Paper: Hamlet’s Shattered Reality

This paper was submitted for “English Composition 5W: Literature, Culture, and Critical Inquiry – Concepts of Reality” with Dr. Lisa Gerrard in Winter 2008.

In The Republic, Plato contends that our reality is only a reflection of a higher truth. If a mirror reflects what is in front of it, a shattered mirror will return a shattered, distorted image. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Hamlet spends the entire play seeking the truth, yet fails because he depends on unreliable realities. He is forced to work with a shattered mirror: an untrustworthy ghost; easily swayed Ophelia; and “that incestuous, [and] adulterate beast” (I.v.42) Claudius. All of these forces work against him, leading to skewed and contradictory ideas about human nature and ultimately, a reality that is only a reflection of a fragmented truth.

To Plato, ideas are more important and permanent than physical representations. When asked why he would go see the ghost, Hamlet replied, “And for my soul, what can it do to that, being a thing immortal as itself?” (I.iv.66-67). Like Plato, Hamlet held his soul in higher regard than his physical being; he’s not afraid of seeking the ghost because his soul is “immortal” and everlasting. While in the graveyard, he emphasizes the fleeting nature of humans, saying, “Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth to dust” (V.i.199-200). However, when describing his father or Caesar, he recalls them through the ideas of who they were: “My noble father” (I.ii.244) and “Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay” (V.i.203). Although both men are physically dead, he uses “noble” and “imperious” to highlight their character, or the idea of their beings. He doesn’t note their physical selves, but idealizes their memory.
While there are physical representations of things, “[we] are thinking not of these, but of the ideals which they resemble” (Plato 477). Plato’s rationale can be extended to a mirror reflecting what’s in front of it. If a mirror returns a reflection of the object in front it, then a shattered mirror will show a distorted reflection. We depend on the people and events in our lives to determine our reality, making them our mirror. Hamlet’s mirror is made of those around him, but shattered because of unreliable “reflections”—only partial truths and complete lies. The ghost, Ophelia, and Claudius work together in tandem taking Hamlet further from reality by giving him distorted versions of the truth.

Hamlet’s episode with the ghost reinforces his difficulty in finding truth. At first, he cannot determine whether the ghost is genuine or not. He dithers between thoughts of the ghost being “a devil” (III.i.537-538) and it being “an honest ghost” (I.v.138)”. Hamlet wavers between obeying the ghost and avenging his father’s death or disregarding it completely, but he can never trust the ghost fully to act. Because he can’t rely on his father’s ghost, his reality is marked with ambiguity and reluctance—to murder King Claudius would already be a crime of the highest caliber in itself and at the same time, he has no solid evidence to risk doing so.
With Ophelia, Hamlet receives a distorted answer because she is “the more deceived” (III.i.120). Ophelia lies at her father’s command when Hamlet asks where Polonius is, only to find him down the corridor. When she seeks advice about the situation with Hamlet from her brother and father, they warn, “Be wary then; best safety lies in fear” (I.iii.42) and “Do not believe his vows” (I.iii.126). Though Laertes and Polonius’ advice is not unusual for a father or brother to give his daughter/sister, Ophelia is quick to believe them without challenge. Ophelia borders being docile when she replies nearly brainlessly, “I shall obey, my lord” (I.iii.135). Ophelia’s emotions rely so heavily on Hamlet’s that after he tells her, “I did love you once…I loved you not” (III.i.116, 119), she becomes volatile and self-destructive, as Laertes says, “A sister driven into desp’rate terms” (IV.vii.26)—eventually drowning to her death “as one incapable of her own distress” (IV, vii, 176). Because Ophelia relies on others such as her father and Laertes for answers, what she tells Hamlet is a misrepresented version of the truth, similar to the game of telephone. The farther information travels, through unreliable sources, the more distorted it becomes. Essentially, Ophelia does not give Hamlet the truth at all, but hinders him from finding it by distracting him with frivolous lies.

Claudius prays, “May one be pardoned and retain th’ offense?” (III.iii.56). He will not admit to King Hamlet’s murder; he sends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spy on Hamlet; he instigates Laertes to revenge Polonius’ death and kill Hamlet; and he schemes a sword fight between Laertes and Hamlet. How could Hamlet ever trust him? In these actions, Claudius actively conceals the truth from Hamlet. In the safety of Hamlet’s vacuous friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Claudius is free to admit, “I like him not” (III.iii.1). Claudius manipulates their loyalty to the country and conveys Hamlet as a hazard to the entire country, easily turning Rosencrantz and Guildenstern against their old friend. He asks them to spy on Hamlet “to gather so much as from occasion you may glean” (II.ii.115-116) to ascertain why he’s gone insane. However, Hamlet is cognizant of this and tells them, “You would play upon me…you would pluck out the heart of my mystery” (III.ii.358-360). The extent to which Claudius goes to try to incite Laertes to avenge his father’s death, prodding Laertes with questions like, “Was your father dear to you?” (IV.vii.105) and “What would you undertake to show yourself in deed your father’s son more than in words?” (IV.vii.123-124) illustrates not only his contempt for Hamlet, but his unwillingness to act directly towards him. Claudius’ duplicity puts Hamlet in a compromising position—he’s not able to trust Claudius with anything. Claudius impedes with Hamlet’s ultimate goal of seeking the truth about his father and is another piece of the shattered mirror that will continue to reflect a disjointed truth.

These broken accounts reverberate throughout the play, leading Hamlet to construct ideas of human nature that are skewed and often contradictory. Because he must juggle the disparate perspectives, Hamlet grapples to corroborate them and is often left with divergent opinions. He idealizes the human form, his father and Horatio, viewing them without imperfections. He sees Horatio as perfect in his balance between emotion and reason, describing him as “that man that is not passion’s slave” (III, ii, 72-73). His judgment of Horatio derives from the comparison of Horatio the other male characters in the book: Claudius, Polonius, Laertes, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern—all who continue to deceive and lie to him throughout the play, except Horatio. However, he dismisses the females of the play, Ophelia particularly, as whores and tells her to “get [thee] to a nunnery!” (III, i, 131). His disregard stems from Ophelia’s inability to substantiate herself to him, impelling him to generalize that same incapacity to the rest of the female characters. Aside from perfection and imperfection, Hamlet deems humans as transient and the “quintessence of dust” (II, ii, 323). All of these feelings are a culmination of Hamlet’s adverse quest in finding the truth.

Plato wrote that what we see and perceive are but imperfect reflections of the ideal form; they are only shadows. We mistake the shadows for the objects themselves, since that’s the limit of what our senses know to recognize. Without the ideal form, or the truth, we must rely on the people and events around to form our mirror and reflect the truth. However, Hamlet is enveloped by the shadows of deception, confusing unreliable accounts and witnesses with the truth, and constructing contradictory conclusions. His struggle to find the truth illustrates Plato’s vision of an intangible truth. The truth is only knowable to those who immerse themselves in discovering it and aren’t obstructed with fallacious accounts and blatant deceit.