Hamlet

I followed along with the text of Hamlet while watching Kenneth Branagh’s four-hour 1996 film version, which is about as close as you can get to a word-for-word adaptation.

It’s hard to know what to say about such a prestigious work of literature. I kept looking up articles, videos, and podcasts to help me understand what I was “supposed” to think about some of the key elements of the play. And my conclusion is basically that I’m just supposed to think whatever I naturally think. There’s obviously some general consensus about Hamlet’s major themes, but specific interpretations seem to vary a surprising amount, even among people who have devoted their lives to studying Shakespeare. Which I suppose is one of the big reasons Shakespeare’s work has lasted so long. Even though it also makes me wonder to what extent Shakespeare intended his work to be so interpretable.

Anyway, my point being, all I can really write about is what I personally thought and felt as I watched and read it. And to me, Hamlet is basically the story of what happens when a chronic overthinker gets too stuck in his own head, which I found pretty relatable. The simplified premise is that Hamlet suspects Claudius murdered his father and then married his mother, but he can’t bring himself to act until he is absolutely certain that what he believes is true and that what he plans to do about it is right. What follows is several more hours of Hamlet agonizing over how he can know anything for sure and what action he should take in response. We get to hear a lot of that agonizing through some of the most famous soliloquies ever written, but while Hamlet is thinking and thinking, his situation continues to deteriorate. His attempts to understand everything perfectly before making a decision only create more confusion and suffering, until nearly every major character is dead. Whomp whomp.

Hamlet the person is incredibly intelligent and thoughtful, but he is so trapped inside his own head that his intelligence stops being a gift and instead becomes paralyzing. He can visualize too many possibilities, too many consequences, too many doubts. He thinks so hard about how to act correctly that he becomes incapable of acting at all. As someone who tends to think way too hard about things, I found this incredibly relatable, albeit frustrating to watch.

Interestingly, this aspect of Hamlet’s personality only really came into focus for me with the introduction of the relatively minor character Osric in Act V. Osric came off as sort of a miniature foil to the intensely philosophical Hamlet. He’s a people pleaser and an opportunist who doesn’t seem interested in questioning anything too deeply as long as he knows how to behave and whose favor to seek. He goes with the flow, says what people want to hear, and looks out for himself. And guess what? As far as we know, he’s still alive at the end. Ignorance is bliss, and stuff.

So I could relate to Hamlet in that way. But of course, I’m never going to read a story and not be drawn to the female characters, and in this case I mostly just wish we had more Ophelia. At the beginning of the play, she seems like one of the more grounded characters in a story full of irrational people, so of course she is eventually driven insane herself, because who wouldn’t be? Her father and brother tell her how to behave. Claudius and Polonius use her to spy on Hamlet. Hamlet alternately professes his love for her and insults her. She’s really put through the wringer.

It all had me thinking about how much Ophelia seems to represent women more generally. She is manipulated by the men around her, given relatively little opportunity to speak for herself, and ultimately turned into a supporting character in someone else’s tragedy. And yet she still often seems more human than all the men around her. She’s just trying to figure out what she’s supposed to do and find some kind of happiness within someone else’s world. So yeah, it would have been cool to get more Ophelia.

Some other random thoughts: I absolutely loved the moment of forgiveness between Hamlet and Laertes at the end. I liked Fortinbras giving Hamlet some respect after his death. And I really liked Hamlet and Horatio’s friendship. There is a lot to unpack related to the concept of grief.

I can imagine watching different versions of this play and getting completely different messages depending on how the characters are presented. There are a lot of brilliant, famous lines and passages, and enough ambiguity that each one could come off slightly different depending on how it is presented. I’m curious to revisit this at some point in the future and see how different my takeaways might be.

Book author: William Shakespeare