Shakespeares Ambiguous Hamlet Essay -- Free GCSE Coursework

  Ã‚  Ã‚   That ambiguity exists within the Shakespearean drama Hamlet is a fact accepted by literary critics. Ambiguity of both word and action occur in the play. Let us examine the problem. Ruth Nevo in â€Å"Acts III and IV: Problems of Text and Staging† explains the ambiguity present within the hero’s most famous soliloquy: The critical problem arises from the perception that the speech apparently confuses two issues. Since we know what Hamlet’s obligatory task is, we cannot but register the possibility that the taking of arms and the â€Å"enterprises of great pitch and moment† refer to the killing of Claudius, though the logic of the syntax makes them refer to the self-slaughter which is the subject of the whole disquisition. And conversely, because self-slaughter is the ostensible subject of the whole disquisition, we cannot read the speech simply as a case of conscience in the matter of revenge – Christian revenge and the secular sanctions and motivations of honor. Whether Hamlet is talking of his revenge or of his desire for death, or of both, one substituting for the other as mask for truth (or truth for mask) therefore becomes the problem that this speech poses. (46)    Other examples of ambiguity are found in this tragedy by the Bard of Avon. D.G. James says in â€Å"The New Doubt† that the Bard has the ambiguous habit of charging a word with several meanings at once:    â€Å"Conscience does make cowards of us.† There has been, I am aware, much dispute as to what the word means here. For my part, I find not the least difficulty in believing that the word carries both its usual meaning and that of â€Å"reflection and anxious thought.† It is a platitude of Shakespeare study that Shakespeare could, with wonderful ease, charge ... ...es: An Impulsive but Earnest Young Aristocrat.† Readings on Hamlet. Ed. Don Nardo. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1999. Rpt. from The Masks of Hamlet. Newark, NJ: Univ. of Delaware P., 1992.    Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1995. http://www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/hamlet/full.html    West, Rebecca. â€Å"A Court and World Infected by the Disease of Corruption.† Readings on Hamlet. Ed. Don Nardo. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1999. Rpt. from The Court and the Castle. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1957.    Wright, Louis B. and Virginia A. LaMar. â€Å"Hamlet: A Man Who Thinks Before He Acts.† Readings on Hamlet. Ed. Don Nardo. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1999. Rpt. from The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Ed. Louis B. Wright and Virginia A. LaMar. N. p.: Pocket Books, 1958.