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  • Hi, I’m John Green, this is Crash Course Literature and today we continue our discussion of Hamlet.

  • Mr. Green, Mr. Green, I’ve figured it out already. Hamlet has an Oedipus complex. That explains everything.

  • No, no, no Me From the Past. As weve already learned, not even Oedipus had an Oedipus complex.

  • Although your fascination with it is starting to freak me out a little.

  • And while you can read Hamlet as being entirely about sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, you don’t

  • have to. I’ll give you this though Me From The Past,

  • whether or not Hamlet wants to sleep with his mother, he definitely has girl trouble.

  • [Theme Music]

  • So Hamlet’s pretty vicious to the women in this play. He orders Ophelia, for instance, toget thee to a nunnery!”

  • And he tells his mother Gertrude: “frailty, thy name is woman,” even though Hamlet isn’t terribly

  • robust, as you may have noticed. Now there’s been some backlash discussing

  • gender dynamics in literature, but this is a really important contemporary approach to

  • the study of literature. It’s not the only one. It’s not the only one that we do here.

  • But it is one that matters. So a basic reading of Hamlet would look like this:

  • Claudius has and uses power, Hamlet has power but mostly chooses not to use it,

  • Polonius has less power than he imagines himself to have, and Ophelia and Gertrude have no

  • power. Right? Yeah, not exactly. Let’s go to the Thought Bubble.

  • So in painting, there’s a tradition of depicting Ophelia as a tragic, romantic, completely

  • powerless heroine, following the mythology created by Gertrude when she describes Ophelia’s

  • death in extensive detail. How shefell in the weeping brook. Her

  • clothes spread wide, / and mermaid-like awhile they bore her up […] till that her garments,

  • heavy with their drink, / pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay / to muddy death

  • Did Gertrude actually see this? Probably not. And if she did, why didn’t she to try to

  • save Ophelia instead of coming up with a lovely simile about how much she looks like a mermaid

  • while she drowns? Gertrude’s description makes Ophelia’s

  • death sound like an accident. A branch broke and she plunged helplessly into the water.

  • Could have happened to anyone hanging out on a riverbank wearing lots of layers.

  • But pretty much everyone else accepts Ophelia’s death as a deliberate suicide caused by her

  • madness. So that raises the question: What kind of agency did she have since she clearly

  • had some and how did she use it? And, also, what caused her madness?

  • Thanks, Thought Bubble. So before Hamlet escapes into madness he’s

  • in a difficult spot. He’s heir to a throne that should be his already, son to a mother

  • he no longer trusts, nephew to the guy who possibly killed his dad. Well, Ophelia is

  • in a pretty tight spot too. I mean, Ophelia’s father has been murdered

  • by Hamlet, who used to be in love with her, and who is now shouting at her about nunneries

  • and then making weird sexual banter and then going off to sea.

  • It’s like if that guy, who youre totally not sure is your boyfriend, killed your dad

  • and then still sort of wanted to be your boyfriend, but only sometimes, weve all been there.

  • In Act 2, Polonius says of Hamlet, “though this be madness yet there is method in’t”

  • and let’s not overlook the method in Ophelia’s madness. Like, towards the end of Act 4, she

  • hands out flowers she has collected to Claudius, Gertrude, and Laertes.

  • These flowers each have meanings that would be known to the Elizabethan audience, who

  • were the kind of people who liked their bouquets to contain secret codes.

  • There’s fennel for you, and columbines,” says Ophelia, presumably to Gertrude as Fennel

  • signified flattery and Columbines marital infidelity.

  • She also hands out rue, which signified repentance, and mentions that the violetsassociated

  • with faithfulness – “withered all when my father died.”

  • This is Ophelia at her most deliciously subversive, delivering her own form of judgment, speaking

  • out against corruption and injustice and doing it in her own particularly feminine way behind

  • the mask of seeming madness. So while Hamlet’s off on some pirate ship

  • giving yet more soliloquies about his indecisiveness, Ophelia is asserting her own beliefs about

  • right and wrong and life and death, and she’s doing it in a way that’s clear. I mean,

  • at least it would be clear to Elizabethans. But then, she tragically decides to inflict

  • this judgment on her own body, viewing her death as the only way to free herself from

  • Elsinore’s depravity and depression. Quick personal sidenote: I think that is a

  • terrible decision and a poor use of Ophelia’s agency. As bad as her her use of the flowers

  • is good. Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Even in Ophelia’s case.

  • So there’s very popular reading of Hamlet that Ophelia’s suicide is an assertive choice,

  • the only choice she really can make. But, in fact, the flowers show that she can also

  • make other choices. Now of course those choices might have resulted

  • in her death anyway, but the choice was there. All that noted, there’s no question that

  • while Hamlet is stuck between to be or not to be, Ophelia actively chooses NOT to be.

  • She makes her peace with death, and she does it a whole act before Hamlet does.

  • So without Ophelia were left with the other woman in the play, Queen Gertrude. Gertrude’s

  • quickie marriage to Claudius forces Hamlet to think a lot more than he would want to

  • about his mother’s sexuality. Or maybe it’s exactly as much as he wants to.

  • Hamlet sees Gertrude’s hookup with Claudius as a betrayal of his father but also of Hamlet

  • himself, because it deprives him of the throne. So it’s not fair to say that Gertrude has

  • no power or agency, she has the one vote in the election for who becomes king.

  • But does her choice make Gertrude a traitor? I mean is she complicit in her husband’s

  • murder or is she just another victim of Claudius’s sweet, sweet, poisonous lies?

