Location is everything. The setting of Shakespeare's Hamlet, the royal court, functions as more than just the backdrop to the drama. Rather, the implicit meaning of its surroundings is embedded in the piece. Court society, with its emphasis on the acquisition of nobility, maintenance of the balance of power between the monarch and members of the court, and a detailed code of conduct regarding relations between the sexes, exercised a primary influence on the characters in the play. plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The most salient aspect of Hamlet is that its main characters are notoriously slow to avenge the unjust murder of his father. Critics have often struggled to explain Hamlet's incessant deliberations and focused on the construction of his character. Yet people do not exist in a vacuum; Hamlet is a full member of the society to which he belongs. Examining Hamlet's conduct in the context of court society provides the reader with an opportunity to contextualize and better understand Hamlet's puzzling behavior. Not only does Hamlet dramatize its protagonist's tale of revenge, but it also dramatizes the complex relationship between its characters and the Court Society. The tale of courtly restraint is spun into Hamlet's revenge tale. The tale of courtly restraint offers an interesting interpretation of Hamlet's aggression toward women. In his essay “To Please the Wise: Philosophy in Hamlet,” John Guillory argues that Hamlet's “misogyny” is not a hatred of women. On the contrary, the desublimation of his courtesan tendencies leads him to unleash aggression towards the women in his life. In order for Hamlet to kill Claudius, thus fulfilling his vow to avenge his father's death, he must realize the violence within himself. But he must also do so in the context of the Court Society, a society that restricts violence and encourages cultural refinement. The events of the play dramatize Hamlet's struggle to act violently. By transforming himself from courtier into avenging “pre-courtier” hero, Hamlet undoes the sublimation of violent impulses and avenges the death of his father. Its delays and deliberations are symptomatic of this transformation. His interactions with women can be understood in the context of the desublimation of the courtly personality. In order to understand what the desublimation of the courtier entails, it is important to explain what Norbert Elias calls the “civilizing process” of the nobles. Elias views the process of “wooing” as “a long-term transformation of human society…the transformation of warriors into courtiers.” The project of the monarchy is to coerce and subjugate the members of court society so that their violence towards each other, and in particular against the monarch, becomes unacceptable within the limits of the established order. Women play an interesting role in court society. Elias emphasizes that "women, considered as social groups, have much greater power at court than any other formation in this society." In the context of controlling spontaneous impulses, women come to symbolize what men cannot have impulsively. The reduction in spontaneity causes what Elias calls a “civilizing detachment” in the relationships between men and women. The qualities of a courtier: good manners and restraint are constructed by the court world in order to distance the sexes and complicate relations between members of the court world. Males must court females; they don'tcan't just have them. Women largely explain why courtiers must “civilize” themselves. Hamlet's aggression towards Ophelia can therefore be understood in the context of courtly constraints. As a woman, she represents her need to sublimate her violence and her impulses. He rejects her in the process of rejecting the barriers of court society. The civilizing process requires a transformation from warrior to courtier. There is a subordination of self that occurs in this transformation from warrior to courtier. Elias explains: To maintain one's place in the intense competition for importance at court... one must subordinate one's appearance and gestures, in short oneself, to the fluctuating norms of court society which increasingly place the emphasis on difference, the distinction of people belonging to Court life becomes a game with rules and restrictions, one wrong move and the courtier exposes himself to non-violent attacks. The world is built like a game: there are rules and regulations that dictate appropriate behavior. The individuals who make up the members of the tribunal are all involved in the relationship with the power structure of the tribunal. At one point in the play, Hamlet tells Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that "Denmark is a prison." Courtly life is confined; Hamlet's frustration is understandable in light of how Elias feels about this. the “intense competition for prominence”. Courtiers must control their impulses to succeed in this restrained environment. Elias suggests that by “subordinating” themselves, members of the court conceal their own natural impulses. The dynamics of courtly life involve implicit deception; speech phrases, mode of dress, and general interpersonal conduct are not true representations of the individuals involved. Life at court also “required relentless self-control, a complex and carefully calculated strategy in one's dealings with one's equals and social superiors. "The courtier becomes a discreet and calculating toad, always appealing to his superiors to obtain recognition and reward. This is why, as Elias points out, “belonging to the court increasingly implies pacification, increased control warlike habits.” This leads to the restriction and control of aggressive impulses. It also implies that