Arvind Sujeeth

Dulick

Shakespeare – 1

11/5/02

Hamlet: A Tragedy of Four

Shakespeare’s Hamlet is the tragic character of all tragic characters; he has become the postmark of the ages for tragedy. However, his tragedy was supported by a cast of sons in a similar position, with different reactions that by comparison defined Hamlet as the tragic character. Each son, Fortinbras, Laertes, Pyrrhus, and Hamlet, dealt with the loss of a father in a different way; while all four sought vengeance, each had unique reasons and methods. Without these, Hamlet could not be the tragic hero he is – for it is in the shallower answers Fortinbras, Laertes and Pyrrhus resort to that we can most completely recognize Hamlet’s plight as incomparably tragic.

Fortinbras, son of the late king of Norway, saw his father’s death as a political blow and sought to respond in kind when the opportunity presented itself. Claudius notes this early in Act I, “Now follows that you know young Fortinbras, holding a weak supposal of our worth, or thinking by our late dear brother’s death our state to be disjoint and out of frame, colleagued with this dream of his advantage…[imports] the surrender of those lands” (34). This is a hardly tragic approach; moreover, Fortinbras never achieves a recognition; in Act V, at the closing pages of the play, he says, “For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune. I have some rights of memory in this kingdom, which now to claim my advantage doth invite me” (171). He was neither universal nor personal – but in this way, through comparison, he showed Hamlet to be ever more so.

The next son, Laertes, saw vengeance as a duty; he asked no questions, sought no resolutions, fought no internal struggles. He was no less emotional – “O vile King, give me my father!” (133) - but he replaced the tragic doubt that existed in Hamlet with practicality: “Let come what comes, only I’ll be revenged most thoroughly for my father” (134). Rather than fall into a madness and emerge with a recognition, he walked the path of duty and practicality until his death. “My lord”, Laertes says, “I’ll hit him now…and yet it is almost against my conscience” (167). He sought a just goal, but lacked the conflict, understanding and final recognition Hamlet showed that characterizes the tragic hero.

The third, Pyrrhus, resorted to violence. His very description is dark: “The rugged Pyrrhus, like th’ Hyrcanian beast…the rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms, black as his purpose, did the night resemble” (80). Such a character cannot be associated with, nor has any recognition. Where Fortinbras reacted with political opportunism, and Laertes reacted with practical, determined resolve, Pyrrhus reacted with a passionate, violent outburst: “so, after Pyrrhus’ pause, aroused vengeance sets him new a-work, and never did the Cyclops’ hammers fall on Mars’ armor forged for proof eterne with less remorse than Pyrrhus’ bleeding sword now falls on Priam” (81). He complements Hamlet because Hamlet struggles with this emotion, too – but in contrast, Hamlet is the hero Pyrrhus could never be for elevating the internal conflict to a universal level while being simply afraid to carry out the violence that has taken him to madness. Fear for such an act brings not only respect for the sanctity of life, but sadness for Hamlet’s plight; he is the tragic hero.

As the tragic hero, Hamlet was able to encompass all the reactions the other three sons felt, bringing them to an internal conflict that admittedly drove him to madness. Shakespeare’s portrayal of Hamlet leaves pity for his plight and universality for his questions; “to be, or not to be, that is the question” (88), and always has been the question, and perhaps always will be the question. Hamlet is identifiable as a character distraught by politics, charged with duty, battling with violence, but tragically unable to come to terms with it all - until the end, where his recognition completes the path of the tragic hero: “Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness. Was ‘t Hamlet wronged Laertes? Never Hamlet. If Hamlet from himself be ta’en away, and when he’s not himself does wrong Laertes, then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it. Who does it, then? His madness…let my disclaiming from a purposed evil free me so far in your most generous thoughts that I have shot my arrow o’er the house and hurt my brother” (165). A tragic character would be incomplete if he failed to recognize his failures. Hamlet is the complete tragic hero, and each of the other avenging sons is but a testimony to that.