  • And this is where the oedipal reading comes in, like is Hamlet angry at Claudius because

  • Claudius has done what Hamlet always secretly wanted to do. You know, kill the father, marry

  • the mother, become king. And he does focus pretty intently on Gertrude’s

  • incestuous sheets,” but most of the time he’s hesitating to kill Claudius, it’s

  • because he doesn’t want to become a murderer not because of anything about what’s happening

  • between the sheets. For a character with not that many lines,

  • Gertrude is very interesting. Like is her ultimate loyalty to Hamlet or to Claudius?

  • Shakespeare presses this idea in the duel scene when Gertrudeeither inadvertently

  • or on purposesaves Hamlet’s life, if only for like a minute.

  • Gertrude reaches for Hamlet’s poisoned cup, and Claudius orders her not to drink, but

  • her only response is “I will, my lord, I pray you pardon me.”

  • Is she just thirsty or is that a conscious choice?

  • In her final moments, is she showing Hamlet where her allegiance lies? Now, of course,

  • Shakespeare meant this to be ambiguous but her final line is, “O my dear Hamlet!”

  • not “O my dear Claudius.” Now both Gertrude and Ophelia’s defiance

  • of authority ultimately results in their suicide. And I want to underscore that I don’t think

  • suicide is heroic, but the most interesting discussion question in my high school English

  • classes was, “Which of these characters, in Hamlet, is the most heroic?”

  • I think you can make a case for almost anyone, except for Polonius and of course Claudius.

  • But there’s certainly a case to be made for Gertrude or Ophelia. Anyway, this leads

  • us to the question whether heroism always involves taking heroic actions. Certainly,

  • Hamlet’s a big fan of action. I mean not in his own life, but, you know, as an idea.

  • I mean he describes man asin action how like an angel.”

  • But then he shows that this image of angelic man is inaccessible to him, even repellent,

  • sayingand yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust?”

  • And then of course smack dab in the middle of the play Hamlet lectures the traveling

  • players about how best to act. And then Hamlet doesn’t act, for scene after scene, after scene.

  • Except when he stabs Polonius who, while annoying, is innocent.

  • But is this indecision meant to be seen as heroic? Like iIs Hamlet a weak and wishy washy

  • guy for wasting all his time on investigations, or is it in fact kind of heroic to fact-check

  • information that you get from a ghost before killing someone?

  • Amleth, the inspiration for the tragedy, acts decisively and he’s certainly seen as a

  • hero. But it’s much more complicated in Shakespeare’s play.

  • For one thing, as weve seen, ghosts were not necessarily to be trusted, Oh… a ghost

  • is moving my desk. It must be time for the open letter. No, no, no, no, you no! You are

  • not real. You are not a ghost. You are a digital representation created by Thought Cafe. I am

  • not giving you an open letter! Moving on! Sorry, I’m scared of ghosts, even though

  • they aren’t real. They definitely aren’t real. Anyway, there’s also the fact that

  • killing a king - even if that king is a usurper - was generally seen as not a fantastic idea.

  • Except when it came to Macbeth. I mean kings were seen to rule by divine right,

  • so offing one was an insult to god. Also, it was in Hamlet’s best interest to keep

  • that idea around so, you know, no one would off him if he became king.

  • So maybe it’s a good thing that Hamlet doesn’t take murder lightly. Well, except for when

  • he kills Polonius for the unforgivable sin of hiding behind curtains.

  • So what finally turns Hamlet into an actor? Maybe pirates. Maybe nothing, Many critics

  • feel that it’s a different Hamlet who shows up in the fifth act, one who has undergone

  • a “sea changeliterally and now feels less conflicted about his own mortality.

  • Bit it’s not like the play immediately becomes a Jean Claude Van Damme movie, I mean Hamlet

  • tells HoratioThere's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis

  • not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now.” That doesn’t sound like a guy

  • who’s about to go on a slaughtering spree. When Hamlet does act it’s at the last possible

  • moment. Killing Claudius only because he has learned that Claudius was planing to kill

  • him, Gertrude, and Laertes. At a certain point all that stuff about mortal

  • and divine justice and the perpetual cycle of violence goes out the window and you think,

  • "Hey, maybe I should just kill this multiple murderer."

  • But then, of course, in doing so you re-raise all those questions about mortal and divine

  • justice and the perpetual cycle of violence. Ahhh, I love Shakespeare!

  • But one thing you can say about Hamlet is that once he starts to take action he really takes it.

  • He stabs Claudius with the poison sword and forces him to drink from the poison cup.

  • Killing him twice. And he insults Claudius, calling himthou

  • incestuous, murderous, damned Dane,” which in Elizabethan terms is quite the burn.

  • But taking action doesn’t really resolve or integrate Hamlet’s character. As he dies,

  • Hamlet charges Horatio with telling his story, as though only in death will Horatio be able

  • to make a coherent narrative out of all of his delay and wavering and ambivalence.

  • If it’s revenge that made the original Amleth famous, that’s not what keeps drawing us

  • back to Shakespeare’s play. It’s Hamlet inaction rather than his action that makes

  • us pay attention. The soliloquies in which he weighs his options

  • and tries to decide whether he will direct the course of his life or let fate determine

  • it teaches us something about what it means to be human, to have a conscience, to make

  • difficult decisions in our own lives. Or not make them. Inaction, as Hamlet shows

  • us, is its own kind of action. Which kind of action is heroic? I don’t know. Tell

  • me what you think in comments. Thanks for watching, I’ll see you next week.

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Hi, I’m John Green, this is Crash Course Literature and today we continue our discussion of Hamlet.

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