Did Hamlet even want to be king?

I really don't get this angle. Hamlet being pissed at his mom is pretty appropriate regarding the circumstances, she's acting like a whore, doesn't mean he wants to fuck her.
Hamlet is probably as misogynistic as most modern males and didn't even think about that him and his mom would lose their status if she didn't marry Claudius.

I'm serious, I don't read much into this sort of shit. I'm not even a regular here.
I've never seen the scene adapted that way.

Hamlet being annoyed at his mother for marrying Claudius and betraying his father is a conscious motive. The Oedipal complex functions on unconscious motives.

>Why has no one else it interpreted the scene that way?

They have. Another somewhat common presentation of that scene is as a lure for Polonius and Claudius--as in Tennant's Hamlet, in the OP image.

The tension between representation, the performance of feeling, and actual psychic pain is a running motif in Hamlet. c.f. Laertes histrionic display of grief at Ophelia's to Gertrude's retelling of her death etc.

Right. Exactly.

>Another somewhat common presentation of that scene is as a lure for Polonius and Claudius
I'm sorry, I have no idea what that means.
>The tension between representation, the performance of feeling, and actual psychic pain
Or that either.

Have you seen or read the play?

I'm going to be honest, only a really long time ago. We read it in class and then saw a performance at Lincoln Theatre.

Meaning hamlet's impulse to perform as an actor was greater than his desire for revenge.

Vice versa on impulse/desire... I'm drunk and a retard

ITT: Homework

Or maybe part of his hesitation stems from his doubt that the act of revenge would be anything but a performance.

But if the play is the thing why would he hesitate to perform his final act?

Hamlet's not an actor, he's a prince.

Or maybe he was trying to figure out if killing Claudius would be worth it/actually change anything. Would he get away with it? Is it the moral thing to do, to stoop as low as the sinner he condemns? Does he actually care to avenge his father, a man he hardly knew outside of stories of the battlefield?

He didn't mean him being a literal actor. He was referring to Hamlet's melodramatic personality.

I don't believe hamlet cared about whether he would get away with it nor whether it was moral or not. His grief and his desire to be kept in the drama of the situation spurred his actions.

Because it is part of his character; it is part of the play.

It's a 16th century play, not a postmodern novel.

Hamlet IS an actor. He is acting for the court in order to expose Claudius. But through that act there is revealed the ambivalence of authenticity and performance.

Hamlet may not be aware that his is actually in a play, but he is very conscious that he is 'in a play'.

>most modern males are misoginistic

Just drop the Silent Spring already

So you're telling me that Hamlet is basically a reality TV star that lives for drama?

You're right, all males are misogynistic.

Wouldn't you be pissed? His father recently deceased, finding out your beloved mom is a filthy whore banging that dcikhead uncle of yours..(Ghost reveals of adultery & murder, maybe she had a hand in fathers death?) and you want the kingdom for yourself as the rightful air so you have to stick around for this shit?? Hamlet is in turmoil, and i discount the oedipus complex - oedipus killed his own father & married his mother, unknowingly, still don't see how this correlates.. just some perverted scholars wishful thinking..

*heir -- yeah he wants to be king, but his immediate family has turned to shit.. so burn it all down

An Oedipus complex refers to hatred of the father for possessing the mother, due to latent sexual feelings for her.

Given that Claudius has wrongfully assumed that role, I don't think it's much of a stretch to make such an interpretation.

I don't agree with Freud as much as the next guy, but he's definitely fun to use a tool when analyzing literature.

That's like saying all people are bad. It means nothing. Incidentally its also like the expectation that if you go up to some random person and ask them if they are a good person, provided they are so inclined to answer they will say yes. Shouldn't this quality of "goodness" be measured against some standard. Shouldn't it be something reserved for the top 10% of humanity? What I'm trying to say user, is you are a bad person and so am I so your sanctimony is worth less than a packet of potato-meal.

Your post has nothing to do with the OP question. And Hamlet couldn't have just went back to school and wait it all out? Claudius is old as fuck, and the life expectancy back then wasn't high.
If Hamlet went away for a few years, finishing his studies and fucking Ophelia in the ass, Claudius would've probably died naturally soon enough.
And there's also Fortinbras. If Hamlet waited a week or two Fortinbras would've shanked Claudius for him. Claudius isn't a warrior like Hamlet Sr. was.

