expressing his frustration at the hasty departure from grieving. He feels that he alone is keeping his father’s memory alive. Hamlet describes his father as ‘great’, and ‘noble’, demonstrating that King Hamlet was the moral foundation of Denmark, a cornerstone of social ideals, and now that people are forgetting him, corruption is rampant. In Hamlet’s mind, nobody could ever equal his father, and so Claudius’ marriage to his mother and acquisition of the throne paints him as an impostor. Recounting his father’s qualities, Hamlet gushes:

“See what a grace was seated on this brow;

Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;

An eye like Mars, to threaten and command; […]

A combination and a form indeed […]

To give the world assurance of a man.”

(III, iv, 65-72)

Naming a multitude of qualities, Hamlet likens his father to literal Gods. Jove, the King of the Roman gods; Hyperion, herald of light; Mars, the god of warfare. King Hamlet was an eternal leader, enlightened, fierce yet strategic in warfare.  All of the qualities of a King are epitomized in Hamlet’s view of his father as the perfect man, the perfect father, the perfect king. He claims that his father was an ‘assurance’ to the world, a man who represented Denmark’s ideals. As in an absolutist monarchy the Crown is the country, so was King Hamlet Denmark, and his impervious morals were the foundation of Denmark’s own. Although King Hamlet had been glorified by the public, Hamlet’s frequent company attempts to cement his legacy as an artifact of the past. The culprits of this infraction, in his mind, are his mother and uncle. Hamlet is disgusted by his mother’s remarriage, saying “She married. O, most wicked speed, to post/ With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!” (I, ii, 161-2) Shakespeare’s use of “incestuous” alludes to Hamlet’s repulsion towards his uncle’s position as his new, false father. The “wicked speed” refers to their hasty marriage, which was not societally ordinary, as it took place so soon after the funeral, and widows don’t often marry their husband’s brothers. Nobody could equal Hamlet’s memory of his father, and so Claudius’ new role as Hamlet’s stepfather in addition to his societally unnatural wedding triggers Hamlet’s suspicion.

Although Prince Hamlet had misgivings about his uncle’s dubious rise to power, his father’s burial followed societal traditions, providing a sense of normalcy and truth to the nature of his death, and legitimacy to the Claudius’ ascension. This was disrupted by the re-emergence of his father. Reflecting on the cycle of death in the graveyard, Hamlet reflects:

“Alexander died,

Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is

earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that loam (whereto he

was converted) might they not stop a beer barrel?”

(V, i, 216-219)

Here he refers to Alexander the Great, a powerful man with a fearsome legacy. Hamlet realizes that his remnants may now be plugging a barrel of beer. One may do much in their life, but in the end, they are no less ordinary than any other person, as we are all reduced to dust. His father, buried like any other man, should follow this natural process of recycling, his body reused to fuel new life. Regarding his feelings of unease, Hamlet remarks, “Foul deeds will rise,/ Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's / eyes" (I, ii, 279-281), highlighting how the Earth above his father has hidden the truth. Men’s eyes remain above the ground, focused on their own lives, leaving the buried truth overlooked. His claim that foul deeds will rise refers to the ghost’s arrival as a harbinger of retribution. The Ghost of King Hamlet is an apparition, bodiless because he is untethered to the physical world. The Ghost’s appearance confirms Hamlet’s gut feeling that the events surrounding his father’s death were sinister and unnatural, and that his uncle is the root of this immorality and sin rotting the foundation of Denmark. When Hamlet first sees his father’s ghost, he is dismayed. He exclaims:

“Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death,

Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre

Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd,

Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws

To cast thee up again. What may this mean

That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel,

Revisits thus the glimpses of the moon,

Making night hideous, and we fools of nature”

(I, iv, 52-59)

