Existentialism and characters in “Hamlet”As we know “Hamlet” is most famous play in Shakespeare’s four tragedies. And the play has many themes like love, affection between families, betrayal something like that and also we can adapt the themes to our life. And I think there are really interesting thought about world and especially I could find the ‘existentialism’ in this play. So I want to find characters that have existentialism in this play. And I will find the differences and sameness between characters in ‘Hamlet’ and a character in a novel.So first I will find existentialism in this play. In this play the main plot is hamlet’s revenge toward his cousin who is Claudius. And also hamlet thinks his mother who is queen of Denmark betrayed his father because she is going to marry Claudius. So there are many conversations between them. And I could find existentialism between their conversations. First existential character is queen who is hamlet’s mother. In the conversation with hamleor off, and let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not for ever with thy vailed lids Seek for thy noble father in the dust. Thou know’st ‘tis common: all that lives must dieAct1 scene2 line67In here we can find she recognize that all lives including people die sometime. And it means that she has a kind of existential thinking about life and death. And there is another character related to existentialism. It’s Claudius who is murderer of hamlet’s father.King: But you must know your father lost a father, That father lost, lost his- and the survivor bound In filial obligation for some term.To do obsequious sorrow. But to persever IN obstinate condolement is a course Of impious stubbornness, ‘tis unmanly grief. It shows a will most incorrect to heaven, A hearto unfortified , a mind impatient,For what we know must be and is as common As any the most vulgar thing to sense,…………..To reason most absurd, whose common theme Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried, From the first co speech that is saying to hamlet death is inevitable and because of it we don’t have to grieve too much. So in my opinion Claudius also is kind of existentialist in some way. And last character is hamlet who is a hero in this play. When he sees a ghost like his father he tries to follow him. But Horatio wants to prevent him. so hamlet says like this.Hamlet: Why, what should be the fear?I do not set my life at a pin’s fee,And for my soul, what can it do to that,Being a thing immortal as itself?It waves me forth again. I’ll follow it.Like this he thinks his life is meaningless. And we can also find he is existential character through this famous phrase.Hamlet: To be, or not to be, that is the question:Whether ‘tis novler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them.To die, to sleep- No more; and by a sleep to say we endThe geart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to: ‘tis a consnd why I defined some characters as existentialists by looking some conversations in the play.And next I am going to find another existential character in a novel to compare with these characters. The character that I want to show is ‘Meursault’ in the novel ‘The stranger”. I could find he was also a existentialist by some paragraph in the novel.Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe..”Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours.” That doesn’t mean anything. Maybe it was yesterday.- in ‘The Stranger’-like this he doesn’t care about his mother death and thinks that our life is meaningless. And also marriage doesn’t mean anything to him.That evening Marie came by to see me and asked me if I wanted to marry her, I said it didn’t make any difference to me and what we could if she wanted to .Then she wanted to know if I loved her. I answered the same way… it didn’t mean anything but that I probably didn’t love her.- in ‘The Stranger’-Like this he has also a kind of existential thoughtences between “Hamlet” and “Meursault. It is how they feel at the very moment they die.Hamlet: Give me the cup. Let go. By heaven. I’ll ha’t.O God, Horatio, what a wounded name,Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!If thou didst ever hold me In thy heart, Absent thee from felicity awhile,And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain To tell my story.Act5 scene2 line346I think, as we can see here, that Hamlet is finding some meanings. So he wants Horatio to tell others about himself. And he even feels a kind of happiness even though he is dying. On the other hand Meursault in the stranger doesn’t find any meaning to live and denies the world. I think this is most important difference between them even though they look like existential characters in some way.So far I found why some characters in ‘Hamlet’ were existential characters and compared with other character in a novel. As we know Hamlet plays his part in the world wonderfully although he experienced tough stuffs in it.
