HAMLET: AN ICEBERG

            “…Be all my sins remembered.” Hamlet, on the surface, seems to be about madness, about revenge, about death or suicide but it’s not. Hamlet is an iceberg: there’s much deeper into it than is visible. It is about betrayal, obscurity of human nature, difficulty in bringing about physical action from mental determination and most importantly, intricacy of human relationships. Hamlet is a very complexly developed, dynamic character with diverse and unique aspects in his personality, visible through his thoughts, his actions, his intelligence, and above all, his language. In the line in his predominant soliloquy, “…be all my sins remembered,” he assures the readers of his knowledge about the significance in Claudius’s death.

            “To be, or not to be: that is the question.” Hamlet delivered this soliloquy when he was struggling to act upon his duty as a son and responsibility as a prince. He was certain that Claudius needed to be killed for the betterment of Denmark, or the “prison” as he called it, and to avenge his father’s death but he could barely demonstrate his anger through speech, let alone action. His uncertainty in whether to change or to stay the same – “to be, or not to be” – prevented him from fighting the iniquitous and ending his emotional and mental struggle, “…or to take arms against the sea of troubles, and by opposing end them?” “To die: to sleep; No more.” Death, in this soliloquy, can be taken to be literal but it can also symbolize the future – the unknown. No individual is aware what the future consists of and how it will affect their respective lives – “for in that sleep of death what dreams may come.” The ambiguity of the future was what Hamlet feared; the insecurity of the future was what Hamlet feared; the “death” of the future (or rather, in the future) was what Hamlet feared.

             The ambiguity, the insecurity and the ultimate “death” that the future consists of forced Hamlet to stop before acting upon his instincts. He questioned the worth of being disciplined if killing Claudius was the morally right act. But he blamed his questioning on the fear of the future: if unaware of what it held, then why commit to a responsibility whose outcome was also unknown – “for who would bear the whips and scorns of time,” why would a being bear through the hardships and sufferings of the present: only because of greater fear of the unknown (“to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death”). Hamlet didn’t fear Claudius’s death or him killing Claudius, but he feared the outcome of his death: not only on Denmark, not only on his mother, but also on himself. An action can never be taken back and time can never be reversed: how would killing Claudius have an impact on his personality – “the undiscover’d country from whose bourn/no traveller returns…” This fear was what made Hamlet endure all his pain, of knowing the truth yet unable to do anything, and all his confusion, of the outcome of Claudius’s death – “…puzzles the will/and makes us rather bear those ills we have/than fly to others that we know not of?” And this fear was what made Hamlet act crazy (where the concept of Hamlet’s insanity comes to place) and appear to be weak (concept of “he wanted to commit suicide”) – “thus conscience does make cowards of us all.” Through all these fears and uncertainty, Hamlet “lost” his ability to reach a physical conclusion – “and lose the name of action.” Finally, he ends up requesting Ophelia to remember him in her prayers: “…be all my sins remembered.”

            Hamlet’s “to be, or not to be” served a purpose of not only “self-overhearing” for Hamlet, but also to clarify for the audience that Hamlet, being a very determined and definite individual, is wavering not because of his “insanity” but because of his perplexity about the outcome of his actions in the future. Hamlet declares his definite knowledge of the value of killing Claudius, “when he himself might his quietus make/with a bare bodkin?” – locutionary effect; Hamlet delivers “to be, or not to be” to not only self-overhear but to create a sense of understanding for the audience, “and lose the name of action” – illocutionary effect; Finally, Hamlet elucidates his inability to act to the audience, “with this regard their currents turn awry, and lose the name of action” – perlocutionary effect. With the usage of the theory of performativity, the effect of Hamlet’s language and his speech results in a new intensity of depth. With this depth, Shakespeare was able to achieve the formation of Hamlet to be an iceberg: there’s much deeper into it than is visible.