Hamlet is an entertaining and dramatic story...

Hamlet is an entertaining and dramatic story, and it's super well written with a ton of clever dialogue and general writing. However, is there supposed to be some really amazing message or meaning behind the story? It seems like it's very high quality and interesting, but it doesn't seem like hugely important or deep. Is there anything more to it than a riveting and well crafted story? The reason I suspect there's something I'm not 'getting' is because of how discussed and written about and debated almost every aspect of the play is.

>is there supposed to be some really amazing message or meaning behind the story?

No, and this is true for pretty much all of Shakespeare. You don't read/watch him for the overarching meaning: it's the intelligence, the style, the imagery, and the emotion that makes him great.

it's good enough that you can get a lot out of it that wasn't likely intended -- some insights on human psychology, for example -- but the work on its own is already very intelligent. The To Be or Not To Be soliloquy is certainly one of the best tirades concerning suicide in all of literature, as an example.

the thing about the play is that it's extraordinarily ambiguous. Every character has intentions that are obscured to us, the audience, and have quite a bit of possible reasoning behind them. Why did Hamlet hesitate for so long to kill Claudius? Was it an Oedipus complex? Was he held back by his religion, some subconscious fear not revealed to us? Did Gertrude drink the poison knowingly, or accidentally? Did Hamlet really kill Polonius because he 'thought' he was the king? Does Hamlet really love Ophelia? Is Hamlet's father's ghost *really* Hamlet's father's ghost? If so, why did he claim to be in Purgatory when he also said he is in a place where everything burns? Did R&G know their mission was to send Hamlet to England and therefore to his death?

There are so many facets to the story that can be explained in a billion different ways, that you can interpret and appropriate the play to mean, support, or deride anything, depending on which details you take into account and how you explain certain actions in the play

Ol' Harry Bloom credits Bill with the "creation of the modern man." Internalized thinking that reacts to and evolves via its own thoughts--a deeper degree of consciousness than had previously been portrayed in art. Hammy is a perfect example.
I find there to be a link between Hamlet, Lear, the Gospels, and say, Moby Dick. Tragedy and violent death that only serves to educate the witnesses, to tell their tale, and to learn from their mistakes to make the world a better place. I'm a little foggy on Hamlet characters, but there's that one guy who survives to witness Fortinbras's approach, in Lear there's Edgar (or his bro? The good guy...that remains), the disciples preach Jesus and Ishmael retells the Queequeg. Shakespeare gets that it's all about the audience, in the end. We're all just players on the stage.

is it a possibility that a lot of inconsistencies or 'problems' in the plot like the ones you mentioned are simply mistakes or oversights? not saying for sure but some of it sounds like it might just be a fuck up

It says a lot about the time it was written etc.

confirmed pleb

so it isn't a possibility that some points of confusion in hamlet are mistakes?

My favorite aspect of the story is after the play there is a sudden shift on who the 'bad guy' is in the story. Up until then, Hamlet just wanted to avenge the unjust murder of his father and kill Claudius to appease himself and the heavens but it's until we see Claudius praying for salivation where Hamlet true colors are shown. He was given the perfect opportunity to kill him right then and there, Claudius's reaction to the play proved his crime and God has given him the king on his knees waiting for the release of death, but Hamlet doesn't act. He doesn't just want his father avenged he wants Claudius to burn in hell, which is now impossible after Claudius's repentance. This is what God had wanted, and Hamlet denied it with because of his own anger and hate

cont: humanism is beginning to emerge onto the public at this time period, it was reserved for the upper classes since the early renaissance but this is 17th century England and the common people are understanding it the same. Yea Hamlet fails in the end and fucks everything up, but just the main character rejecting gods will and depending on himself was a big deal at the time

I don't think this changes who the 'bad guy' is. Claudius still wants to dispose of Hamlet and is willing to manipulate and deal to do it. I don't believe Hamlet's sentiment in that scene is completely genuine ((Most of what Hamlet says, I believe, is insincere). I think it's him putting off the act again with an excuse and trying to rile up his hatred to have the will, leading him to erratically kill who he thinks is Claudius as a sort of recompense in the following scene.

Think of the series of rare coincidences and failures causing general misery Hamlet gets into that follow this scene until the very end of the story, I see this in two ways: Shakespeare criquing the man who denies gods will and acts in accordance with themselves only, displaying his foolish acts of hatred, ignorance and short sighted thinking. He's also saying with the extreme coincidences that the man thinking he's choosing life himself is still just following gods plan, a plan that takes him to his final punishment for rejecting the God. I see this play as a big fuck you to humanism and free will, which I follow myself in case you think I'm reading into my biases

It is a possibility. But then there's nothing to say about those moments. Who cares what was intentional and what was a mistake anyway. Authorial intent doesn't count for much.

are there any plot holes in the works of shake spear?

While that makes sense I still don't think it shifts who the antagonists is, it certainly makes Hamlet less heroic, but Claudius still must die. Hamlets inaction wasn't trying to be nefarious to anything, but was a a conflict over meaning with himself.

Fpbp
Anyway OP, aside from what these cats said, maybe you could look at the depth of his characters and as this user said, the psychological understand portrait, otherwise they're just really beautifully written, fun plays

Most of Shakespeare's plots are lifted from older stories. It's really all in the telling

They are consistent inconsistencies, like the breaking of an even line for effect.

It's more appropriate to think of them as ambiguities--of motive, of meaning, of intent, etc.

>Claudius' repentance

>My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
>Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

????????

Somehow I read the first cantos. Did I f*#!&k up?