The Seven Basic Plots - Christopher Booker [388]
The `good old man' (as Claudius explicitly calls him) is Polonius, and he too Hamlet now savagely ridicules. But we are now moving into the Frustration Stage, where what has up to now been no more than cruel mockery and play-acting is about to turn irretrievably nasty. Hamlet's mood of frustration is signalled by the `to be or not to be' speech, in which he shows his state of extreme inner turmoil. Faced with the kind of outrage he has been subjected to, should he just weakly accept it with Christian forebearance, or should he act resolutely, like a man, and `take arms' to end it? So intolerable is the choice that it might seem the only way out is to commit suicide. But who knows what hellish punishments this might lead to in an after-life?
Reduced to impotence at not knowing which way to turn, Hamlet is temporarily saved from this tortured dithering by the fact that he has already set his 'mousetrap'. His trick with the play succeeds beyond his wildest dreams. As Claudius, sitting in the darkness, sees his hideous secret exposed, he can take no more, leaping up from his chair to shout for light. This reinvigorates Hamlet, who has again just treated Ophelia with such callous contempt; and having been invited by his anguished mother to talk privately about the offence he has given his stepfather, he is now summoning up all his resolve to commit the ultimate act of darkness:
What tragic hero in Shakespeare gives more explicit voice to the darkness that has taken over his soul? Yet when Hamlet has the chance to kill Claudius at prayer, he cannot bring himself to do it. He tells himself that this is because, if he kills his stepfather when he is on his knees, Claudius might avoid the ultimate punishment in hell he deserves. However, this seems like rationalisation. Is not the truth that, given the perfect opportunity to do what his darker self is urging, Hamlet is too weak, not manly enough to do it? It is a wonderfully ambiguous moment, exposing just what a `divided self' Hamlet has become. At this same moment we also see that, for all his show of devotion, Claudius himself knows it is totally empty: `my words fly up, my thoughts remain below'; and furthermore he has already set in train with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern the plot whereby they will escort Hamlet to England to be murdered. Locked on a collision course, he and Hamlet are now almost equally black in their purposes, except that Hamlet is not man enough to have the full courage of his own dark convictions.
The general mood of frustration deepens when Hamlet, on a sudden violent impulse, stabs the eavesdropping Polonius hidden behind the arras. His only response is frustration at finding his victim is not Claudius, which would have solved his problem. Even when he discovers he has, by mistake, killed the `good old man, he shows again just how genuinely dark he has become by significantly showing not a flicker of remorse. Instead he lets fly at his mother for her shameless treachery and infidelity (this is where the Freudians, not without justification, see Hamlet reaching the `Oedipal' impasse, where a weak, unmanly son is fixated on his mother and appalled that she should `betray him by her love for the `father'). All this is taken from the original Amleth story, but given a spin entirely Shakespeare's own. The Ghost, as Tempter, makes