Eyes and Ears as They Relate to Experience Versus Reality
In Hamlet, Shakespeare uses the motif of eyes and ears to address the question of reality versus personal experience. Hearing and eyesight are used to discern the difficulty in learning the truth by using human senses, and the difficulty in using both senses together in harmony.
A recurring theme throughout the play is the disconnect between hearing and seeing. This theme is most vividly displayed through the Ghost of Old Hamlet. This disconnect is first mentioned in the opening scene of the play:
Marcellus:
With us to watch the minutes of this night,
That if again this apparition come
He may approve our eyes and speak to it.
Horatio:
Tush, tush, ‘twill not appear.
Barnardo:
Sit down awhile
And let us once again assail your ears, (I. i. 25-27)
In these first lines Marcellus and Barnardo bring about this issue of needing another person to reaffirm their beliefs because they do have full sensory confirmation. They do not know whether they can trust their own eyes, and look towards someone with higher status (Horatio) in hopes that the apparition will not appear and Horatio can speak to it. Despite these hopes, Horatio too can only see the Ghost, and all attempts at communication are unsuccessful. This encounter leads to Hamlet’s first encounter with the Ghost, which differs from the other characters’ encounters in that Hamlet is the sole character who can both hear and see it. Although Hamlet can see the Ghost and communicate with it, he still doubts the reality of the apparition because no one else is able to do this.
It is perhaps for this reason that Hamlet does not immediately kill Claudius, but instead meticulously plans a forced confession. In order to affirm his suspicions Hamlet attempts to bring a visual and auditory perception to something that he perceives as a misconception. “I have heard that guilty creatures sitting at a play have, by the very cunning of the scene, been struck so to the soul that presently they have proclaimed their malefactions,” (II. ii. 577-581). Hamlet decides on staging the play because he thinks that combining the senses in such an emotional performance will make Claudius confess and bring the truth to light.
“Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty and appall the free,
Confound the ignorant and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears,” (II. ii. 549-554)
The performance Hamlet describes would be so moving that it would cause a revelation for both the eyes and ears of the audience. This plan ends up being successful, and is one of the few examples in the play where a human character successfully uses sensory details to determine the reality of a situation. This monologue also contains a metaphor comparing physical pain to harmful, or distressing language. This metaphor, although found elsewhere in the play, is unique in the fact that the language Hamlet refers to is not lies, but rather the truth. Hamlet describes how the performance would (metaphorically) sever the audience’s ear because the truth in the performance is so painful and shocking to hear.
Physical pain relating to language first appears in the beginning of the play, when the Ghost describes the truth of his death to Hamlet. “Now Hamlet, hear. ‘Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard, a serpent stung me. So the whole ear of Denmark is by a forgèd process of my death rankly abused,” (I. v. 35-39). The Ghost continues to describe Claudius pouring literal poison into his ear while he was sleeping. While Claudius quite literally poisoned the ear Old Hamlet, he also metaphorically poisoned the ear of Denmark through his lies and corruption. Through this metaphor Shakespeare asserts the idea that words, above all, are the enemy. Although hearing is essential to the perception of characters, it is also misleading because words have the power to manipulate others. This idea is shown during Claudius’s speech in Act I. The court takes Claudius’s words at face value, and do not question the circumstances of Old Hamlet’s death because nobody sees anything that proves Claudius’s story otherwise.
In addition to illustrating the faults of ears and hearing, Shakespeare also shows the difficulty of transitioning between one sense and another (in this case hearing and sight). Hearing – although indispensable – often proves to be the source of many misconceptions, and leads to more harm than good. When Hamlet kills Polonius in Act III, he completely relies on sound but neglects to look behind the arras where Polonius is hiding.
Polonius: What, ho? Help, help, help!
Hamlet: How now, a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead!
Polonius: Oh, I am slain.
Gertrude: O me, what hast thou done?
Hamlet: Nay, I know not. Is it the king? (III. iv. 24-28)
This scene shows both the mistakes that can be made when one relies only on the ear, but also shows how it can be easier for a person to act when they don’t have all the information that there is to know. Throughout the entire play Hamlet is constantly reaffirming his suspicions and making sure that he has all the information. Yet, the first time he takes any real action is when he is missing a key piece of information. He mistakenly kills Polonius because he has no visual confirmation that the person behind the arras is Claudius, who was his intended target. Just minutes before Hamlet kills Polonius he refrains from killing Claudius because he hears him, or thinks he hears him, praying. If Hamlet had been missing that sensory detail, then he could have killed Claudius and avoided murdering Polonius altogether. In contrast, had Hamlet had more sensory details when he heard rustling behind the arras, he could have avoided killing Polonius. This raises the question of which combination of senses, if any at all, is more helpful than hindering.
All of the eye and ear motifs throughout Hamlet culminate to create a play that ultimately asks the audience to determine what is and is not real. The characters of this play, particularly Hamlet, struggle to put two and two together in order to form a full picture of events and find the truth. This often leads to conflict, and eventually a bloody ending.