Hamlet wonders why the bones they had buried, to be laid at rest forever have been disturbed, and his father’s soul has been spit back into this world. He says his father had been “canoniz’d”, meaning that his legacy had been cemented in history, akin to a saint. He had already been immortalized as part of the past. Furthermore, Hamlet refers to the tomb as a set of “marble jaws”, equating a grave to a mouth. Like a mouth, it is natural for things to be swallowed, but not to return. Additionally, through his specification of the jaws as “ponderous”, Hamlet likens his father’s reappearance to the myth of Jonah. Like the regurgitated Jonah, King Hamlet has returned to spread the truth. Hamlet wonders why his father has appeared in full armor, ready for war, though he was supposed to have been laid at peace, claiming the ghost makes “night hideous”. Under the light of the sun, sin is revealed, but the dim moon can be perverted by supernatural events, immorality lurking in the shadows. Hamlet and his companions have become “fools of nature”, pawns to a reality that follows no regular rules. The Ghost, describing his death refers to it as “Murder most foul, as in the best it is;/ But in this most foul, strange and unnatural.” (I, v, 33-34). Shakespeare uses repetition to emphasize the corruption of murder, that it is always foul and unnatural because it is evil and defies the morals of society. This description confirms Hamlet’s speculation. The truth of murder was the foul, unnatural thing creeping through the foundations of Denmark. Like mold rotting a piece of food, the murder was the reason the King was forced to return.

The Ghost of Hamlet’s father demanded that he murder his uncle as retribution for his own death, but Hamlet agonizes over the act. When presented with the opportunity to kill his uncle, a conflicted Hamlet asks, “To quit him with this arm? And is't not to be / damned/ To let this canker of our nature come/ In further evil?” (V, ii, 77-80). Hamlet ponders which is the lesser evil. By acting, and committing murder, he damns himself to eternal suffering. But is the crime of inaction worse? Is he just as guilty if he allows an evil man to live? He refers to his uncle as a “canker of nature”, likening him to a cancer. Through the murder of his brother, he gained a Kingdom. Claudius eats away at “nature”, the world’s natural moral laws, established by society, for his own gain. When resolving himself, Hamlet says of his rageful plot:

“When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes

out

Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot

blood

And do such bitter business as the day

Would quake to look on.”

(III, ii, 420-425)

Churchyards are teeming with death. Although sacred, nighttime in a graveyard is unsettling, because they are in some ways direct connections to the supernatural, and thus to hell. The light of day casts out the shadows of evil, but in darkness, the shadows reign, and sin goes unseen. This is the time when hell “breathes contagion” into the world, infecting it. Again, Shakespeare compares the creep of immorality to a disease, rotting the body of truth. Hamlet says that he could “drink hot blood”, or exact revenge, but only under the cover of night. He could not face the light of day which would reveal the blood on his hands and the truth of his sin. Although the murder of his uncle would be retaliation, he still feels it is wrong. At the same time, everyone is made equal by the inescapable reality of death. Standing in the graveyard, Hamlet pontificates, “Is this the fine of/ his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine/ pate full of fine dirt?” (V, i, 108-110). Peering at the skull of an unknown lawyer, he realizes that nothing the man did in life elevated him in death. He refers to “recoveries” as rewards for his good deeds and “fines” accrued in life as the payment for his sins. Shakespeare’s use of “fine” is a play on words, referring to sin, soil texture, and the fines a lawyer’s client pays. Thus, the “fine pate” refers to lawyers’ quick arguments and silver tongues, both of which are long gone to this skeleton. No matter what he did, what sins he committed, every skull in the graveyard ended up with his mouth full of dirt. This is the inescapability of death. And in the end, Hamlet’s revenge for his father did nothing but hasten his own demise.

We as living creatures feel uneasy around death. There is something in the air surrounding it which gives us goosebumps. Perhaps, it is the physical evidence that we are all on a collision course to oblivion. And yet, death is a vital natural process that fuels the ecosystems we depend on. We eat plants that grew from rotting flesh, but the sight of a decomposing body makes us sick. Shakespeare uses this inherent contradiction to describe the complexity of moral values and the concealment of truth. Like a rotting body is concealed by the rich soil above it, so is a dirty secret by sugarcoated lies. Hamlet’s companions’ attempts to hide the truth from him could be seen as a kindness, an attempt to spare him from turmoil, even though they violate natural morals by lying. Although this immorality eats away at the body of social values but the method through which truth is revealed is supernatural, a ghost, closer to a creature of hell than to heaven. The play asks: in the face of pervasive evil, what act is the least heinous? Is it committing the same evil act which started the cycle, or allowing a guilty man to walk free? Hamlet is forced to make a choice, but he ends up no better off than his father, or his evil uncle. Perhaps, we learn, the lines between nature and perversion, morality and evil, are not as concrete as they seem.

November 6, 2022