The Hamlet Hoax

In the opening scene of Olivier’s 1948 movie version of Hamlet, billows of gray fog roll somberly across the parapets of Elsinore Castle as a deep voice-over announces, “This is the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind.”
It is the time-honored interpretation of Hamlet, part of the Shakespearean tragic flaw theory in which protagonists are brought down because they were “carrying . . . the stamp of one defect” as so elegantly stated by Hamlet himself in Act I, Scene V. Thus MacBeth is the victim of his ambition, Othello is undone by his jealousy (or, some say, by his gullibility), and Hamlet falls prey to his indecision, his inability to “make up his mind.”
Indeed.

It is the brave, perhaps foolhardy, reader who would dare go against the almost-sacred interpretations of Hamlet’s tragic flaw. After all, have not the most eminent scholars of the last four hundred years perpetuated this interpretation of Shakespeare’s most famous play? How could anyone dispute the erudition of hundreds of famous Shakespearean scholars?
Is there another interpretation?
Perhaps.

Consider the deaths for which Hamlet was wholly or in part, directly or indirectly, responsible. He killed Polonius, King Claudius, and Laertes. By his “antic disposition” toward Ophelia and his murder of her father Polonius, he drove Ophelia to insanity and suicide. He changed the letter sent by King Claudius to the King of England so that the bearers Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were put to death upon delivery of the letter. Presuma-
bly they were beheaded, since that was the method of execution practiced in England at the time.
With a string of six deaths in his wake, is this an indecisive man? Or is Hamlet a psychopathic killer who would go to any lengths to achieve his ends?
The answer lies — where else? — in the play itself.

The most brutal and senseless killing is the murder of Polonius (Act III, Scene IV). Hamlet hears a rustling behind the arras in his mother’s bedroom, draws his sword and kills the person in hiding. “Is it the King?” Hamlet cries. Such a question can come only from a man intent on killing some one, even though he does not know whom he is killing. But it is Polonius’s body that comes toppling forward from behind the arras.
Did Hamlet really think it was the King? Did he really “take thee for thy better?”
How could he? The facts are clear. Just a few minutes before, Hamlet had passed the King praying in his chambers (Act III, Scene III), the scene cited by many scholars to establish Hamlet’s tragic flaw as indecision, the “inability to make up his mind.” The King simply did not have enough time to get to the Queen’s room and hide behind the arras in the queen’s room before Hamlet arrived there. Furthermore, he would have had to pass Hamlet on the way, since Hamlet went directly from the King’s chambers to his mother’s bedroom.
The killing of Polonius is compounded by Hamlet’s contempt for the man, evidenced by his words, “Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell! I took thee for thy better,” (meaning, of course, the King).
And later:

“Indeed, this counsellor . . . Who was in life
a foolish prating knave.”
And the final insult:
“I’ll lug the guts into the neighbor room.”
Polonius was no longer a man, in Hamlet’s eye, if indeed he ever was one. He is just “guts” to be lugged away.

But Hamlet is not indecisive about whether or not to kill the King. There is no doubt he will kill Claudius. But for good reason he prefers to do it later, as he states in his own words:
“When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage;
Or in th’ incestuous pleasure of his bed;
At game, a-swearing, or about some act
That has no relish of salvation in’t -
Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,
And that his soul may be as damn’d and black
As hell, whereto it goes.”

Does this sound like an indecisive man? No, it is the scheming of a man who is not only going to kill his enemy but kill him at the most appropriate time, when the most satisfaction will accrue to the killer and no redemption will accrue to the slain.
One cannot make such a strong argument concerning the death of Ophelia. She is an impressionable young girl, not wise to the ways of the world, obedient not only to her father but to her brother as well. She is genuinely confused by Hamlet’s attitudes toward her, made worse by Hamlet’s strange behavior.
What motivation exists for Hamlet to treat Ophelia so badly, or at least not to treat her with love and affection? We are told by Ophelia herself that Lord Hamlet “hath . . . of late made many tenders of his affection to me.” (Act I, Scene III). In the same scene, Polonius reinforces the nature of their affectionate relationship:
“’Tis told me he hath very oft of late
Given private time to you; and you yourself
Have of your audience been most free and bounteous.”

Later, (Act III, Scene I) Hamlet and Ophelia speak of their love, and Ophelia refers to gifts that Hamlet gave her:
“And with them words of so sweet breath compos’d
As made the things more rich.”

Hamlet replies that “I did love you once.” Then he states “I loved you not.” The persecution of Ophelia has begun.
In the following scene (Act III, Scene II) Hamlet openly flirts with Ophelia. When his mother asks him to sit with her to watch the play within a play, he replies, “No, good mother; here’s metal more attractive” and goes to Ophelia, first lying down at her feet, then suggesting that he lay his head in her lap, and tells her “That’s a fair thought to lie between maids’ legs.” And he perpetuates the “antic disposition” by purposely confusing the time lapse, referring to the two hours since his father’s death. Ophelia corrects him by stating “’tis twice two months.”
One can understand why he teases and badgers Polonius, such as occurs in the scene where Hamlet is reading a book (Act II, Scene II). He simply doesn’t like Polonius, thinks of him as an old fool – “a foolish, prating knave” — and makes no effort to hide his disdain for Polonius. Hamlet knows that any odd behavior will be duly reported by Polonius to the King, thus reinforcing the perception of his “madness.”
Does he use Ophelia for the same purpose? Perhaps. Ophelia, thoroughly confused, reports Hamlet’s odd behavior to Polonius (Act II, Scene I) who eagerly seizes on her report as more proof of Hamlet’s madness.
It is difficult to say how much Hamlet’s behavior and his relationship to Ophelia affected her suicide. One could argue that the death of her father was the reason for her madness. But who killed her father? Hamlet. At least part of Ophelia’s madness and suicide must be laid at Hamlet’s feet.

