Hamlet

During class, I’ve found myself liking Hamlet more and more as the play has progressed. In the beginning, I was eerily spooked by the role of the ghost, the “incestuous acts” between Hamlet’s uncle and his mother, as well as the mask of “seeming” that many of the characters shield themselves by. I love how everything on the surface is artificial, how Hamlet’s words always seem to have at least two or more connotations behind it. I’ve currently been obsessing over the famous line in Hamlet’s aside when he speaks “Frailty—thy name is woman.” This line speaks to me in several different tongues. For one, also the most obvious, Hamlet is saying that his mother is weak, which he compounds by saying that “Ay madam, it is indeed common.” The word common further emphasizes the downsizing view of his towards his mother in that he’s calling her a slut, perhaps so far even a prostitute when he says “Why, she (would) hang on him/ As if increase of appetite had grown/ By what it fed on.” This line therefore implicates Gertrude in that Hamlet is essentially saying that she is satisfying her craving for sex. By using terms that are associated with food such as a sudden increase of appetite, implies a greater desire that had not been present prior to the death of Hamlet’s father. Moreover, by saying that Gertrude “would hang on him” further sends a connotation of being desperate. Is Gertrude worried that if she doesn’t marry Claudius that she’ll lose her authority as queen? Yet, marrying into the blood line goes against all societal obligations. Hamlet goes on even further to criticize his mother when he alludes to several mythological persons including Niobe and the satyr. First off though Hamlet praises his father by alluding to both Hercules and the Hyperion, both of which are powerful beings in Greek mythology yet Hamlet symbolically portrays his uncle as a satyr—a lustful animal that is half-human, half-beast, while chastising his mother in nearly the same tone, calling her “a beast that wants discourse of reason” which is referring to Niobe, “would have mourned longer!” at the passing of the king. Ironically, Hamlet is calling both characters—his uncle and mother—beasts by seemingly alluding to them through mythological associations. Hamlet further condemns his mother as he speaks that “Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears/ Had left the flushing in her galled eyes. “ Biblically speaking, Hamlet is alluding to the symbolism of salt as “truth” in Christianity. Hence, salt is essentially a metaphor for truth, the light, and the alike. Hence Hamlet is saying that all truthfulness and all purity has now been purged from his mother because they have been flushed from her eyes. Likewise the connotation of the word “gall” is negative with a definition that is to make someone feel annoyed, hence suggesting that Hamlet is feeling infuriated by the actions of his mother’s acts, by marrying so quickly, moving so quickly to such “incestuous sheets.”