The Pivotal Third Act of Hamlet

The first two scenes of Hamlet’s third act are pivotal ones in the play, as it is here that Shakespeare underscores the play’s thematic issues with the use of philosophical concepts, symbolism and imagery as he sets the stage for the events to come. While the scenes contain speeches and events such as Hamlet’s soliloquy and the play within a play that are crucial to understanding the play’s action, they also contain subtleties of plot that add tremendous depth to the meaning of the play as a whole.

Throughout both scenes, Shakespeare skillfully blends the concept of disruption in the Great Chain of Being with the theme of appearance versus reality: When the first scene opens with a conversation between the Claudius, Gertrude, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, Polonius and Ophelia. Claudius’ first words are revealing. He asks if Hamlet’s two friends have discovered the cause for Hamlet’s behavior, wondering why “he puts on this confusion, /Grating so harshly all his days of quiet / With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?” (3.1.2-4). Here, Claudius is blaming Hamlet for the disruption and lack of harmony in the state of Denmark. Claudius therefore feels justified in sending Hamlet to England in order to restore order as the prince’s brooding thoughts presents “some danger” (3.1.170). After the play is performed, Claudius determines (again, ostensibly for the sake of the kingdom) that it is not “safe with us / to let his madness range” (3.3.1-2).

Claudius’ actions are the ultimate hypocrisy and serve to highlight the theme of illusion in the play, since, in reality, he has caused the disruption in the kingdom by the murder of Hamlet’s father. Claudius sends Hamlet to England not to protect the kingdom, but to protect himself.[1] While he gives the appearance of being a good ruler and striving to restore and maintain order and harmony, it is only an illusion.

Shakespeare blends the theme of illusion with the conflict of good versus evil by establishing that Gertrude, Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are allied together with the King against Hamlet. Here, we see just how corrupt and disordered this court is. The Queen is married to her husband’s murderer. The most trusted advisor in the kingdom is a fool.[2] Even Hamlet’s friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, choose to give their loyalty to the King. Each has chosen evil by accepting the illusion that Claudius is good.

The theme of loyalty is a crucial one in the play. Part of Hamlet’s dilemma is trying to reconcile his own personal feelings with the loyalty and obligation he owes to his father. As he struggles to determine exactly how to meet the demands of that responsibility, Hamlet closely examines the loyalties of those around him: The queen, Ophelia and most especially, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

As long-time friends of Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern owe Hamlet a loyalty based on that friendship. Instead, they are shown kowtowing to the King, a fact that Hamlet seems to be aware of as he tests the two men by seeing if they will admit that they were sent for by the king and queen (2.2.293). Their lack of loyalty is clearly shown when, after Rosencrantz and Guildenstern exit to help bring in the players, Hamlet extols Horatio’s virtues, thus contrasting them to those of his supposed friends (3.2). Hamlet calls Horatio “as just a man /As e’er my conversation coped withal” (3.2.53-54). He goes on to describe Horatio’s mettle in terms that are the direct antithesis of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s actions:

Here, Hamlet is clearly differentiating between the motives of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and those of Horatio. Horatio is not dependent on the King financially (“no revenue has but thy good spirits. . .”), nor is he brown-nosing for any ulterior motive (“. . . the candied tongue . . . where thrift may follow fawning”) (3.2.57-61). Horatio has all the qualities of loyalty that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern lack, and thus his relationship with Hamlet is not merely convenient or superficial, but one that is truly manifest on a soul level.[3]

Hamlet reinforces his point by applying the analogy of the pipe to both Horatio and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. While he uses it to refer positively to Horatio in the above passage, the same symbolism is used to cast Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in a very negative light when he insists that Guildenstern play the recorder for him (3.2.345-371). Hamlet directly says that he knows the two men are acting “as if you would drive me into a toil [a trap]” (3.2.346). When Guildenstern contends again that he cannot play, Hamlet persists, saying “It is as easy as lying” (3.2.356). Guildenstern professes, “I have not the skill” (3.2.361), a true statement as Hamlet has been able to see through the two men’s manipulations all along. Hamlet makes this clear by his response in lines 363 through 371: “You would play upon me” indicates that Hamlet knows that the two men are trying to manipulate him. “You would seem to know my stops” implies that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern think they know how to accomplish this. Hamlet shows his awareness that his friends are attempting to get information out of him when he states, “you would pluck out the heart of my mystery.” “You would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass” shows that Hamlet realizes that the two think they know who he really is and think they know what motivates him. Hamlet, however, knows that they don’t really know him at all and therefore can’t manipulate him as “there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak.” Rosencrantz and Guildenstern can never experience the deeper friendship that Hamlet shares with Horatio because they have given him deceit and manipulation instead of loyalty .