시간은 참 무섭다. 세상 어느 누구도 시간을 거스를 수 없고, 시간의 흐름에 맞춰 살아갈 뿐이다.영화 ‘시간’ 속 캐릭터 ‘세희’ 에게 시간은 더욱 큰 존재다. 자신에 대한 사랑, 사랑이라기보다는 ‘성욕’이 시들해져버린 ‘지우’ 의 마음을 돌리고 싶어 하지만, 설레던 처음으로 시간을 돌릴 수는 없는 법. 그래서 그녀는 자신의 얼굴을 바꾼다. 그렇게 다시 다가간 ‘새희’였지만 ‘지우’는 아직 ‘세희’를 잊지 못한다. ‘지우’의 몸은 새로운 몸을 좋아했는지 모르지만, 마음은 아니었나 보다. 뒤늦게 자신이 ‘세희’임을 밝히지만 항상 그랬듯이 시간을 되돌릴 순 없다.이 영화속 남녀는 양쪽 모두 안쓰럽고 불쌍하기 그지없다. 자신의 사랑을 의심하고 확인하고 싶어 하는 여자친구 때문에 힘들어하는 남자나, 자신과 만나고 있지만 눈은 항상 다른 곳에 가있는 남자친구를 둔 여자나, 사랑을 해보고 이별을 해본 사람들이라면 이 둘이 안쓰러울 것이다. 하지만 사랑은 그렇다. 처음에는 그녀 또는 그 가 인생의 전부이지만 , 그 ‘유통기한’이 지나버리면 시들해지는 게 이치이고 뜨거웠을 때와는 다른 방식의 사랑을 하는게 어찌보면 자연스러운 현상이다. 문제는 이것을 인정하지 않으려는 데서 비롯된다. 이 영화를 보면서 여러 번 표정이 찡그려졌다. ‘세희’가 보이는 집착, 그리고 그녀의 선택에서는 물론, 자신의 여자가 있으면서도 다른 여자의 육체를 탐하는 ‘지우’를 볼 때도 나도 모르게 표정이 찡그려지고, 슬픈 느낌마저 들었다. 어느 누가 말했던 것처럼 김기덕 감독은 아픈데 만 찌르는가 보다. 남자의 욕망과 다른 여자에 대한 지배욕구, 그리고 여성의 집착 누구나 알고 있지만, 아무나 말할 수 없는 , 아니 말하기 꺼려하는 이야기들을 영화속에서 들을 수 있었다. ‘지우’의 행동을 거슬려 하면서도 공감 했던게 나 혼자만은 아니였을 것이다.사람들은 김기덕 감독의 영화속의 여성들을 매우 싫어한다. 나 역시 그의 모든 영화를 본 것은 아니지만 나름 흥행에 성공했던 ‘나쁜 남자’나 의도된 우연으로 보았던 ‘사마리아’ 그리고 이번 영화까지 그의 영화속 여성들은 항상 남성에게 억압당하고, 착취당한다. ‘나쁜 남자’ 에서 ‘한기’에 의해 창녀가 되는 ‘선화’가 힘과 강압에 의해 지배당하건, 이 영화 ‘시간’속에서 ‘세희’ 사랑에 의해 자기 몸을 바꿀 정도로 지배를 당하건 모든 여성이 남성의 지배를 받는다. 적어도 나에겐 그렇게 보인다. 하지만 또 어떤 사람은 영화 속 여성들이 남성에 의해 결국은 구원을 얻고, 지배와 피지배 관계가 역전된다고 말하기도 한다. 하지만 이건 생각하기 나름 아닌가. 내가 어렸을 적부터 어떻게 살아왔는지, 얼마나 많은 책을 보고 영화를 봐왔는지 이 모든게 내 사고에 영향을 끼치는데 몇몇 시퀀스로 이 영화에서부터 삶의 배경에 이르기까지 모든게 아리송하기 만한 김기덕 감독의 의도를 끌어낸다는 것은 나에겐 무리였다. 물론 영화속에서 여성을 나타내는 방식 즉, 여성을 성적인 대상으로만 묘사한다거나, 얼굴을 가리고 액자 속에 가두거나, 여성스스로가 자신의 육체만으로 자신의 가치를 인정받으려는 장면 등에서 보이는 그 만의 표현방식은 문제의 소지가 있다. 어찌 보면 페미니스트들이 두 팔 걷고 딴지를 건 다기 보다는 영화가 그들을 불러들인다고 볼수 있다. 페미니스트라는 개념마저 낯선 나 역시 비슷한 감정을 느끼는걸 보면 말이다.
