A Different Take On Shakespeare

 We are always being told in class that every single person has a different perception of what we are reading. This is why several people are asked to read the same passages over and over, to know their personal perceptions. We often ask ourselves, how do we create these perceptions? And the answer is: it come from how you can relate to what’s happening, your life experiences. And for us (the people in class) experiences like he ones referred to in Hamlet are ones we lack and only hear from in TV and the news. But not everyone is like this.

 We all know there are people out there who have taken the life of another human being, but we never think of them as redeeming people or even educated. These are the persons who can really relate to Hamlet’s situation and most of the characters situations. When this person read lines like:

O, my offense is rank, it smells to heaven;

It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t ,

A brother’s murder! Pray can I not

(Act 3 SC 3)

they read it as people who have felt this kind of guilt, people who have killed and know there is no going back but still wish with all their might that they could un-do the un-doable. Quite different from hearing a school girl, who’s closest experience to a murder is watching CSI in the comfort of her home, read it.

 Personally, I was surprised when the radio interview began and they said that top security prisoners where performing Hamlet a Shakespeare play written in Elizabethan English. I thought there was no way they were pulling that of. But I was happily surprised when not only were they capable of doing a good performance but they also gave it a sentimental feeling that not even the best actors is capable of giving. A feeling given only by personal experience. 

Disagreeng with Frederich Nietzsche

I am in disagreement with what Nietzsche is saying. In no part of this play is Hamlet in a “Dionysian” state. He is not reluctant to take action, after gaining knowledge just because his actions wont change anything in the eternal nature of things. Quite the contrary, when Hamlet learns that it was his uncle who killed his father he is decided to avenge his father even though killing his uncle wont bring him back.

Agreeing with Samuel Johnson

 I agree with Johnson, if I were to choose one single word to describe Hamlet it would be “variety”.  Throughout this whole play we encounter numerous different situations, we go from Hamlets feigned madness to Ophelia’s heart touching tenderness to Laertes’s agony over his father’s death.  As the audience we may find ourselves confused with the play because of how this situations sometimes contradict themselves, such as when Hamlet decides to kill Claudius but keeps finding excuses as not to do it.  It is this array of different situations which made Hamlet  the most renowned drama of all times.