Hamlet Essay

juncture represents many things tragic hero, over-thinking educated man, and poor friend. He is also a revolutionary, a philosopher, and a dreamer, and reconciling these good qualities with the bad proves as maddening for the audience as it does to village himself. However, what is often lost in the shuffle of Christian theologies in the playfulness is the fact that nihilism as a persistent force, guiding villages actions (or inaction, as the case may be) and serving as the gun for tragedy.Nihilism serves in the play as a kind of spiritual nether region into which men like Hamlet target find themselves organism pulled into. It represents something that, to Hamlet and those like him, comes across as something off a salvation it represents an opportunity to free ones self from the need to act, and instead welcomes somebody to become completely absorbed in the instauration of contemplation. This seems ideal for Hamlet the student, but when he is asked to take action by his spectr al father, he is separate between his unbowed nature and that which others expect of him.Unable to believe in himself, Hamlet becomes unable to believe in anything at all, which forms the crux of the plays tragic moral dilemma. Whether Hamlet was intended to be a nihilist or the work nihilistic in nature is a question advanced(a) for ponder. agree to Donald Wehrs, Placing the threat of nihilism at the heart of tragedy, Shakespeare seems to anticipate, if not inaugurate, Romantic and Modernist vocations for literatureoffering literature as the site where signifi dismissce after the debunking of myth and metaphysics may be reclaimed (68).According to such a reading, one of the purposes in the narrative of Hamlet is the debunking of mythology. This would reconcile some of the odder features of the playfor instance, the very non-Catholic ghost of King Hamlet (himself seemingly a remnant from the notions of purgatory) juxtaposed with very Catholic concerns of whether Claudius will a scend to heaven or settle down to hell based on the exact moment that he is killed he basist be killed, according to Hamlet, when he is fit and sea watchwordd for his passage.However, Wehrs points out that nihilism is the threat, and not the goal Hamlets tale is not nihilistic simply for the sake of riveting storytelling, but because it reveals that when lives unravel (as they do in all tragedies), a belief in nothingness effectively leaves nothing behind no substance lurking behind the shroud of life. why, then, the debunking? Why twoer lampooning the absurdity of certain metaphysical notions/superstitions while still adhering to the Christian belief structure?The answer is as simple as it is striking by means of the story of Hamlet, Shakespeare attempts to create a system of morality that is independent of religion of spiritual affiliation. After all, Hamlet is shown as someone torn between moralities, calculation the social responsibility of honoring his fathers request for revenge with the spiritual responsibility of avoiding bloodshed and murder.He is a man torn away by his multitude of beliefs, not his lack of beliefsthe famous to be or not to be speech represents a descent into nihilism, but it is an abyss that he was driven into by trying to follow the often-arbitrary dictates of what is right and what is wrong. It is no coincidence that the best intentions of Hamlet consign many more souls to death than the deliberate machinations of Claudius. According Tzachi Zamir, some of Shakespeares tragic characters (such as Macbeth) are able to resolve nihilistic navel-gazing by virtue of action.Hamlet, on the other hand, is more interested in escaping (537) the physicality of the world his philosophical nature lends itself more readily to the nihilism that he stumbles into. This is found in the to be or not to be speech, as Hamlet notes With this regard their currents turn awry / And lose the name of action. It is interesting to note that the nihilistic Hamlet causes more death and destruction than other tragic characters who have a spiritual belief structure in place Claudius, as written above, is a cold-blooded murderer, but also a sorry man who does not let his life be consumed by forces beyond his control.Macbeth readily admits that the violent murder that begins his own tragic downfall will charge him to hell, but he cannot help himself. In this spectrum of morality, Shakespeare seems to be implying that good actions can be tainted (following Aristotles Poetics, his tragedies almost always feature glorious characters beingness brought low) and bad actions can be redeemed (the counterpoint of Shakespeares tragedies are, of course, the comedies, in which everyone is a case of mistaken identity or two away from true love and happy marriage).Hamlet seems to perceive this on some level I must be cruel, only to be kind. The worst sin, then, becomes inaction Hamlets inaction is a result of his inability to believe in anything, a nd it seems to clog up the very gears of Hamlets world it is unsurprising, then, that the entirety of that world grinds to a halt from this disruption. Worse still, he tethers the inaction to his ability to reason, when in truth, it is only reasoning that can save one from nihilism.As Grace Matthews points out, Hamlet, a religious young man, vacillates between faith and atheism, he becomes vulnerable to the deception that evil offers us it is only by resisting succumbing to nihilism through thinking that we can protect our spirituality and live meaningfully as a result. Hamlets sin is not thinking Hamlets sin is overthinking. mayhap the most strident voice in declaring that Hamlet is a nihilist play is that of Harold Bloom.According to him, Shakespeare invented what Nietzsche, and Dostoevsky, and others afterwards started to call nihilism. Its a pure Shakespearian invention. He links this rather explicitly with the character of Hamlet himself Im not sure that until you have the re presentation you call Hamlet, that you have anyplacesomeone who changes every time he or she speaks, and who does it by this weird thing of overhearing oneself, which I cant find before Shakespeare.For Bloom, the notion of Hamlet being nihilistic lies in his personal inability to create an identity for himself his mind is tugged by reason in one direction, by honor in another direction, and by loyalty in yet another direction. As cliche as it may sound, Hamlet is unable to believe in anything else because he is unable to believe in himself. Aside from the obviously bloody consequences, how does this further the notion that Shakespeare intended this to be a negative thinga nihilism to be avoided at all costs, instead of an existential safety blanket for individuals to hide themselves in?The answer to this is the fact that Hamlet is portrayed as less(prenominal) than a person throughout the entirety of the play. In point of fact, his spectral father actually displays much more persona lity and substance than his son does. Hamlets identity is in reflection he can be a jocular young man with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, an educated conspirator with Horatio and an angered son with his mother. Without them, though, Hamlet is unable to be anyone at all.Shakespeares Hamlet as a play, and his Hamlet as a character, will remain the center of debate for centuries more to come. However, it is important that the discussions of fate and philosophythe very kind that Hamlet would have delighted in at Wittenbergdo not overshadow the dispirited things that comprise his tragedy. Shakespeare dangles both Lutheran and Catholic theology in front of both Hamlet and the viewer, but does not advocate one over the other. Rather, both serve as a warning for the only real spiritual evil the inaction of nihilism.Ironically, it is only through the use of reasoning that one can overcome the temptation of nihilismthe temptation of surrendering all responsibility and simply succumbing to the ebb and flow of the tides of the world. However, through Hamlet we see that an overabundance of reasoning can actually cause this effect if one overlaps spirituality and secular education, then everything is thrown into disarray, and the moral compass is not simply brokenones entire sense of a true moral north is thrown right out of the window. In its place is a path that can pop off only to heartbreak, bloodshed, and chaos.