The question of whether Rosencrantz and Guildenstern deserve to die is an important point in interpreting the play as a whole. The scenes with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern certainly help to justify why Hamlet later feels no sense of remorse at sending them to their death. It is extremely likely that Hamlet thought the two aware of the King’s instructions to execute him. Through their own weakness, they allied themselves with the evil represented by the King, rather than being loyal to the truth that Hamlet’s knowledge represents. Since in the end, all those allied with evil (and thus with chaos) must perish in order to reestablish order, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern had to die.

While Rosencrantz and Guildenstern chose to give their loyalty to a corrupt king rather than their friend, the loyalty issues for Ophelia are more complex. Like Hamlet who must struggle with balancing his father’s edict that Hamlet vengeance should not harm Gertrude against his own sense of anger and outrage at his mother’s actions, Ophelia, too, has divided loyalties. She struggles to be true to her feelings of love for Hamlet while trying to be obedient to her father, and to a lesser extent, her brother Laertes.[4]

Ophelia’s confrontation with Hamlet (3.1) is significant as it is the first time that the two of them speak to each other after Polonius ordered Ophelia to ignore Hamlet. Here, the issues of these divided loyalties is prominent, especially as Polonius and the King are listening in the background. Hamlet’s questions of “Are you honest?” and “Are you fair?” (3.2.104,106) seem to take on a deeper meaner because we know that Claudius and Polonius are listening in on the conversation. Is Hamlet asking Ophelia where her loyalties lie?[5]

Hamlet’s derisive comment of “Get thee to a nunnery” has conflicting interpretations (3.1.122). While much has been made of the fact that the word nunnery is Elizabethan slang for a brothel as well as indicating a convent, it is very possible that both meanings apply. The stage was set for Hamlet to encounter Ophelia reading a prayer book, so the religious reference would not be out of place. As the highest spiritual vocation open to a women at that time, Hamlet very well could have thought it a much better place for her than the court in its present state, especially as Hamlet could not offer her his protection.[6]

On the other hand, given Hamlet’s anger towards his mother for her actions, interpreting the meaning of the word as brothel might also apply, especially if Hamlet was truly hurt by Ophelia’s recent refusal to see him. Hamlet could possibly have interpreted her actions as her using him for her own gratification.[7] Yet even if the remark implies that Hamlet sees her as a whore, there is an implicit honesty in the idea of her working in a brothel. In their own way, whores are totally honest. There is no pretense of love or loyalty involved; it is strictly cash on the table, quid pro quo. As outcasts of society, whores are not bound by the false and artificial conventions that dominate the Danish court.

In a symbolic sense, Hamlet may be giving Ophelia the choice of which interpretation to embrace. Ophelia has become a pawn in the affairs at court. She can choose good and take the higher path (the interpretation of the convent) or, because from a Christian perspective prostitution is immoral, she can choose the brothel, and therefore the court and evil. The intensely sexual symbolism used by Ophelia during the later mad scenes could very well reflect this interpretation.

Throughout the play, symbolism and imagery are used that add subtle depths of meaning and interpretation. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Hamlet’s soliloquy (3.1.57-89) where the image build, one upon the other, to reveal not only the depth of Hamlet’s despair, but to also clearly define how his mental processes work. Hamlet begins with the standard philosophical argument, “To be or not to be, that is the question.” His approach is intellectual as he is concerned with what is “nobler in the mind. . .” as he attempts to solve his dilemma. He seeks to see the whole picture, mimicking the traditional pro/con philosophical argument in the way he contrasts the harsh, stress-ridden images of “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” and the “whips and scorns of time” with the softer, gentler images of sleep and dreams.

Yet, in Hamlet’s current situation, the academic approach is insufficient. Just as it is impossible to “take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them,” here, logic yields no answers. The sea is a mighty force of nature, and no weapon made could prove effective against it. Hamlet’s mixed metaphor illustrates the inadequacy of logic and reason in solving his present predicament. Hamlet is lost when he realizes that all of his intellectual training cannot lead him to the answers he needs.

The entire passage reflects Hamlet’s desperate need for a respite and ultimately freedom from the intensity of his feelings and the pressure of the responsibility for avenging his father’s death. The unconsciousness of sleep and even death is a means to escape and “end/ The heartache and the thousand natural shocks/ That flesh is heir to.” It is almost as though he sees death and sleep as somehow possibly synonymous, comparing “To die, to sleep” as though weighing and balancing the two to see if they are equal before coming back again to “to sleep, perchance to dream.” Any momentary likeness to nocturnal fantasies evoked by the use of the word dreams is quickly replaced by Hamlet’s expression of doubts about what the afterlife experience may hold, especially for one who commits suicide.