these courtiers, if they followed their own impulses, would be violent warriors. does not want to be violent, nor for a courtier There is a polarity between violence and propriety As a courtier, Hamlet is conflicted between the rules of propriety he has maintained and the promise of violence he gives to the. ghost Hamlet is a classic example of the restrained courtier Elias discusses the way in which spontaneous impulse was contained in the legal world: “The deliberate evaluation of a situation, the taking of bearings, in short, reflection intervenes more or less. automatically between the affective and spontaneous impulse to act and real action. the performance of the action or deed." Elias's assessment of court society provides a clear explanation of Hamlet's deliberations. Hamlet's need to constantly question and reflect on his situation is for him an “automatic” behavior. Elias calls this “the shielding of restraint. In the absence of real battle, the courtier prepares for battles within the court by reigning in a spontaneous impulse. Hamlet is therefore not simply a symptom of moral dilemmas, but the result of his inability to throw off the chains of court society. The need for reflection and hesitation are part of the control exercised over him.courtier by court society, and it is “automatic” or habitual for the courtier. Guillory focuses on Hamlet's philosophy. in the play in relation to a problem between what he calls “theatrical fashion and court faction”. Guillory defines fashion as “the sublimated and aestheticized expression of faction, a political reality.” expression of a political reality. The necessity of court life is that things remain unsaid, political realities are rarely discussed. Courtly fashion, with its myriad subtleties and nuances, becomes the coded language of political discourse. Hamlet's philosophy is his way of decoding this. fashion and reveal the political truths of court or faction. As Guillory puts it, Hamlet's "performance of philosophy" is "an attempt to consolidate 'the wisest' around their knowledge of a political truth unspeakable. Philosophy itself names their knowledge, without naming its content. In Hamlet's circuitous approaches to the act of revenge, we find the constant presence of an unsuccessful "philosophical performance." His pontificate never leads to a resolution; rather it serves to dumb down the action. He will never be able to openly acknowledge the evil he knows Claudius has committed. Hamlet is verbally castrated; he is free to soliloquize, but only in a limited capacity. He can never address the problem through speech, but for most of the play it is his choice of defense. Guillory extends the argument beyond the confines of the play to suggest that Hamlet's interpretation of philosophy resonates with a portion of Shakespeare's audience, namely the courtly public. elite. This segment of the population is linked to Hamlet's incapacity to act, to his sublimation of violence. And the performance of philosophy, containing an irresolution of fundamental questions, its reflections on its own incapacity to understand the totality of reality, tends to the suspension of action (in particular violent action) and therefore to the culture of a certain elitist pleasure in philosophizing. Because these courtiers are restrained from acting violently, they are determined to participate in an act of “irresolution.” Philosophizing becomes a comfortable position from one's incapacity to act; the act itself is paralyzing. There is a causal relationship between philosophizing and inaction. Since Hamlet is presented by the text as a Wittenberg student recalled from school, he is constructed as a person inclined to critical thinking. He's a scholar, not a soldier. His study abroad taught him to think, to reflect and to challenge, not to murder. The fact that Wittenberg is an anachronism in the play is significant. Shakespeare's imagined Danish Hamlet attends a school that did not exist during the play's historical period. However, Hamlet's audience undoubtedly understood the implications of mentioning the famous university. Hamlet is the product of an excellent British education, a student of thought, not war. The cultivation of this “elite pleasure in philosophizing” is emblematic of the behavior necessitated by the sociology of court society. Guillory references the work of Elias and Francis Barker to support his argument that "court society imposed on its participants the need to exercise great restraint over impulsive patterns of behavior, particularly in the area of aggressiveness.” Hamlet is a product of this legal world. He is constrained and restricted by the mechanisms of courtly life. However, he does not fit perfectly into the confined role imposed on him by his status as a courtier. He is in the world but not of the world. Hamlet has internalized the patterns of behavior established by court society. However, despite his integration into the polite world, he isready to abandon these rules of conduct to promise revenge on a ghost of his father. His promise to the ghost is understandable; after all, he is moved by the ghost's narration of Claudius's betrayal and wants to avenge the unjust murder. However, he is so easily won over by the Ghost's admonitions; if Hamlet is the critical thinker we are supposed to be, he should have hesitated more. Yet, unusually, he promises his services without giving it a moment's thought. It is significant that the Ghost comes to him dressed in military garb (usually ghosts appear in their shrouds). Hamlet's father, a famous war hero, begs Hamlet to be violent by reminding him of his own inadequacy as a soldier. Hamlet the King haunts Hamlet with the notion of unresolved violence. The Ghost presents Hamlet with a visible representation of the polarity of violence and the proprieties inherent in courtly life. The Ghost makes it clear that the only way Hamlet can redeem his father's soul is by acting violently. This is why Hamlet, the thoughtful courtier, must try to be Hamlet the warrior. The tension between Hamlet's position and his promise results in a self-narrative full of contradictions. This is particularly clear in his intense wish for revenge. His declaration to the Ghost is that he will erase all the trivial documents, all the saws from the books, all the forms, all the past pressures, this youth and this observation copied there, and your command all alone will live in the book and the volume of my brain. (1.5. 