Research Paper: Hamlet

Shakespeare’s Hamlet is full of innuendoes and double entendre remarks on part of Hamlet. This verbal game playing occurs in Hamlet’s embittered, cynical dialogues with Claudius/Gertrude, Polonius/Ophelia; Rosencrantz/Guildenstern. In act I Scene II, Hamlet’s conversation between him and the king starts of with the king recognizing him as a cousin and ‘son’ a thing that annoys Hamlet as he was he had recently married Hamlet’s windowed mother. The words cousin in the past was more accurate than uncle in today’s world. Hamlet already doubts his uncle over his father’s death to take his throne and marry his mother.

He bitterly insults the king and replies “A little more than kin and less than kind” (1.2.65). This implies that though he is his uncle he isn’t king to him and his dead father. The king is offended and Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude mediates saying “All that lives must die” (1.2 72-73). Wofford (202), Hamlet is not convinced that his father’s death was reason for her to rush to his uncle’s bed. The text in the play reveals nothing about Gertrude actual feelings or thoughts but this is revealed from his son’s conversation with Claudius who Garber (297 – 331) points out tends to disclose to Hamlet his mother’s obvious sexual unfaithfulness in relation to the situation. This shows that Gertrude like Ophelia lacks representation.

Another illustration of innuendoes and Double entendre remarks on part of Hamlet is the conversation with Ophelia and Polonius. In the play, this conversation may appear harmless to new start readers, as well as actually satisfactory. For instance (3.2.111), hamlet says to Ophelia, “that’s a fair though to lay between the maids legs.” This is an instance of a double meaning to nothing and it’s an ideal joke that the noble prince is sharing it to a youthful woman of the courtyard. Upon hearing this statement, Ophelia is not offended at all, even if Hamlet doesn’t hesitate to speak it. This is because, the subject of sexual objectification was an open topic of discussion and so Hamlet is just being real. The play in this case displays Ophelia as a minor character and as an object for Hamlet’s male desire (220). According to Wofford (195) unfaithfulness by a woman was the most the greatest threat to a man’s ego in Hamlets community although to Polonius some womanizing by Laertes his son is not a just fine and not a threat to the male ego and so is he with Ophelia; using her.

In Hamlet’s speech to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Act II Scene II, he discovers that the two are spying on him and he tells them he would voluntarily tell them his problem to save them from the hard work of investigating these themselves. Hamlet then breaks into “I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth…” a speech with the two which is a confession about his depression and but one of them goes ahead to smile like a fool yet Hamlet is sincerely pouring out what his heart felt, and Hamlet concludes with and embarrassing remark. “Though by your smiling you seem to say so”? Hamlets anger is as a result of the two whom are his friends opting for the king’s account on Hamlets mental status as convinced by Gertrude, to just asking him what his real problem was and assisting him as friends.

References

Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Bedford/St. Martin’s Edition. Susanne L. Wofford. Editor. Boston/New York: Bedford Books. 1994.

Garber, Marjorie. Hamlet: giving up the ghost.

Shakespeare’s Ghost Writers: Literature as uncanny causality. New York: Metheun, 1987. 124-176.

Wofford, Susanne. A Critical History of Hamlet. In Hamlet. Ed. Susanne Wofford. Boston, Ma: Bedford Books, 1994, 181-207.

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