Essay: Investigate Hamlet’s Complexity & Ambiguity: Early Masterpiece of Shakespeare.

Two things that hook an audience and make them interested in a character are the character’s complexity and ambiguity. Complexity because the audience likes finding layers to a character and ambiguity because it is intriguing in a way where it keeps the audience from foreshadowing due to the unpredictability of a character. Protagonist to Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, the young prince of Denmark show both complexity and ambiguity. Shakespeare reveals multiple sides of Hamlet’s character through the play in speeches and soliloquies many of which are contradictions of each other, leading one to question the integrity of them. The multiple dispositions are what give Hamlet’s character ambiguity as he puts up an act that causes his mind to scatter all over the place while he is on the pursuit of revenge for the murder of his father.
Hamlet is a character of contradictions. He meets his father’s death with consuming rage, yet shows no sign of guilt when he is responsible for the deaths of Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Polonius. Though his grieving nature remains, it is also shown through his killing of Polonius (3.4.23-24) that he is able to act with less thought than originally believed. Hamlet uses the fragile Ophelia as an outlet for his disgust towards the queen and yet cannot comprehend that his own words have pushed Ophelia into insanity. He scorns at her but later follows Laertes into her grave exclaiming that he “lov’d Ophelia” (4.1.270) and that “forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love / Make up my (his) sum” (4.1.270-71). Although Ophelia’s death shows his emotional side, his vengeful actions result in the deaths of innocent people and display his wicked side creating moral ambiguity in his character.
Furthermore, it seems as if there are two Hamlets present in the play, one who is a composed and a logical prince, the other a man induced with darkness. Hamlet’s very first soliquiy indicates that he is hard to follow. His speeches are filled with allusions and puns and they jump around as if he is lost in his own train of thought. If he were mad, his character could be defined as how frantic he appeared to be before he spoke with the ghost of his father for the first time. His values could be seen through his sophisticated claim that “this heavy-headed revel east and west/Makes us traduc’d, and tax’d of other nations”(1.4.17-18) with regards to his uncle always drinking in celebration. The prince is gifted with qualities such as having a charming personality, and being popular among the citizens of Denmark. He is a scholar and a thinker and his thoughtful side is seen through his “O that this too sullied flesh” (1.2.129) soliloquy. Hamlet seems somewhat rational to the recent death of his father, like any child should react, in the beginning of the play. He is validly upset, and even explains to Horatio in Act 1 that he will continue to act “strange” (1.5.169). By acknowledging that he may seem “odd” (1.5.169), it could be argued that Hamlet seems the most logical at this point of the play. He is clearly thinking through his actions, and is well aware that in order to plan out a plot to trick King Claudius into admitting to his father’s murder he must display an “antic disposition” (1.5.171).
The multiplicity of Hamlet’s character is evident as the play progresses. Although he is trying to protect his mother and avenge his father’s death, Hamlet is ready to kill anyone who comes in his way. Hamlet disposes the misery he feels in Act 1 Scene 2, takes on a vindictive attitude in Act 1 Scene 5, and creates a clever plan to expose King Claudius in Act 2 Scene 2. Hamlet’s ambiguity is demonstrated through his decision to delay killing Claudius after he sees the King pray for forgiveness even though Hamlet’s goal during the whole play was to avenge his father’s murder. By the time Hamlet finds purpose to kill Claudius, he kills the wrong man. He is constantly filled with self-doubt and uncertainty. Because of Hamlet’s own habit of “thinking too precisely on th’event” (4.4.41), it affects his indecision and doubt throughout his testament to life. In fact, Hamlet himself admits to such multiplicity when he scorns at Ophelia.
I am myself indifferent honest but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me. I am very proud, revengeful, and ambitious, with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. (3.1. 122-28)
His pride, revenge and ambition are all conflicting emotions that present to his madness. The “offences ”he mentions can easily be seen as the irrational thoughts floating around his head, as well as the many actions committed due to his conflicting emotions, such as the murder of Polonius or delay of exposing King Claudius with the dumb- play. Hamlet’s character is proved to be more ambiguous, due to his feelings of pride, revenge and ambition.
Hamlet’s madness feigned or real makes his behaviour complex and unpredictable, which raises the question of just how mad the prince truly is, and leads him to be an ambiguous character. The multiple disposition of Hamlet’s character gives him ambiguity and as a result, causes him to act in ways in which he continuously contradicts himself. Through this use of ambiguity, it captivates the audience, and challenges them to analyze everything in the play. It leads the audience to question whether Hamlet, who insists on his own sanity, is as sane as he claims to be. Could someone who is truly insane behave with such calculated care to appear mad?