In modern society there are many people who are maintaining that sexual discrimination is absurd and also they say it is essential to establish new relationship between men and women to solve this problem. They focus on the term ‘gender’ rather than ‘sex’ because the term ‘sex’ might strengthen the discrimination. And I think it is right in some way. As we know ‘gender’ means cultural classification whereas ‘sex’ refers to biological classification between men and women. We can easily understand its meaning by thinking ‘Feminine’, or ‘masculine’ and so forth. And each gender shows different appearances from walking to manner of eating, wearing clothes. But in some way this gender difference can be an instrument to restrict or suppress women. Then what is the reason that makes this difference and how does this gender difference act on our society? To get answers about this it is helpful to look at the theories and thinking of Marcel Mauss and Marion Young. So I want to find not only theerences between men and women. In our society if a man acts like a woman or vice versa people point out it is wrong. And this result has an influence on people in our society, especially women. Marion Young focuses on this difference of body actions, especially about women’s action.“Young is interested in gender differences in bodily existence and movement described in the vernacular as throwing like a girl, running like a girl, climbing like a girl, hitting like a girl and so forth.”quoted in our textbook 202p ‘Yung: Throwing like a girl.’She focuses on the features that are formed by our society and conditions they live. And also she says that women’s actions have an influence on women’s social position. For easy understanding of it we can take an example. Namely when a woman throws something we can imagine that the woman is restricted and inactive in action. And on the basis of this example she could say that this restriction of movement would affect not only their body but also conrt, the women who have no pride of their body are likely in subordination to men. And this subordination makes women think that their each body is not the main body which contains their souls and identities but just objects which are looked at by men. As a result women fall just objects that are appraised by their appearances. And bigger problem is that people not only evaluate women according to their appearance but also have doubt about women’s ability if they have no good look. Like this women’s body restriction makes women think they themselves are inferior to men. And this makes predominance between sexes and become a main reason of sex discrimination.And now I will help understand about the influence made by distinction of body techniques by looking how women are described as inferior beings to men in our mass culture, especially in movies. In modern society there are a variety of cultural contents. But as Adorno who was a German philosopher said, the culture has an authoritarianther way she makes a decision to get in mainstream in the society by changing her appearance because she thinks the changing appearance can change her inferiority to superiority. But it’s is not choice but a sort of persistent demand. Anyway as we can expect she gets not only power but also wealth and popularity. And she finally gets love from a man that she has loved one-sidedly. Like this the movie seems to assert that appearance could be most important instrument for women to succeed in our society and that it is not wrong to get power through plastic surgery. I think this movie shows how much women has an obsession about external beauty rather than inner beauty. And also most women in movies are described as if they only want to have beautiful face so that they could be chosen by men. And these women in movies have an influence on general women in our society. For example general women try to lose their weight or have plastic surgery to resemble beautiful women in movies. And when ch is made by men’s gaze makes women monitor and revise themselves so that women could become who men want. And if this situation goes on finally women will lose not only their subjectivities but also identities. So we need to think how to solve this problem. First I want to look at Simone de Beauvoir who was a French philosopher because she pointed out women’s situations exactly. And I think she suggests some answer to solve our problem. As we know She is first generation of Feminism and her book ‘Le Deuxime Sexe” is regarded as a bible of feminism. In the book she describes women as existence that is in subordination of men. And she asserts women are not born but just raised. I think this means when women are first born they are also same person like men but the surrounding and culture make women think they are not same with men and they are the “second sexuality”that is differentiated from men. So I can also think we make women who we know. To put it another way we teach them what t가?’
I learned that Raymond Williams defined culture as a whole way of life, and thought the culture was not a fixed category but a sort of process in my class. He used many notions to define and explain the culture. So I am going to deal with ‘Structure of feeling’ and ‘Magic formula’ among many his notions. Roughly speaking about these notions, First ‘Structure of feeling’ is different from other social formations and it can be regarded as a dissolved social experiences. Easily speaking, we can say it is common emotions about something that people do like or don’t even though there is no reason. For example we can regard the values that certain group or society shared or the ways of life that were shared in certain period, like something that teenager like or women like or university students like, as‘Structure of feeling’. Sure it is affected by time and so it varies constantly, also it has a sort of formal characters.Then what is the‘magic formula’ stated by Williams? It is related to dis useful for the writers to write their works as they intend without damaging dominant values. We can find this ‘magic formula’ in a fairy tale or classic novels. For further understanding of it, I think it would be useful to look at an example.So for easy understanding of‘Structure of feeling’ and‘magic formula’I am going to look at a story that is famous and familiar to us and after that let me find‘Structure of feeling and magic formula’in a story. It is‘beauty and beast’ that I want to deal with. First let’s look at a summary about it. As we know, the story is a famous fairy tale. It was written again by Madame de Beaumont, who was a famous novelist in France in eighteen century. In this story beauty and beast represent a bourgeois and noble man That is to say, beauty is a bourgeois who is a merchant’s daughter and beast is a noble man in this story. And this story reflected people’s way of thinking on the relationship between men and women at that time. This story is about love bouse in the county side. Impoverished merchant got a good news about his lost ships, which was about a saved ship. So he went to a city to find his lost ship with big expectation about that. When he was about