Nicole Emanuel
Polaris K-12 (Mindi Vogel)
Hamlet Process Paper
November 2010
Analyzing and Comparing Archetypal Avengers in Hamlet
Looking at Hamlet through the archetypal lens reveals that all of the play’s characters, even the seemingly minor ones, can be classified as archetypes, with some characters fulfilling the role of more than one archetype. Looking at all of these significant characters and personalities, the one that is most central and stands out the strongest is the archetype of the avenger. The avenger is most important and noticeable in the complex character of Hamlet, but it can also be observed in both Fortinbras and Laertes. These two characters are less central to the play but are nevertheless very important, because they help us to notice aspects of Hamlet and in fact shape our view of him.
At its most basic level, the archetypal avenger is someone who is trying to right a wrong on behalf of someone else. For Hamlet, this means creating justice in the wake of the great injustice that was his father’s murder. He attempts to do this by killing his father’s killer, who happens to be Hamlet’s uncle, Claudius. This attempted action is what spurs all of the events in the play, with Hamlet doing many things to convince himself that the time is right to kill Claudius, and Claudius responding with many actions intended as either protection or as direct offense against Hamlet. This avenging side of Hamlet becomes his most prominent not only because it is catalyst to the action, but also because Hamlet himself makes the conscious decision after meeting the ghost to “wipe away all trivial fond records, / All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, / That youth and observation copied there, / And thy commandment all alone shall live / Within the book and volume of my brain, / Unmixed with baser matter” (I, v, 99-105). Essentially, Hamlet himself is telling us here that he has become the archetypal Avenger, and will remain so for the duration of the play.
Carl Jung, one of the first significant contributors to archetypal criticism, suggested that we “preserve, though unconsciously, those prehistorical areas of knowledge which [are] articulated obliquely in myth,” although “archetypal criticism does not necessarily go back to specific myths; it may discover basic cultural patterns which assume a mythic quality in their permanence within a particular culture” (Scott 248-250). In the case of Hamlet as an archetype, the avenger can be found in both specific myths and also in the broad spectrum of our cultural stories and perspectives.
According to archetypal critical theories, the patterns that we call archetypes can be thought of as variations upon a theme. All versions of a given archetype will share some characteristics, but will also display unique attributes that make them distinctive. This is perhaps especially true of Shakespeare, whose creations are at once strongly universal archetypes and yet also quite idiosyncratic individuals. Hamlet is in line with other avenging characters throughout history and legend in his strongly focused, some might say “obsessed,” viewpoint, and his royalty is also an archetypal trait shared by other avengers, including the mythical Greek hero Orestes. On the other hand, Hamlet is unusual in the fact that his natural temperament is more strongly an intellectual one than an active one. That is not to say that Hamlet’s character isn’t physical; on the contrary, he has “been in continual practice” at fencing, a pursuit he seems to enjoy most heartily (V, ii, 196-197). However, Hamlet seems most comfortable and happy during the collegiate discourses he shares with schoolmates Horatio and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Hamlet’s great love of theater and the arts is clear in his spirited speech to the players at the start of act III, scene ii. It might be partially Hamlet’s thinking nature that keeps him from taking swift action, since he speaks of “the native hue of resolution” being “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought” (III, i, 84-85).
Although an archetypal analysis of Hamlet would ignore the traits of most other characters in the play, there are two who become more important than ever under this lens. They are Laertes and Fortinbras, who serve to accentuate the characteristics of Hamlet. A.C. Bradley explains the significance of this role in Shakespearean Tragedy (80):
We find among them two [characters], Laertes and Fortinbras, who are evidently designed to throw the character of the hero into relief. Even in the situations there is a curious parallelism; for Fortinbras, like Hamlet, is the son of a king, lately dead, and succeeded by his brother; and Laertes, like Hamlet, has a father slain, and feels bound to avenge him.
By using not merely one foil to Hamlet but two, we notice multiple aspects of Hamlet’s personality. Compared to Fortinbras, we see him as a prince, with the royal intrigues and concerns of his person emphasized. When considered next to Laertes, we see Hamlet as a son, and familial issues are brought to the front.
