The Seven Basic Plots - Christopher Booker [392]
Like Macbeth in the `tomorrow and tomorrow' soliloquy at exactly the same stage of his own tragedy, Hamlet now sees the human world as governed by nothing higher than egotism and futile pretence. We are no more than poor egodriven fools: vain actors strutting and fretting our brief time on the stage of life before we come to `dusty death'. And this is merely how individuals lead their lives. Behind this picture of human society made up of countless deceiving, scheming little egos, all competing with each other for approval and selfish advantage, lies the wider stage of the world where the collective egos of whole nations compete in the same futile struggle.
Another thread running through Hamlet is the wasting of spirit and energy which goes into the rivalry of nations as they battle for empty supremacy over each other, At the start of the play we hear how Denmark is preparing for war against Norway. But we subsequently hear that the two countries have mended this supposedly deadly quarrel, on the payment of a large sum of money, to become allies; and that the Norwegian army under Fortinbras ('strong in arms') is now marching instead against distant Poland: simply to fight over `a little patch of ground that hath in it no profit but the name'. As Fortinbras's soldiers tramp through Denmark on their way to this foreign war, no one sees more clearly than Hamlet the absurdity of how human beings are prepared `to find quarrel in a straw when honour's at the stake. He foresees with horror how these `twenty thousand men' may be doomed, for a 'mere fantasy and trick of fame' to `go to their graves like beds'.
Yet no sooner has he expressed his scorn for such self-deceiving madness than he goes on to resolve that, from this moment on, his own thoughts must be similarly `bloody, or be nothing worth'. We then cut immediately to the sight of Ophelia, now torn apart by that madness to which Hamlet himself has driven her, yet in her derangement speaking limpid truth. How can one tell someone who truly loves, she asks. By his `cockle hat and staff', the outward signs of a holy pilgrim: one who has surrendered the deceits and self-deceits of the ego for a higher, self-transcending cause. Ophelia has only been driven mad because the world around her is mad. She alone has remained in touch with the world of the Self, where she alone can still see those values of heart and soul which everyone around her has lost.
Yet the fact remains that Shakespeare was inspired to create this unutterably bleak picture of the dark side of human nature by that original legend which simply describes a young man finding his manhood and destiny in the most timehonoured, archetypal fashion, by winning the hand of the Princess and succeeding his father as king. Why has he wanted to make such a shattering break with the archetypal mould?
No idea is more central to storytelling, as we have seen, than that of one generation succeeding to another, and of the need for the hero to reach true maturity so that this can be achieved in the right way. Yet the one thing that is certain about Hamlet is that he cannot make this transition. He is doomed never to grow up. As we see him trapped in his state of tortured irresolution, he cannot relate properly either to his inner feminine or to his masculinity. Like so many other tragic heroes, he thus remains in thrall to his `unrealised value', trapped in a state of impotent rebellion against the `Father' of which he cannot turn himself into the light version. What Shakespeare has done is put this archetypal pattern to the test on a still deeper archetypal level, by changing the basis on which it is presented in a particularly significant way.
When the hero of Jack and the Beanstalk slays the giant who has murdered his father and stolen his inheritance, we do