While Hamlet’s fears concerning the afterlife can easily be explained in terms of Christian precepts, perhaps his own recent experience is a factor as well. Hamlet speaks of “The undiscovered country from whose bourn/ No traveler returns,” yet he himself has met one such traveler: The ghost of his own father. At this point in the play, Hamlet is still not totally convinced that the apparition is real. Hamlet is faced with a terrifying possibility: The father he dearly loved may not be peacefully at rest in God’s Heaven, but is instead suffering, sentenced to wander the earth in punishment for his sins and thirsting for revenge against his murderer. Perhaps Hamlet’s insistence on testing the spirit is meant not only to prove the Ghost’s validity, but to protect his own self-illusions.

Hamlet’s character seems at times almost obsessed with appearances and the illusion that appearances create. Again, this is consistent with his training in Philosophy where the goal is to see through the appearances of the senses and understand the true state of Nature. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Hamlet’s speech to the players. To Hamlet, the art of the players parallels that of the philosophers. Hamlet defines the purpose of playing as “to hold, as ‘t were the mirror up to nature, to show virtue her feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure” (3.2.20-24). Such a view explains Hamlet choice of using a play to prove Claudius’ guilt. For him, it is a substitute for the reasoning processes, and is the trial by which his uncle can be judged beyond any reasonable doubt. Hamlet the philosopher can then become the King’s judge, jury and executioner.[8]

It may well be that it is the concept of Hamlet as the philosopher, not the “sweet prince” that holds the key to both these scenes and the play as a whole. The philosopher represents the voice of reason and the seeker of truth and goodness. By their disloyalty and rejection of Hamlet, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and Ophelia are each choosing evil over good, deception over truth and chaos instead of reasoned harmony.

Seeing Hamlet as the symbolic representation of reason offers a different interpretation of what Hamlet’s tragic mistake was. Over and over through these scenes, the reasoning, intellectual side of Hamlet’s personality is emphasized, establishing those qualities as belonging to his true nature. Yet Hamlet’s slaying of Polonius was not done out of thought or reason, nor was it executed out of a perhaps justifiable motive of revenge. He killed Polonius in a moment of anger and impulse, actions motivated by his lower, animal instincts.

For Hamlet the philosopher, such as action is unconscionable. Authorities like St. Thomas Aquinas taught that what differentiated man and the lower life forms was man’s ability to reason, with the qualities of reason and soul being intimately connected. By yielding to his baser instincts, Hamlet the philosopher has gone against his own true nature. Hamlet’s “sin” is not merely killing Polonius, but killing him out of impulse: Hamlet, the thinker, acted without thinking.

[1] It is not clear whether or not Claudius intended from the beginning to have Hamlet killed in England. He does not hint at that fact (4.1) until after Polonius’ death. It is only after Hamlet leaves for England, we (the audience) learn of Claudius’ plans.

[2] There is also the possibility that Polonius, as advisor to the late king, may have been involved or at least had some knowledge of the senior Hamlet’s murder. However, the play itself gives no evidence of his involvement, and the usual asinine portrayal of him would seem to make this interpretation unlikely.

[3] It is important to note that although Horatio knew about the appearance of the Ghost, Hamlet does not tell him about his father’s murder until Act 5. Horatio’s dealings with Hamlet are based on trust. Hamlet offers Rosencrantz and Guildenstern a glimpse of the truth when he tells them “I am but mad north-north-west. When the /wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw” (2.2378-379). Rosencrantz and Guildenstern choose to side with the King in their view of Hamlet’s behavior.

[4] In the Great Chain of Being, a daughter would naturally be subservient to her father and to her brother since women were lesser than men.

[5] Does Hamlet know that the two men are eavesdropping? Many productions play the scene as though he does. If so, it shades Hamlet’s question “Where is your father?” as more of a test of Ophelia’s honesty (3.1.131). If so, by her answer of “At home, my lord,” she, too, fails the test of loyalty (3.1.132). The text calls for Claudius and Polonius to withdraw as Hamlet enters, but Hamlet, who is quite attuned to the intrigues of the court, may very well be aware of their presence.

[6] Not only was Hamlet out of Ophelia’s sphere as far as marriage was concerned because of his rank as prince, his influence at court at this point was certainly waning. Hamlet’s depression may have also been a factor as his soliloquy hints at the possibility of suicide. He may have been attempting to push her away.

[7] That could be either emotional or physical, depending on how you view the character’s relationship.

[8] Interestingly, Claudius responds to this “mirror of nature” by revealing his own true nature. He becomes “ distempered. . .” and “with choler” (3.2.299,302).