The case for the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern is clearer and more straightforward. It is clear throughout the play that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have no love for Hamlet, nor he for them. The King inveighs on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to watch Hamlet and report his actions to him. In conversations among the three, Hamlet shows very little love or affection for them.
In Act V, Scene II, Hamlet tells Horatio how he stole the letter being taken by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to the King of England, the letter that ordered Hamlet’s beheading:
“an exact command . . .
That, on the supervise, no leisure bated,
No, not to stay the grinding of the axe,
My head should be struck off.”
So what did our indecisive Hamlet do? He went to his cabin and re-wrote the letter that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern would take to the King of England. He tells Horatio:
“I sat me down;

Devised a new commission; wrote it fair . . .
Wilt thou know
Th’effect of what I wrote?”
Horatio replies, “Ay, good my lord,” and Hamlet continues:
“An earnest conjuration from the King,
As England was his faithful tributary . . .
That, on the view and knowing of these contents,
Without debatement further more or less,
He should those bearers put to sudden death,
Not shriving-time allow’d.”

But Horatio has questions. Wise to the ways of the court, he knows that official communications must be sealed with wax impressions made by an official signet. He thus asks: “How was this seal’d?”

Hamlet has the answer ready:
“Why even in that was heaven ordinant,
I had my father’s signet in my purse,
Which was the model of that Danish seal;
Folded the writ up in the form of th’other;
Subscrib’d it, gav’t th’impression, plac’d it safely,
The changeling never known.”

Is this the act of an indecisive man? Such acts require thought-out planning. Another question arises – why was Hamlet carrying his father’s signet? What did he know and when did he know it? Isn’t it surprising that he was so well equipped to turn aside a deadly threat to himself? Do indecisive people behave in such ways?

There is no doubt that Hamlet killed Laertes and the King. He stabbed them both with a fencing foil (Act V, Scene II). The difference lies in the motivation and circumstance. What starts as a non-lethal fencing duel ends up with Laertes wounding Hamlet in a sneak attack with the poisoned sword while Hamlet is taking a recess from the duel and talking with his mother. The swords are later dropped and become mixed up, and Hamlet wounds Laertes with the same poisoned sword. Remorseful, Laertes knows that he is dying and advises Hamlet of the poisoned tip. In a famously dramatic line Laertes puts the blame squarely where it belongs:
“The King, the King’s to blame.”
By now it is clear that Hamlet is not burdened with any indecision. He looks at the sword in his hand and exclaims:
“The point envenom’d too!
Then, venom, to thy work.”

and leaps onto the King and stabs him with the sword.
As if this is not enough, he forces the King to drink the rest of the poisoned potion that has just killed the Queen:
“Here, thou incestuous, murd’rous, damned Dane,
Drink off this potion. Is thy union here?
Follow my mother.”

Did Hamlet cause the death of his mother? The answer has to be No, because he committed no act that brought about her demise. She drank of the poisoned cup quite by accident. In Gertrude’s death, Hamlet must be held harmless.
Not so with the deaths of the others. Hamlet killed Polonius impulsively, drove Ophelia to her suicide by his odd behavior and the murder of her father, consciously falsified documents to bring about the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, killed Laertes in a duel, and killed the King in a fit of anger and revenge. Six deaths. Can an indecisive man bring about such decisive – and deadly – results?
Was Hamlet a psychopath? Did his “antic disposition”, at first feigned, make him mad, as some scholars suggest, so that he was no longer responsible for his actions? His subsequent behavior and speech do not appear to be the acts of a demented mind. Indeed, in rewriting the letter carried by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, he seems quite composed and sane, and his conversations with everyone, especially those with Horatio, are well-ordered, intelligent and quite articulate. If Hamlet were indecisive early on in the play, he certainly got over it later. True, he could have killed the King at prayer and the plot trumped up by the King and Laertes would never have come off. But he delayed killing the King for reasons already cited – when it would give Hamlet the most satisfaction. One cannot even accuse Hamlet of procrastination.

The debate and discussion about Hamlet and other Shakespearean characters will continue forever. Shakespeare’s plays are the stuff of endless interest because they deal with the universalities of human psychology, emotions, and behavior, and their time and setting do not detract from their interest or significance. The same behavior and psychology, and the problems they cause, are with us today and will be as long as man exists.

All Shakespearean scholars will agree to that, even if they disagree on the true tragic flaw of Shakespeare’s most famous character.