A Worldview of Hamlet

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 국제비교한국학회
· 수록지 정보 : 비교한국학 Comparative Korean Studies / 16권 / 2호 / 33 ~ 54페이지
· 저자명 : 이행수

초록

One of the four tragedies of Shakespeare, Hamlet is usually called a tragedy of revenge. The drama begins with the commandment of the late king’s ghost. He appears to his son, the prince Hamlet, and commands him to take revenge for his death. The main plot is that Hamlet, who tries to take revenge on Claudius for his father’s death, misses the chance to murder his uncle and both eventually die. The main theme could be said to be death; Shakespeare, however, leads us to contemplate that there is no boundary between life and death. He leadsus to recognize that the subject and object of revenge, as well as sinners and judges, are the same.
The late king appears as a ghost to his son and commands revenge, saying that he was murdered by his brother. In the beginning of the drama, through Horatio’s comment on the situation in Denmark, it is revealed that Hamlet’s father had taken the life of the Norwegian king. Instead of being considered a sin, the act of murder had been regarded as a brave act of patriotism by the people of Denmark. From this point of view, the murder can be considered honorable. From the viewpoint of the prince of Norway, Hamlet is an object of revenge. Therefore the drama includes the paradox in which the late king is not entitled to command revenge for his death as he is also a sinner guilty of murder. From a viewpoint of people of Denmark, the late Hamlet is a hero. Fortinbras, the son of the former Norwegian king, trying to take revenge for his father's death, is the enemy. However, from Fortinbras’ perspective, the king of Denmark is the enemy who took his father's life and the territory of his country. From the beginning, this drama implies that there is no one who is entitled totake revenge. From this dramatic situation, we have clear examples of no-boundary consciousness and non-dualism.
The prince Hamlet shows a great bitterness over his father’s death and his mother’s swift remarriage. He complains that he was born to set the out-of-joint time right. Hamlet draws a boundary between Claudius, who has killed his father and married to his mother, and the late king Hamlet: the former becomes a villain and the latter a saint. Hamlet has killed Polonius and becomes no less a sinner than Claudius. What he has discovered is the baseness of his uncle and mother, but the baseness of himself also is revealed. Furthermore, he causes the death of his two friends, Rosencrants and Guildenstern. He who made such distinction between good and evil and accused another of murder is himself no less a murderer and sinner. What we should be ableto see from what we have said so far about Hamlet is that the tragic hero is not a saint who can eliminate the villains and clear up all traces of corruption. Hamlet was a subject who drew a boundary between good and evil, but the boundary dissolved when he himself became an evil-doer. Shakespeare presents a general infection of baseness that affects every person. Later Hamletexpresses his mature and deepening recognition of his problem by saying that there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.
Hamletsays that he is the victim of mistaken identity. He implies that this madness cannot be real self. It is a false self and an illusion. The writer could be assuming that all human beings have a certain madness which leads to sin and that there is no distinction between a good man and a bad man. Madness is objectified as a part of self, not the entire self.
Though this drama is called as a tragedy of revenge it becomes clear that the object of revenge has not existed from the beginning. The boundaries of subject and object are dissolved because thereal enemy is madness in oneself.
In Hamlet, subject and object of revenge vanish into one. The boundary lines of subject and object are not in the real world but only in the perspectives of people who see the superficial surfaces. The seer vanishes into the seen. Hamlet no longer witnesses a sinner, he becomes the sinner. In the reality of the drama the good -bad duality collapses. There is ‘non-dual’ awareness.
Shakespeare implies in his no-boundary consciousness that all boundaries are obstacles to life. He assumes that the problems of life are based on the illusion that the opposites should be separated and regarded as enemies. We are led to recognize the false boundaries that we constantly make between up and down, right and left, good and bad.We are led to aware that the other is not an enemy but a part of myself.
All this essay has tried to show is that the play reveals the moment we scratch the surface we begin to draw boundaries between opponents but there is no boundary between good and evil , only the perspective of people makes it good or bad.

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