Lecturer Dr

Alina Bottez Motohoi Oana, I A

Seminar of Medieval and Renaissance Culture English-German, group 2

Hamlet’s downfall in Revenge vs Memory of Shakespeare’s Hamlet

One of Shakespeare’s well-known opera, Hamlet, tells the story of the young Prince of
Denmark, wearing the same name, who eventually succumbs to the corrupting forces of madness,
suspicion and lastly, revenge. Hamlet’s quest to avenge his father’s murder drives a wedge between
him and every other character in the play, which will, unfortunately, have fatal consequences on his
life. Revenge is a constant theme in the plot of the play. Not only does it underlie every scene, but it
also has a major effect on the story as a whole.

Both a tragedy and a classic revenge play, Shakespeare brings forth a character who is thirsty
for vengeance and has the task to kill the murderer of his father, which, according to the ghost, is his
uncle Claudius. But should he put his faith in a creature from purgatory, which took the shape of his
deceased father and demanded that he seek revenge? Or is it just a memory that his mind might conjure
up?

First and foremost, the Ghost, which appears from the beginning of the play, is the one who
convinces Hamlet to seek revenge for him, stating that his uncle is the one who has done the deed and
has to be killed. “If thou didst ever thy dear father love”, the Ghost adjures him, “Revenge his foul and
most unnatural murder” (1.5.23, 25). The test of love is vengeance; but love must be kept alive by
memory: “Remember me” (1.5.91). The same last words are spoken by Jesus Christ to his apprentices
at the last supper, serving as a reminder that he would always be with them, just as the Ghost makes its
appearances to make sure that Hamlet will fulfill his mission. The prince says that he will “sweep his
revenge” (1.5.25, 29-31), however, he fails to do so only until the end of the play, when he accidentally
poisons Claudius. This undoubtedly shows that under no circumstances was this a premeditated or
forethought attack, Hamlet rather contemplating the act of revenge than actually doing it. In stark
contrast with the main character is Laertes, who, unlike Hamlet, is ready to rush his revenge, but he is
easily manipulated by the king and he will subsequently end up begging forgiveness from the man he
wanted to murder, just some moments before his death.

Second, the ghost of Hamlet’s father is a dramatized memory, a past entity given present being:
“what we and Hamlet see on the battlements perhaps, in one way of looking at it, is the last struggling
effort of a past or a passing realm to make an impression of the present” and the link between that past
and this present is only as strong as Hamlet’s memory. The creature, which represents a threshold
between memory and oblivion, demands more than Hamlet is capable of doing. It is not that he fails to
remember his father and the vengeance he has promised: the whole play shows the audience a character
who remembers with an extraordinary intensity. Moreover, the past has quite a significant role, as even
before the Ghost appears to him, Hamlet is tormented with images of his father and mother: “Heaven
and earth, / Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him…” (1.2.142-43), wondering why his
mother has decided to betray the image of her beloved husband and marry another.

Throughout the play, however, it is not only Hamlet who tries to lure his foes into their deaths
as payback for their wrongdoings. While he meditates upon the thought of killing the King, not
knowing whether to truly believe the Ghost, Laertes is built in opposition to him. He returns to Elsinore
threatening to overthrow Claudius if he doesn’t explain the death of his father. After he finds out that
Hamlet was the one responsible for the horrid act, he swears to take revenge: “Only I’ll be revenged.
Most thoroughly for my father (4.5.133-134).” While Hamlet and Laertes are at the opposite sites of
the spectrum, Prince Fortinbras is, however, in the middle. When King Hamlet kills his father,
Fortinbras reacts in a rational way, unlike Hamlet’s continuous debate over what is right and wrong or
Laertes’ haste in making decisions without giving too much thought. Rather than excessively
contemplating his circumstances or acting on the first impulse, he calmly and deliberately comes up
with a plan which will both avenge his father’s death and reclaim his lands.

To conclude, Shakespeare has managed to create a play in which the protagonist’s mind and
thinking is shaped by a supernatural creature, who takes the form of his deceased father and demands
him that he seek justice and honor his memory, which undoubtedly means to kill his murderer. Hamlet
is torn apart whether to believe or not what may be a figment of his imagination that is supposed to be
his father, but throughout the opera, he is truly convinced that the Ghost is telling the truth.
Nevertheless, although he seems to be haunted by the past, memory is what makes the past live, and for
Hamlet, it means an act of vengeance. He has to carry out his father’s instructions so as that his soul
will finally find its inner peace and justice will be made.
 Works cited

Andrews, Michael Cameron. “‘REMEMBER ME’: MEMORY AND ACTION IN HAMLET.” The
Journal of General Education, vol. 32, no. 4, 1981, pp. 261–270. JSTOR, JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/27796826.
Hammersmith, James P. “Hamlet and the Myth of Memory.” ELH, vol. 45, no. 4, 1978, pp. 597–605.
JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2872579.
"Theme of Revenge in Hamlet." Topics, Sample Papers & Articles Online for Free, 27 Feb 2016,
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