to leave, he asked his daughters what they wanted to have for their gifts. His old tow daughter wanted to have good clothes or jewelry. But last daughter wanted to have only a rose. But he was on his way to the city, he lost way. So when he found a big castle he could help dropping by that castle. He was so scared and hungry. So he entered the castle even though he didn’t know whose castle it was. When he entered in the castle he could found food and comfortable table. He ate all food because he was so hungry. After that, he tried to find the owner of that castle for saying thank you. But he couldn’t. So he decided to leave to city. When he was going out from that castle he saw roses in the garden. He picked up a rose now that he came to mind that his last daughter wanted a rose. he got back to home his children asked why he was so scared and he had nothing. He told them everything he experienced. As soon as they heard about that, beauty who was last daughter decided to go to the castle on behalf of her father. While she was staying in the castle she found sincerity and innocence in the beast’s mind. And the fact that the beast was a cursed prince was revealed to her, the story ended up marring between them. This story has a lecture that inner beauty is more important than outer beauty. So this story is read by many children around the world. But we can figure out that the writer have dealt with thing that was impossible to succeed in the light of the context of at that time. The problem is about their marriage. That is to say, at that time the marriage between the noble men that beast represents and the bourgeoisie that beauty represents is impossible because of feudalism. Because of that the writer used the magic formula that Williams mentioned to write the wce ugly. Although the beast is noble man this device can make us approve their marriage. Moreover his loneliness without any servants or subjects supports our approval. And next thing is that beauty has a most beautiful face and mind in this story. Even though the merchant had three daughters and three sons beauty was only one who wanted to go to the castle on behalf of father. And her beauty and mind was the best among the daughters. She always cared about her father’s health unlike the rest of daughters cared about themselves. Therefore the nice beauty could find kindness and innocence in the mind of beast. This means that the beauty that represents a bourgeois is more worth than other people because she regarded mental values more important than material values. This magic formula makes us see their marriage as a combination of true lovers rather than that of classes. By using this device the writer could tell us the love story that has gone beyond the gap of classes without damagin
We live in the society that is full of mass culture. And we can easily contact it and we are surrounded by it. Then Adorno mentioned that the mass culture would make people passive in the society. It means that people can’t have critical consciousness and become accustomed to current their life.If so, what does ‘passive’ mean? And how does it affect our life? We need to look at the denotative meaning in dictionary in order to find it. Its denotative meaning is ‘not move by one self but be moved by other power’. For example if I describe someone as passive, I mean that they don’t take action but instead let things happen to them. To know further deep meaning, I’m going to look at the opposite word of it. The opposite word of ‘passive’ is ‘active’. As you know it means ‘taking action in order to achieve something’, also ‘not moved by other power but move by oneself’. Comparing with this, we can guess that ‘to be passive’ means people do not take action independently, but pushed by something.Then how can the people who have been passive by mass culture cope with this problem? The answer to this question is in ‘High Culture’, which has been emphasized by Leavises and Adorno and so on. What is the ‘High Culture’? Speaking easily, it is opposite notion of mass culture. In short it is unpredictable and not formulaic form of culture. Leavises referred the conditions that great novel must have as a High Culture like this. ‘displaying an open reverence before life, the existence of fine distinctions, high seriousness, a sense of tradition, and the sense that a novel contributed to the evolution of the form’ in the text ‘The Leavisites and T.S Eliot combat mass urban culture’ page 35 quotation. Then how can the ‘High Culture’ change our passive attitude. I think the best way to find it is to analyze the process that we react to them when we accept the two kinds of cultures. In my opinion when we accept them, the biggest different point is the ‘consciousness process’ and of course it is essential process for reader to check the culture whether or not it is acceptable and to criticize it We can have an example for further understanding of it. I am going to compare when I read a book written by Tolstoy and watch prevailing reality comedy program. First let’s think about when reading a book. I think classical works including Tolstoy’s book can give readers time for thinking. It means the last page of the books is not the end of reading. Rather the reading starts that point. In the other word the readers guess what the character mean and why characters act or say like that in the word. And further, the readers try to think what the writer intend by it. Though they can not have the meanings fast as they want, the process is useful time for understanding and appreciating to readers What about reality comedy programs? It is no doubt that reality comedy programs give people pleasure and fun. But that is all. When we watch those programs we can have temporary fun. But after that we feel just nothingness. Problem is people are getting accustomed to this mass culture. Then why do the people who know about this authoritarian character in mass culture even like and enthuse the programs. In my opinion the reason comes from this chaotic society. The society we live is overflowing with the law of the jungle and a struggle for existence. In this society it is really hard to keep the sane mind. So people want to be free at least when they are having a cultural life. The very moment people want comfort. Mass culture satisfies them. It looks reasonable and correct in certain points.Lastly I am going to think of values of High Culture. As you know even though the mass culture provides this comport that people want why do we have to perceive authoritarian characters in mass culture and pursue the higher culture? For easy understanding I regard the higher culture as High Culture called by Leavises.The first reason is, above mentioned, high culture provide ‘critical consciousness process’. So by performing this process repeatedly we can have critical sight. And it would be useful ability for us to live in the chaotic society. And second reason is the High Culture will be base for people to live actively. In short, pursuing the culture will make people who have been passive active so that they can take action actively and independently. That is why we have to study High Culture.