Everyone has gone mad? Or have they?

In this week’s blog post I am going to be a little more risky. I typically would write about Ophelia, keeping with my theme of women in the play, but I am thinking that I might look at Ophelia and Hamlet and the way that my own religion helps me to determine if they have gone mad.

For some time it has been debated whether or not Hamlet has gone mad. Many of the characters have shared with each other, and particularly with Claudius and Gertrude, that the boy has gone crazy after his father’s death.

Ironically we see Ophelia enter into a world of “madness” as well. “All from her father’s death, and now behold!” (4.5.74). Now we have two characters that are driven mad because of their father’s deaths. Quite frankly Claudius is to blame for both deaths. If he had not killed his brother, Hamlet would not be in this state of revenge. If he had not killed his brother, he would not be with Gertrude and she would not have been confronted by Hamlet the way that she was and Polonius would still be alive.

I think the real question here though is if the characters really are mad or not. Is Hamlet mad? In the eyes of those during Shakespeare’s time I would guess that majority of the audience would think that he was not mad but was simply seeing his father’s ghost and needing to put his father’s soul to rest through revenge.

I read this play from a Catholic perspective. When I read these moments where Hamlet sees the ghost and some see it yet others do not, I have to believe that this is true. I have to believe that he really is being visited from someone who has died, but remains in purgatory. In my own faith, when someone close to us dies, we are given prayer cards, and we must pray for that person every night for 30 days so that they will ascend from purgatory to heaven.

As I am reading this play I can only see Hamlet as doing the things that needs to be done to put his father to rest. In this play Claudius says, “…and we have done but greenly in hugger-mugger to inter him” (4.5.81-82). Claudius talks about not giving Polonius a proper funeral, and that is also what my faith believes will keep a soul from reaching heaven.

I am curious how my peers read into this. If you do not share the same faith as me, do you see Hamlet as being mad rather than faithful to God? Do you see God as being angry for not giving Polonius a proper funeral? (This is what I am chalking up to Ophelia’s madness)

Portia vs. Shylock

Portia vs. Shylock
Portia and Shylock are the two characters who interest me the most in the play because they both find themselves within a hierarchy that marks them as subordinate to the Christian men; Portia because she is a woman and Shylock because he is a Jew. The Christian men are the “norm” against whom everyone else is judged and Portia and Shylock are recognized as “the other.” However, because she is Christian and rich, Portia, in a sense, outranks Shylock, as can be seen in her dismissal of all her former suitors based on stereotypes. This makes Shylock’s “otherness” even more pronounced. This hierarchy pits the two against each other, and I think this is most clearly illustrated when Portia initially tries to persuade Shylock to “consider this, that, in the course of justice, none of us should see salvation: we do pray for mercy; and that same prayer doth teach us all to render the deeds of mercy.” She is essentially asking Shylock to adhere to the status quo and become a Christian, which made her judgment that he should immediately convert less of a surprise. It reminded me of when Antonio said “Hie thee, gentle Jew. The Hebrew will turn Christian; he grows kind,” which makes it clear that the entire momentum of the play has been aimed at ridding Shylock of his Judaism. Her speech also made me wonder who she is referring to when she says “we” and “us all.” Is she talking about the Christians, or is she including Shylock in this collective “we”? In the treatment of the two characters I see a powerplay not just between religions, but also between genders. While Shylock is forced to convert to Christianity, all the women in the play have to dress up and act like men in order to exercise some semblance of agency. In Portia’s case, however, her “conversion” only serves to strengthen the tenants of the social order, because although she manages to get her ring from Bassanio (thereby gaining some sort of autonomy and independence, I assume) she is able to turn back into a woman, while Shylock’s transformation is permanent. It basically robs him of his identity. His being Jewish is how he differentiated himself from the other characters and also how the other characters addressed him, as opposed to using his actual name, and now that categorization no longer applies to him.

Finally, what I find most interesting about the play so far is that that while Venetian law is upheld and therefore Jews and Christians are supposedly allowed to live together and conduct business with one another, the only two prominent Jews in the play both convert to Christianity, either willingly (Jessica, and even so she is still considered a Jew by Lancelot,) or through blatant coercion and duress (Shylock.) Both are co-opted into the dominating Christian social system and Judaism is effectively eradicated (neutralized?) removing the threat Shylock’s Judaism posed to the community – the Christian community, not the overall Venetian trading community – so that the remaining characters in the play can go on to live happily ever after, which I suppose is what makes it a comedy. I also find myself wondering if Shylock, now a Christian, will still be in the same societal position as before, and if not, where it will be in comparison to Portia. I’m tempted to think that Shylock’s real crime wasn’t in trying to kill Antonio, but in refusing to properly fulfill his role as a Jew – meaning he didn’t show the deference to his Christian counterparts that his society demanded.