When Hamlet speaks of Fortinbras, he notes that the other prince is very willing to take rapid action. As he contemplates his reasons for killing Claudius, Hamlet cites Fortinbras as an example of someone willing to do things, rather than just think about them: “Witness this army of such mass and charge / Led by a delicate and tender prince, / Whose spirit with divine ambition puffed / Makes mouths at the invisible event, / Exposing what is mortal and unsure” (IV, iv, 47-51). Here Hamlet points out that Fortinbras is very prepared to risk or even give up his own life in the quest for glory, land, and power. Fortinbras’ example is all the more affecting to Hamlet at this point in the play, given that his own thoughtful approach has just proved unsuccessful. All of Hamlet’s careful plotting has come undone, and he is being sent far away to England, so Hamlet cannot help but admire the other prince’s bravery. He is spurred to declare that he will begin to act more decisively, like Fortinbras: “from this time forth, / My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!” (IV, iv, 65-66).
Although this is a very strong vow, there are more sides to Hamlet’s comparison with Fortinbras. Fortinbras’ willingness to take action is something that Hamlet esteems on a personal level, but politically, Hamlet seems to find that the other’s decisions involve too much action and not enough thought. Fortinbras’ decision to go to war with Poland in particular appears rash and needlessly violent. Hamlet speaks bitterly of “the imminent death of twenty thousand men / That, for a fantasy and trick of fame, / Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot / Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause” (IV, iv, 60-63). Fortinbras’ readiness to sacrifice himself is noble, but a willingness to sacrifice the lives of innocent others is reckless and not admirable. Although Hamlet clearly respects Fortinbras and feels he would be the best person to rule Denmark in his place, it is suggested that on the level of war and politics, Hamlet would prefer a more pensive, cautious, and restrained approach.
Hamlet and Laertes also make an interesting contrast, one that is especially developed after Hamlet kills Polonius. At this point, Hamlet begins to occupy both of the opposing roles in the father-murder theme, as the son of a killed father and the killer of a father. In Shakespeare A to Z, Charles Boyce describes this complicated nature (237):
There is a parallel revenge plot, that of Laertes’ revenge of his father’s murder by Hamlet. The hero of one plot, Hamlet is in effect the villain of the other, casting an inescapable doubt upon his heroic role…this paradox suggests the essential duality of human nature, which is both noble and wicked, and numerous comparisons throughout the drama stress this point.
This is a very intriguing and meaningful theme, but of course, the circumstances around these two killings are very different. While Claudius commits his murder most intentionally and for selfish reasons, the slaying of Polonius can only be described as an accident. Hamlet himself believed he was killing Claudius, since he says “Is it the king?” and “Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell! I took thee for thy better” (III, iv, 26 and 31-32). So Hamlet’s deed was essentially the same as Claudius’, but the human intentions behind Hamlet’s act were nowhere near as despicable.
Another place where we can contrast Hamlet and Laertes is in the way they each respond to the task of revenge. This relates back to one of the central dichotomies in the play, the difference between action and inaction, the choice to “suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, / And by opposing end them” (III, i, 58-60). Here, Hamlet and Laertes represent the two classifications of avenging archetypes. Hamlet chooses the first option, and is the archetypal “hesitating avenger,” while Laertes steps up immediately to action and “takes arms,” becoming the passionately impulsive avenger. Although Hamlet spends much of the play worrying that the course he has chosen is not the most honorable, the alternative route taken by Laertes is shown to be far from noble in itself: “Laertes is distinctly unheroic. He stoops to fraud and poison with no thought for consequences or morality” (Boyce 148). Ultimately, this proves to be Laertes’ undoing, a fact he himself recognizes before his death when he says “I am justly killed with mine own treachery” (V, ii, 292). However, the two polarities of the avenging spectrum are each forgiven by the other in the
Nicole Emanuel
Polaris K-12 (Mindi Vogel)
Works Cited
November 2010
Works Cited
Bradley, A.C. Shakespearean Tragedy. Greenwich: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1965. Print.
Boyce, Charles. Critical Companion to William Shakespeare. New York: Roundtable Press,
2005. Print.
Boyce, Charles. Shakespeare A to Z: The Essential Reference. New York: Roundtable Press,
1990. Print.
Scott, Wilbur. Five Approaches of Literary Criticism. New York: Collier Books, 1962.