Hamlet Shakespeare As Political Critic: Term Paper

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After Hamlet has killed Polonius and Laertes has returned from Paris demanding satisfaction, Hamlet justly observes "by the image of my cause, I see the portraiture of his." It is the contrasts between these three characters which give significance to the parallelisms. The intelligent, sensitive Hamlet and the hot-headed Machiavellian Laertes perish on the same poisoned foil, leaving the kingdom to the cool-headed Norwegian, who has been a shrewder contriver than either. To drop the Fortinbras scenes from the play, as is frequently done in modern productions, is to destroy Shakespeare's dramatic plan.

(Holzknecht 253)

Holzknecht hints at the dramatic plan of the work and also gives us the missing final peace in the puzzle of Shakespeare's message. The constant and literal brutality that is derived from ambition and even righteous revenge could end in the loss of the kingdom, thus leaving the contriver, no matter how good, with nothing and the masses without a nation, or with one so foreign that their lives will never be the same.

Shakespeare annihilates the ideals of a good ruler by making clear, without a doubt that the evils that drive man are within reach of anyone who has any real power.

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Describing Hamlet's antithesis as Machiavellian makes it even more clear as the despotic designs of a prince in times of need are just as dangerous as the intellectual soft hearted Hamlet's madness, to the nation as a whole. They both lose everything, their father's, their thrones an their nations.

Would the masses, caught up in the tragedy of the lovable Hamlet have understood this? There is no real answer to that question, nor is there an answer to the question of whether the patron class would have seen the subtlety of the argument.

Possibly, the message would be evident to both, that man is a frail being and that the fate of many should not be placed upon his shoulders. Yet, in an intriguing point for further research, the patron class may well have been aware that the even bad press is good press and been reluctant to subvert the subtle message because they would then have to both explain it and acknowledge their fear of the truth, that would be so bloodily represented in the future of renaissance rebellions and revolutions.

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