99-103)Hamlet admits his own re-education from violence. He so easily erases the years of preparation, training and formal education that prepared him for a life in legal society. Yet he can only address his conduct using the language of education and civil society. He replaces the “loving records” and “books” with a commandment that will exist in the “book” of his brain. Its language belies its purpose. If he were to truly replace his vengeance against the culture, he would not need to articulate it. Violence involves a rejection of speech; the act speaks for itself. His commitment to avenging his father's murder therefore poses a problem. Its promise of violence contains its “automatic” allegiance to culture and civility. He still operates according to established modes of judicial behavior. In his desire to appease his father's ghost, he swears wholeheartedly in the only way he knows how by referring to the "book" in his brain. The only way for him to express his true determination is to offer the power of his mind. The point of this promise is that it must be translated into action and not into thought. Hamlet's promise of revenge contains a contradiction in its content and in its practice. Not only does he rename the promised violence a “commandment” to be contained in a book, but he also refutes the promise as he makes it. He speaks to a ghost, a representation of the past. It is a past that is told until it is resolved. The Ghost's tale demands to be told and remembered, which is echoed in the Ghost's request to "Remember me." In the same breath in which Hamlet swears revenge, he erases “all forms, all past pressures.” Among these “past pressures” is the memory of his father. He tells the representation of his father's past that he will erase all traces of that past. His promise then makes no sense. This speech, expressing unqualified allegiance to the Ghost, is filled with conflicting ideas. Hamlet's idea of ​​his personal narrative could not be more confusing. The intellectual grooming of his past disgusts him so much that he rejects it and starts again. He replaces his narrative of books and records with a narrative of revenge. But the logic of hispromise collapses on itself when examined closely. He thinks he must erase the past in order to commemorate it. Hamlet actually wants to memorialize the ghost in a meaningful way. The irony is that when he attempts to recount his decision, Hamlet's speech is thoughtful but lacks clarity of thought. This scene is confusing because Hamlet easily and wholeheartedly rejects the limitations of his upbringing. More than a simple revenge for an undeserved murder, he sees in this revenge the opportunity to start again, to have only one rule, one “commandment”. With his promise of revenge, Hamlet gains a uniqueness not afforded to him as a member of the courtly elite. This goal is also more appealing to Hamlet. The promise of revenge rings truer for Hamlet than the need to be a courtier. He has an emotional attachment to this promise; it's his way of perpetuating his father's memory. Being a courtier is inherently deceptive and restrictive; avenging his father somehow makes more sense to him. Hamlet wants to prove his courage as a warrior of justice, but he cannot break so easily from the "glass of fashion and the mold of form." Guillory emphasizes that Hamlet's problem is not "how to take revenge on the person of Claudius but how to overcome the courteous inhibition of aggressiveness that he has so well internalized. » So not only is he fighting against a restrictive society, but Hamlet is also fighting internal demons of restraint. He's also too smart to just kill Claudius right away. The text introduces him as an educated courtier returning from his studies in Wittenberg. The implausibility of this type of character avenging his father's death with "wings as fast as meditation" is obvious. No audience would have accepted a neat revenge plot with Hamlet as the protagonist. is a thinker, not a warrior. Hamlet's awkwardness and deliberations, while sometimes irritating, resonate with his audience. This is a person who struggles against the abyss of transformation, this is someone who wants to do something so much, but who falls prey to evil. seduction of procrastination and pontification. When Hamlet kills someone, it does not resolve the political problem caused by Claudius's usurpation of the throne. “The effect of the murder of Polonius,” Guillory asserts, “is rather to drive Hamlet into the last two acts. of the play in another mode of philosophizing... Hamlet's philosophy was in a certain sense radicalized by his moment on uninhibited violence. Guillory sees this act of violence as the starting point for Hamlet's philosophical performance and as the vehicle for Hamlet's philosophy. a commitment to "true philosophy", or a meditation on substance. Killing has a revelatory function for Hamlet . He does not abandon philosophy after killing Polonius, but rather improves his philosophy. The appealing