You're not getting what I'm saying -- Hamlet's proclivities lean towards performance and not revenge. His soliloquies point towards his ambivalence towards justice, right/wrong. He has little in common with his father, uncle or mother to justify their murders on moral or reciprocal grounds.
Instead he recognized his actor playwright role in the unfolding drama and led us as the audience to its final bloody conclusion. A changeling if you will.

I am and and no. I am saying one of the central themes of the play is the uneasy identification of image and actuality, performance of feeling and feeling itself.

its copypasta idiot

hamlet is like 30

He was fat and short of breath (dit Gertrude) and an asshole to each other character, not to mention the clouds of bad breath that were hanging around him (dit King). He has been a neckbeard. That, if anything, has been his fatal flaw.

my bad

And? He was still in school. Oh I get what you're saying, with the life expectancy thing. But again, did he really want to be king?

>am saying one of the central themes of the play is the uneasy identification of image and actuality, performance of feeling and feeling itself.
nope not getting anything

sauce?
The actors that play tend be in their 80s since you are not allowed to play without having renown. And they never are fat because fat actors are for character roles. All that belongs to the conventions of post-Elizabeth.
Hamlet is young, Laertes implies he's even younger than Ophelia when lecturing her.

A student at thirty? Shakes didn't care much for accuracy there...

This is good, yes.

Consider Hamlet's final soliloquy, the final thoughts he shares directly with the audience: shakespeare.mit.edu/hamlet/hamlet.4.4.html

>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,

The course is set, and Hamlet knows this. His final resolution is not a really a choice beyond that to play the part he recognizes he's been given.

Seriously?

>The play is the thing.

There's the key right there.

Polonius does have a pretty premonition, too, in the theatre scene.

nope

He doesn't miss Claudius, tho.
Or Laertes.

Great. It's been nice chatting with you about this play we are both so deeply interested in. Have a good day.

would you have drunk some vinegar or eaten a crocodile, Veeky Forums, if your waifu had died in se offendendo?

nay, lit is of a truant persuasion.

it's annoying when the first post is the correct answer

the grave digger provides explicit textual evidence. also yorick has been dead for 23 years.

dont get me wrong theres a lot of debate around it but so far consensus has found it very difficult to argue for 16 over 30.

The way I remember it GD just says Hamlet sailed off to England and avoids to opine on the late king's son. But you're on Yorick. And I'm on that Laertes does point out to his virgin sister that Hamlet is young. What's more Ham shames his own mother for being voluptuous in spite of her age.

Is it just me, or does Hamlet have a bit of comedy dashed in it? Certain scenes with Hamlet and Ophelia, and the scenes with Osric, struck me as attempting to get a laugh out of the audience. Am I just misinterpreting the tone?

>you're on Yorick
*right
on Yorick.
16? Who said he is 16?

just Google hamlets age this. entire books have been written on this. it's hard to argue for 16

I think it would be safe to assume Hamlet is somewhere in his early twenties.

Plus, if Hamlet was thirty, he'd probably been picked for the throne over his uncle, unless shenanigans.

that's the alternate interpretation of the gravedigger line that explicitly says he's 30.

you're wrong.

To me it seemed the talk with Osric on the weather was an echoed him talking to Polonius about the clouds. Wasn't it done to mark him as an asshole (just him being lecherous towards Ophelia) so that we don't feel sorry when he's killed?

>just Google
alright, let us both google Hamlet act V scene 1

Wrong about what?

you mean the scene where he is explicitly said to be 30

his age. nothing supports early 20s

He's early twenties in my headcanon :^)

not even close to the worst thing I've seen on Veeky Forums so whatever.

There, there.
He is in his 20s. The first quarto edition does not contain the clown saying anything about his age. Shakes will've included it later, as the company aged.
shut up. He's ought to be a young and impulsive.

Sorry, next time I'll meme harder to meet your tall expectations, faggot.

>He is in his 20s. The first quarto edition does not contain the clown saying anything about his age. Shakes will've included it later, as the company aged.

would be convincing if not for the fact that he also edited the player king to have been married 30 years in q2. he deliberately made the change to focus on drawing parallels, and went through the extra hassle to pin down hamlet's age without a doubt. it's ridiculous to ignore this.

bump

Ophelia drowned but why? When I was reading Hamlet, it seemed unclear to me whether it was suicide or if it was an act of murder.

suicide, she was distraught by Hamlet ignoring her

Veeky Forums, I'm a curious pleb and I'd love some insight.

