Hamlet

                                   Foreword

John Keats wrote-

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: 

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower quiet for us………

Many art works still capture the attention and attraction of our mind centuries after centuries. Their novelty never dies. Shakespeare’s Hamlet is such one.It’s beauty lies in the intricately knit issues of major human concern like revenge, suicide, death,gender, sex, religion and finally family. It would have been better to nominate family values first in the above listing. For Hamlet’s commitment to retain family values above all; not to kill one’s step father, the new husband of his own mother; and thus destroy the meaning of family, in spite of the killed father’s insistence.

But the primitive urge lay undying within Man to revenge,  gears up the whole action of the play. Hamlet weaves together three revenge plots, all of which involve sons seeking vengeance for their fathers’ murders. Ultimately, the play calls into question the validity and usefulness of revenge

Hamlet’s musings on suicide, especially the “to be or not to be” speech, are legendary and continue to direct discussions of the value of life and the mystery of death. But Hamlet himself never commits suicide. It is Ophelia, who never mentions the possibility of taking her own life, who drowns, seemingly as a result of some combination of madness and despair.

And,  Death threads its way through the entirety of Hamlet, from the opening scene’s confrontation with a dead man’s ghost to the bloodbath of the final scene, which leaves almost every main character dead. Hamlet constantly contemplates death from many angles. He is both seduced and repelled by the idea of suicide, but, in the famous gravedigger scene, he is also fascinated by the physical reality of death. In a way, Hamlet can be viewed as extended dialogue between Hamlet and death.

Hamlet’s attitude toward women is notoriously sexist and stems from his disgust at his mother’s sexuality and seeming unfaithfulness to his dead father. This outlook eventually spills over to include all women, especially the hapless Ophelia, who has virtually no power or control, even over her own body. To some extent, the play also considers notions of masculinity (or lack thereof). Claudius warns Hamlet that his grief is “unmanly” and Hamlet notoriously refers to himself as a promiscuous woman when he finds himself unable to avenge his father’s death, which, again, circles back to Hamlet’s association between women and deception. Hamlet’s attitude toward women reveals something about him more than it reveals women’s true nature. Family is a significant theme in Hamlet. The play is notorious for the way it dwells on the issue of incest – Gertrude’s marriage to her dead husband’s brother, Hamlet’s fixation on his mother, and even Laertes’s obsession with Ophelia’s sexuality.

 It’s also important to note how the play is particularly concerned with the way politics impact the dynamics of family relationships, especially when domestic harmony is sacrificed for political gain. Also of importance is the fact that Hamlet involves three revenge plots that all hinge on sons avenging the deaths of their fathers.

My study of Hamlet started from my under graduate course and then continued again on  my post graduate course which induced me  to delve deeper and deeper in the mysterious attraction of Hamlet for many years. The result is produced in the forthcoming pages along with the original play.I am sure that the mystery and power of Hamlet will never end as  Hamlet represents the whole humanity in many senses.                                                                                                                                                                     Vaiyavan