Hamlet Essay

crossroads represents many things tragic hero, over-thinking educated man, and curt friend. He is also a revolutionary, a philosopher, and a dreamer, and reconciling these grave qualities with the bad proves as maddening for the audience as it does to small town himself. However, what is much lost in the shuffle of Christian theologies in the laugher is the situation that nihilistic delusion as a persistent force, guiding crossroadss actions (or inaction, as the case whitethorn be) and serving as the catalyst for tragedy. nihilism serves in the play as a kind of apparitional chthonian region into which men like juncture rouse find themselves be pulled into. It represents some(a)thing that, to Hamlet and those like him, comes across as something off a repurchase it represents an opportunity to free is self from the need to act, and instead welcomes someone to become completely absorbed in the world of contemplation. This seems lofty for Hamlet the student, scarcely when he is asked to take action by his ghostlike puzzle, he is torn amid his true nature and that which others expect of him. un up to(p)(p) 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 mean to be a nihilist or the work nihilistic in nature is a question ripe for debate. According to Donald Wehrs, Placing the threat of nihilism at the heart of tragedy, Shakespeare seems to anticipate, if non inaugurate, Romantic and Modernist vocations for litoffering literature as the site where significance 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 precise non-Catholic ghost of King Hamlet (himself seemingly a remnant from the nonions of purgatory) juxtapose with in truth Catholic conce rns of whether Claudius will ascend to heaven or fall to hell based on the exact moment that he is killed he cant be killed, according to Hamlet, when he is fit and temperd 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, alone because it reveals that when lives unravel (as they do in all tragedies), a belief in nothingness effectively leaves nothing stinker no substance lurking behind the shroud of life. Why, then, the debunking? Why bother 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 through 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, weighing the social tariff of honoring his fathers request f or revenge with the spiritual tariff of avoiding bloodshed and murder.He is a man torn apart 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 likeness that the best intentions of Hamlet consign many to a greater extent souls to death than the talk over 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 to a greater extent 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 skew-whiff / And lose the name of action. It is interes ting to note that the nihilistic Hamlet causes more death and destruction than other tragic characters who view as a spiritual belief structure in place Claudius, as written above, is a cold-blooded murderer, but also a repentant man who does not let his life be consumed by forces beyond his control.Macbeth readily admits that the crimson murder that begins his own tragic downfall will send 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 al intimately always feature glorious characters macrocosm 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 outdoor(a) from true love and happy marriage).Hamlet seems to perceive this on some level I must be cruel, hardly to be kind. The get through ugliness, then, becomes inaction Haml ets inaction is a result of his softness to believe in anything, and 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 tho reasoning that can present 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 spiritism and live meaningfully as a result. Hamlets sin is not thinking Hamlets sin is overthinking. Perhaps 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 representation you call Hamlet, that you have anywheresomeone who changes every time he or she speaks, and who does it by this weird thing of overhearing oneself, which I cant find ahead 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 than a person throughout the entirety of the play. In point of fac t, his spectral father truly displays much more personality 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 raging 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 hold on 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 small 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 lure of nihilismthe temptation of surrendering all responsibility and simply succumbing to the ebb and lam 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 throw into disarray, and the moral compass is not simply brokenones entire sense of a true moral north is impel right out of the window. In its place is a path that can lead only to heartbreak, bloodshed, and chaos.