Essay: Discovering the Unclear Dynamic Between Truth and Acting in Hamlet’s Iconic Play

One of the main conflicts, and indeed, one of the reasons why Shakespeare’s Hamlet is so iconic is the question of when Hamlet is being genuine and when he is merely “acting” for the benefit of the “audience” of his family and friends. The fact that this confusion can extend to the audience outside of the play itself is a testament to the layered narrative of Hamlet and how Shakespeare’s ambiguity in handling the topic has led to many different interpretations of the same play. One of the places where this dynamic between what is real and what is staged comes to a head is Act 3 Scene 2, where Hamlet invites Gertrude, Claudius and Ophelia to watch a play meant to confirm Hamlet’s suspicions that Claudius murdered his father. By Claudius’ reaction, Hamlet is able to tell that what the ghost told him at the beginning of the play is true. This reflects the blurry dynamic between truth, lies and acting within the play; despite the badly acted and melodramatic nature of the play, by Hamlet’s own admission – “Tis a knavish piece of work, but what of that? Your majesty and we that have free souls– it touches us not.” (3.2.222-224)- it reveals the truth of Claudius’ crime, at least as far as Hamlet, Horatio and the audience in real life are concerned. This distortion between how truth and lies are presented also applies to Hamlet himself, who acts like a giggling fool in Ophelia’s lap while executing this plan to weed out Claudius’ guilt. However, there is a harrowing moment following the play, where Hamlet calls out Guildenstern for trying to “play upon me”. “Call me what instrument you will, through you fret me, you cannot play upon me.” (3.2.343-344) It seems to be a stark break from Hamlet’s seemingly cheerful, if inane mood in the events before and after this line, a warning to Guildenstern and Rosencrantz that Hamlet knows what they were brought in for. And while the line is that, the analogy characterizes not only how Hamlet sees himself in relation to others (“playing” others to his own gain, with the exception of Horatio), but also how Shakespeare utilizes this scene to “play” the audience, how he manipulates the genre of his work itself, and its conventions to cast doubt on Hamlet’s behavior, and what the audience should be buying into.
The first hint toward this sort of distortion by Shakespeare between audience and stage is the last section of Hamlet’s spiel to the players.
Oh, reform it altogether. And let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them; for there be of them that will themselves laugh to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too, though in the meantime some necessary quotation of the play be then to be considered. That’s villainous and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. (3.2.34-40)
This quote seems to hint at the clownish, disruptive persona that Hamlet will be playing for the majority of the rest of the scene, while the “necessary quotation” of the reveal of Claudius’ tacit admission, and perhaps Hamlet’s “you cannot play upon me” warning. What’s interesting, however, is the last sentence where Hamlet says that to go beyond the jokes that are scripted and to take away attention from the real content of the play is a pathetic play for the spotlight, and ruins the quality of the play. Taken at face value, it could be seen as a sharp moment of self-awareness for Hamlet, that he acknowledges that what he is doing to the “audience” of friends and family is ultimately self-centered and will perhaps take away from what is important to the kingdom, or an acknowledgement that his deception and outlandish antics are to distract from the “necessary quotation” of Hamlet’s secret quest for vengeance, while the onlookers are bemused by his behavior, the “barren spectators”. This is Hamlet “playing upon” the people supposed to be closest to him, but in direct response to Hamlet’s conviction that they are trying to pull the same to him. It’s this clash of deceptions and multiple parties trying to stay above each other that makes Hamlet so murky sometimes, but I think the above quote reveals some of Shakespeare’s own thought processes behind deception. The play that is being put on by the players in this scene is, in some regard, part of Hamlet, intentionally overdramatizing the backstory of the play. In a sense, it is a moment of clarity, where the audience and Hamlet are assured that the premise of the play is solid, that it is based off of something real that happened. On the other hand, it is also laughably blatant as to the intent, and is treated by the characters as something a little tasteless and lower class. A running theme in Hamlet is that what we think is nonsensical, whether humorous or mad, often ends up telling the truth, like with Ophelia’s madness before her unfortunate end. It’s also seen in other Shakespeare plays, most notably King Lear, where the fool is the only one allowed to be honest in Lear’s court due to his status. When Shakespeare writes this quote, he seems to be questioning wrapping the truth up in such humor, and whether doing so is taking away from an understanding of the play, because people fixate more on laughing about the joke rather than the meaning behind it. This throws Hamlet’s act into doubt, as the audience can no longer be sure what is to laugh at, and what is to be taken seriously, because the two have ultimately been intertwined into a single entity. We should take the truth seriously, but it has been twisted into a form where we cannot take it seriously, and we are confused when Hamlet starts making innuendos about Ophelia and mistreating her, because we don’t know how serious he is about his attitude towards her. Later, he will claim that he loved her, but we are taught that what is not taken seriously is true; is the joking Hamlet the one we should be taking the truth from, or the solemn one we see in soliloquys and moments with Horatio? The device of Hamlet’s advice can be seen as Shakespeare taking our expectation of convention and “playing upon” the audience as he thrusts more and more ambiguity into the story.
Another interesting thing to note about this scene is that the play never actually gets to run all the way through; Claudius storms off in the middle of the summary Hamlet gives. “You shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago’s wife,” (3.2.244-245) Hamlet says, before Claudius makes an unruly exit. In other words, the crime is not shown, much like in Hamlet itself. Then later, after Rosencrantz and Guildenstern scold Hamlet for upsetting Claudius, the line “Why, loo you now how unworthy a thing you make of me: you would play upon me.” (3.2. 337-338) The word play seems very intentionally used, as it is the same word that refers to what is being put on stage on a literal and meta level. It seems that all the world’s a stage, as another Shakespeare character put it, and the audience is left to ponder what can we trust. After all, the events that put the plot into motion were not visible to an audience in either “world”. We are being “played” by Shakespeare, because we have bought into this premise that we never saw, and Hamlet seems to reflect a mindset an audience might have. We know better than these characters, we know what’s true and what’s not, and the characters of someone else’s play cannot play us. The ultimate irony of this is that, in the end, Hamlet does end up being a puppet to someone else, but more pressing is the idea that Shakespeare can manipulate an audience into thinking they do or do not have knowledge, and he knows what sort of effect his play has. To him, writing a play is literally to play with the minds of the spectators, and to challenge them to think they know. It throws all sorts of doubt in the mind of the onlooker, as they wonder what exactly could be happening in that moment.
Shakespeare uses the device of the play and its surrounding text in Act 3 Scene 2 to use the expectations of the audience and their knowledge of plays to infuse some doubt into the events, and what could possibly be going on. The reason Hamlet is so interesting and dynamic is that uncertainty, where one thing could be true, and so could another, and it is up to us to parse out the truth, and meet the challenge of the playwright.