irony is that an act of violence becomes the catalyst for an improvement in philosophy, a position of inaction after this point. of the play, he straddles the worlds of violence and thought, without ever really settling into either camp. It is not surprising that the confrontation with death and its confrontation with the impulses. violent acts reinforce his meditation on substance Until now, Hamlet's understanding of philosophical ideas lacked empirical evidence. absolute clumsiness. The image of Hamlet piercing the arras, ignoring his target, trying to convince himself that it is indeed Claudius when there is no possibility that it could be Claudius since he has just left him in another piece, is so emblematic of his company.When Hamlet resorts to violence, he stabs into the darkness, killing without grace and failing to achieve his goal. We can extend Guillory's idea of ​​a "performance of philosophy" to define this act as a "performance of violence." Just as Hamlet uses philosophy to express knowledge without addressing the content, his initial act of violence manifests a spontaneous impulse but achieves nothing. The murder of Polonius actually contributes to making Hamlet's situation worse. He kills Ophelia's father, committing the very crime against her that he is supposed to avenge. The murder of Polonius effectively equalizes Hamlet and Ophelia in that they both suffer their father's murders. The murder of Polonius is also interesting because it marks Hamlet's aggression towards women. He arrives at Gertrude's closet in anger. The implication in the text is that he wants to murder her. "Come, come and sit down," he said, "you won't move./You won't leave until I've made you a drink/Where you can see the most intimate part of you."(3.4 .17-19) He comes to her to confront her about her infidelity. Although he does not express his intentions, his language implies violence. He obviously threatens her with some sort of violence because Gertrude's next sentence is "What are you going to do? You won't murder me?" Hamlet wants to kill her; he enters his private closet, an indication that he no longer respects the rules of courteous decorum. He violates the accepted norms of courtly conduct, thereby compromising his reputation and renouncing his position as a polite courtier. The anger towards Gertrude is not only because she has been disloyal to Hamlet's father, but also because that she is a woman and that as a woman she embodies the reasons for her courtly restraint. It would therefore be reductive to consider Hamlet's violence against women as misogyny. It is not that Hamlet hates women, it is the way women are involved in the rules of legal society that incites his violence towards them. Gertrude accepts the deception inherent in court life and actively participates in it. She easily switches allegiance to Claudius after he kills King Hamlet. She is a good player in the courtly game; his strategy is to assimilate to the twisted rules imposed by the court. Hamlet blames himself because he sees it as a violation of his loyalty to his father. He sees her conduct as a sign of lack of remorse, when in reality she is doing her best to survive Claudius's court. Gertrude's behavior indicates that although she is a member of the court, she does not feel constrained by its restrictions. By remarrying Claudius, she expresses her complicity with the rules of court society. Ophelia's response to being a woman involved in court society differs from Gertrude's. While Gertrude is comfortable with the fluctuating norms of court society, Ophelia is disturbed by their fluid constructions. Like Hamlet, it is a youth constrained by the court. As a woman, she must marry well and protect her most precious asset: her virginity. Laertes alludes to this when he warns her not to take Hamlet too seriously. When describing Hamlet, Laertes says, “his will is not his own./For he himself is subject to his birth.” (1.3.17-18) Since Hamlet is destined to inherit the throne, he is not free to love whoever he wants. Ophelia, as the object of Hamlet's intended affections, must consider the strategies that will result in a successful marriage. The nature of court life is such that even her supposed lover does not have the freedom to choose her. Ophelia faces the same pressures as the courtesan that Hamlet faces as a courtier. Its constraints, although different from those of Hamlet,have the function of confining it to accepted social mores. “Weigh what loss your honor may suffer,” warns Laertes, “If with too credible an ear you hear his songs/Or if you lose your heart, or if your chaste treasure opens.” (1.3.29-31) He does not advise her to be careful because she might be hurt, but rather because she might suffer a “loss” of honor. He encourages her to restrain herself and protect her chastity, her only “treasure”. In a world where women are the target and men are the civilized archers, Ophelia must keep her prize. The implication is that she will be worthless once she compromises her honor. His value as a person only matters as it relates to the rules established in court. Ophélie does not casually accept the rules imposed on her as a woman in court. Unlike Gertrude, she protests her position in this world and expresses disgust at Laertes' concise summary of her situation. Her famous verses, in which she tactfully chastises Laertes, reveal her understanding of the mechanisms of courtly life. “Do not be like some unsightly pastors, / Show me the steep and thorny path that leads to heaven, / While he walks like a bloated and reckless libertine / Himself the primrose path of dalliance.” (1.3.47-50) She realizes that the advice he gives her is tinged with a certain hypocrisy; he tells him to be chaste, but