I read Hamlet and found it compelling. Great verbal textures, stylism, etc.

But what makes it so transcendently good that it's often held to be the greatest work in English literature?

With a Beethoven symphony or late string quartet, for example, you can get lost in contemplating the pure inexorability of each note, and how there isn't a single thing that could be changed to make it better or more effective. You wonder how he could achieve such perfect effects at such perfect times. Is there a similar thing with Hamlet?

yes

read more

>yes

That's kind of what I assumed. What is the similar thing, if you don't mind my asking?

Hamlet did not give the slightest fuck about being a king.

He didn't give a fuck about his dad either. He was a neglected child; the closest thing he has to a father is a dead jester.

It's the pinnacle of western theater, and Hamlet is the most (or second or third most) dynamic and complex character ever concieved.

Check out Bloom's chapter on Freud in the Western Canon. He argues (convincingly) that Freud's Oedipus Complex was actually derived from Hamlet, not Oedipus.

Yes, of course, or else why did was there a song in The Lion King called "I Just Can't Wait to Be King"?

The Lion King isn't a straight adaptation, it has a lot of changes that improve the story like:
>Simba is actually close to his father
>We know for sure that Simba actually wants to be king
>Simba sees the murder as a child, and returns to kill his uncle as a grown man

So what was the motive?

>Hamlet is the most (or second or third most) dynamic and complex character ever concieved.

motive for what?

It's hard to account for anything Hamlet does. He won't kill Claudius but he stabs Plotinus without a split second of hesitation. He outwits everybody he encounters (except the gravedigger) but somehow walks right into Claudius's absurd trap (surely he knew exactly what he was in for).

(In the opinion of Harold Bloom. I haven't read anywhere close to enough of anything to say one way or another. But Hamlet is certainly not some rigid Elizabethan trope for whom serious analysis is inappropriate. Critics revere the play, as well as writers.)

Didn't he think Polonius was Claudius?

Hard to say, but perhaps. It's not hard to imagine he would suspect Polonius doing Claudius's dirty work, that there was someone listening from the get go. It seems like the momentary rage of his conversation with Gertrude causes him to kill, not revenge against Claudius or Polonius. He displays no regret whatsoever for having killed Polonius, we might expect him to act a tad surprised or regretful having missed his mark, but I don't think the mark mattered to him so much as getting a shot off.

Hamlet's ENTIRE spiel is to avoid taking responsibility. Dad is dad ... crap ... if I kill Claudius I might have to take responsibility, even though I am a middle aged man still in school. How could you, mom? It was YOU AND ME. He is happy to kill everyone and get himself killed, giving the kingdom away to Fortinbras, the very man whose father Hamlet senior fought so hard against to keep his kingdom. Hamlet is an eternal child afraid of growing up - if he kills Claudius, he will have to admit he is a man. The proto-millenial.

he is only capable of striking out in childish anger when his relationship with mother is directly profaned. Once mom is dead, good-bye Claudius and everyone else in his way. Can't suckle at the teat any longer.

reminder hamlet was a cuck and the son of a cuck

Hamlet's father was an old Catholic who did not receive extreme unction and lingers as a ghost, suffering the purging of purgatory. Hamlet is a protestant humanist educated at wittenberg. His father was an old warrior, he is a young thinker, but he has been tasked with fighting instead of thinking, and he sucks at it. He will rationalize anything to avoid taking action, even when he has Claudius at his mercy, because it would mean growing up and being his father rather than being who he is. He is resentful but does not actively seek revenge, or he could have had it after the play, only pretending when the guilt was clear that remorse could stop his hand, when from the very first he KNEW Claudius was guilty : "My prophetic soul..." I know ... let's stage a play and act crazy until Claudius notices and sends us away ...

>Hamlet is an eternal child afraid of growing up - if he kills Claudius, he will have to admit he is a man.

How was Hamlet a cuck

bump

I was trying to read critical approaches of Hamlet and instead ended up looking up incest porn. Anyone else have this problem?

He's mid-late 20s.

still wrong

its like you people never read the play

can't you multitask?

>
Nope.

>I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years.