he can be reckless. This incident is the first indication that Ophelia is uncomfortable with the atmosphere of court life. She knows that accepted social norms are vague and unfair. His voice in this passage is lucid and conveys a penetrating understanding of his surroundings. Like Hamlet, she is implicated in the restrictions placed on the court, and, like Hamlet, she ends up resorting to violence in response to these restrictions. Ophélie's position in this network of courtly life is significant both in what it reflects on her role as a woman in legal society. and for his status as recipient of Hamlet's desublimated aggression. Francis Barker sees Ophelia as “the object of all this masculine discourse which seeks, with the text itself, both to use and control her, giving her a passivity and marginality that is both poignant and repugnant. » Yes, Ophélie is relegated. to the role of the lover, the fragile girl whose virtue must be safeguarded and the caring sister. But this does not allow us to consider her a victim of misogyny. Even if she is confined to this “masculine discourse”, she manages to escape from this constraint and create her own. Barker points out that if Hamlet and Laertes' response to the confinements of their world is violence, in Ophelia "it incites collapse (but also a kind of empowerment), when at last she interrupts the action and finds a voice." Her voice, defined by the rest of the characters as “crazy,” is also “both stranger and truer than rational speech,” Barker asserts. She frees herself from the illusory constructions of the world of Claude's court by articulating in a “truer” voice and therefore interpreted as strange. While Hamlet philosophizes and decodes nothing of Claudius' faction of the monarchy, Ophelia uses a speech that "moves the listeners." to the collection." (4.5.8-9) If Hamlet's desublimation forces him to abandon decorum and courtesy, to choose violence rather than speech, then Ophelia's own recognition is the result of his adoption of speech to articulate truths She co-opts male speech and subverts it After Hamlet kills Polonius, Ophelia enters the court singing “crazy” songs and offering flowers to Laertes, Gertrude and Claudius. This scene illustratesOphelia's use of language and symbols to expose the truth about Claudius's courtship. In her madness, she demonstrates clarity of thought; she is able to speak these truths without fear of impropriety. Arden Shakespeare editor Harold Jenkins comments that "plants have their meanings appropriate to their recipients" and largely glosses over the significance of the scene. Ophelia gives rosemary and pansies to Laertes, fennel and columbine to Gertrude, and rue to Claudius. Jenkins argues that "with rosemary and pansies, the first two flowers, Ophelia indicates and Laertes accepts an emblematic meaning, thus inviting us to do the same for those that follow." Flowers therefore clearly have meaning for their recipients and this meaning is not lost on the recipients. Laertes calls it a “mad document,” but then quickly acknowledges that this document contains “adapted thoughts and memories.” (4.5.176) This means that she exhibits all the qualities of madness, but the content of her speech and action is inevitably rational and sensible. She gives Gertrude fennel and columbine and these, according to Jenkins, symbolize flattery and insincerity combined with "cuckoldry" or marital infidelity. She gives the king the street which symbolizes “the street of regret including not only sorrow but also repentance”. This highlights the king's need for repentance which he disclosed to the audience in 3.3 and is reinforced during his prayer scene. She asks the king to wear his "with a difference", which Jenkins understands as the difference between innocence and guilt. She also gives the king a daisy, which Jenkins admits proved confusing. It seems to be an emblem of the victims of love and she gives it to the king afterwards, which provides a bit of symmetry to the fact that she gives two flowers to each. “Wilted violets” assume a double meaning. The recipient of the flower should ideally be their lover since violets symbolize fidelity. Jenkins explores the irony of the violet's withering in relation to Laertes' early warnings to Ophelia when he compared Hamlet's love to a "sweet, not lasting" violet. In her grief for her father's death, there is also grief for her lost lover. Jenkins concludes that the violets "have a double implication: they recall with a lost memory. I love Polonius' faithful service to the state (the first thing suggested to us about him) while seeming to rebuke a court that knows no more loyalty. " And once again, this is addressed to the king and to Gertrude, by extension. Jenkins also points out that by giving Laertes "rosemary for remembrance", Ophelia plays the role of the Ghost in that of Hamlet in her revenge. Ophelia's Ghost allows him to play a central role in the simultaneous revenge narratives of Laertes and Hamlet. His agency, however, like that of the Ghost, must be encoded by means other than acceptable civil discourse. like an apparition, she comes into madness These two avenues seem to be the only way to effectively communicate and incite action among the courtiers. Ophelia's flowers function as a parallel to Hamlet's performance. philosophy She expresses her knowledge and alludes to its content without ever defining it. She uses the appearance of madness to make her vision of the sins and grievances of Claudius's court known, like that of Hamlet. , is prepared for smoother consumption by members of the court. Although her listeners are struck by the “relevance” of her wild ramblings, they fail to recognize the truths she reveals. Members of Claudius's court.