Longitudes: A Collection of Essays, Ideas and Writing in Progress

Passion In Manacles:
Hamlet, Orestes and the Crisis of Knowledge

Deprived of a rational foundation on which our understanding of the order the things can rest, our emotional engagement with the world is either held captive or is reduced to incoherent acts of barbaric violence and destruction. I believe this to be the central theme of Shakespeare’s Hamlet1 and the driving force behind the trial of Orestes in Aeschylus’ The Oresteia.2 With the intention of developing a deeper understanding of the nature of emotion in times of epistemological crisis, I offer here an analysis of Hamlet’s delay which will begin with a brief look at the three most common theories of explanation. Following this, I will introduce a fourth, less common view, that not only incorporates the themes and inconsistencies of the previous three, but also expresses an historically consistent condition in which reason, knowledge and understanding are in a state of disunity. Then, in order to add depth to the understanding of this theme, I will look briefly at the character of Oedipus as we know him through Sophocles’ Theban Plays.3 Finally, I will introduce for comparison the plight of Orestes which – as it comes through the trials of slaughter and madness and finally emerges into the light of reason and hope – mirrors the despair of Hamlet’s irremediable condition in a remarkable way.

Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1599-1601) is one of the most examined, criticised and discussed works in all of Western literature. And indeed, perhaps the most debated topic of the play is the Danish prince’s agonising hesitation in exacting revenge for the murder of his father. In searching for potential avenues – and there are a great many of them – by which one might arrive at some explanation for the prince’s inability to act, we find three basic theoretical themes dominating the field of inquiry: the theological, the moral and the psychological.4 Although they all hold positions which contribute to an understanding of the play in someway or another, it is my view that they are also incomplete because they adhere blindly to a restrictive assumption about the nature of art.

Hamlet is an intelligent man. He’s an intellectual, a philosopher and a lover of the theatre. He is also a protestant; he went to school in Wittenburg, home of Martin Luther and centre of Protestant intellectual life late in the 16th century. While this much is clear, what is not clear is the religious affiliation of the Ghost claiming to be the immortal spirit of Hamlet’s father: is the Ghost Catholic or Protestant? This problem is the crux of the theological approach to understanding Hamlet’s paralysis. In act 1 scene 4, Hamlet and Horatio consider the two protestant alternatives with regards to the nature of the Ghost: either it is a demon sent from hell to torment and corrupt Hamlet, or it is an angel come from heaven to instruct him. Neither of them consider purgatory, as this would have been a purely Catholic concern. The Ghost, however, describes himself in purely Catholic terms; he states that he comes from purgatory, which arouses confusion and raises questions about the credibility of his claims. Hamlet, being the rational, intelligent fellow that he is, decides that validation is needed; and, after proof of the Ghost’s claims are provided by Claudius’ reaction to the play within a play, it seems that Hamlet can act with a clear conscience. And he does act, killing Polonius by accident, mistaking him for Claudius. Hamlet then goes off to England and has no way of getting to Claudius until the end of the play. This theological perspective seems to neatly resolve the problem, showing that there is no real hesitation after all, and that Hamlet acts as expediently as conditions permit once sufficient evidence has been given to verify the claims of the Ghost.

But what of this instance just before the death of Polonius, where Hamlet approaches Claudius at prayer with a drawn dagger? He already has his evidence, which is confirmed by Horatio – his peer and most trusted friend – and yet he hesitates out of theological concerns which are purely Catholic. This confusing situation is then accentuated later in the play by the impassioned words of Laertes, Polonius’ son, come to seek revenge on Hamlet for the death of his father and sister:

To cut his throat i’th’ church. (IV, VII, 125)

Additionally, Hamlet himself speaks continually of his delay, questioning it again and again, from different perspectives; he is painfully aware of it until the waning moments of the play. Even after the truth of the Ghost’s claims are assured, we are still left with the problem of Catholic/Protestant confusion as well as the distinct impression that Hamlet is yearning for satisfaction but is restrained by something almost metaphysical. This approach, while explaining the delay in a superficial way, does not deal effectively with the deeper and more confusing questions it raises.

The theory that Hamlet’s hesitation is brought on by a certain moral repugnance aroused by the anachronistic nature of the conflict between 16th century Christian doctrine – whether it be Catholic or Protestant – and the essentially pagan act of revenge which he is asked to perform, only leads to more confusion. While it does, in a sense, render the Catholic/Protestant quagmire essentially moot by replacing it with the larger issue of Christianity vs. Paganism, this moral perspective is ultimately rendered impotent because it cannot find support in the play itself. Nowhere in the play do we find any real objections from the characters themselves with regards to the moral implications of revenge. We’ve seen Laertes’ response on the subject of revenge and, indeed, Hamlet himself seems quite satisfied after killing Polonius, all the while thinking it was Claudius that he was running through:

Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell.
I took thee for thy better. (III,IV, 31-32)

Hardly the words of someone who is incapacitated by the moral implications of revenge.

The psychological perspective, most famously posed by Ernest Jones in his book Hamlet and Oedipus,5 meticulously develops Freud’s interpretation of the play which asserts, as the title of Jones’ book suggests, that Hamlet delays because he is in the grips of a repressed Oedipal complex. Jones asserts not only that Claudius is an usurper politically, but that he has usurped Hamlet oedipally; in effect, Claudius has done what Hamlet desires to do: kill his father and sleep with his mother. This, according to Jones, explains Hamlet’s inability to act as a psychological problem: Hamlet cannot kill Claudius because of repressed Oedipal guilt and because, sub-conciously, he views Claudius to be nothing less than his own alter ego. Given that Claudius has usurped Hamlet both politically and psychologically, killing Claudius – according to this interpretation – would mean killing himself. This explains, perhaps, the frequent mixed references to suicide and revenge as well as the fact that it is only after the Queen is dead and Hamlet knows himself to be dying, that he is finally able to move swiftly and decisively in exacting his revenge; the restraint of Oedipal guilt is dissolved and Hamlet is now free to act.

This perspective is given some credence in the play by the frequent instances in which Hamlet expresses his disgust for what he views as an incestuous relationship between Claudius and Queen Gertrude; the anger Hamlet displays over the murder of his father is often overshadowed by the horror aroused in him by the the union of his uncle and his mother. However, on closer inspection we are confronted with certain facts which compel us to recognise that this Oedipal point of view cannot be accepted as a definitive solution to our problem either. This perspective does not address the theological problems we have just examined and, furthermore, it does not deal in a convincing manner with the very proof that the theological position gives in arguing that Hamlet’s paralysis is, in fact, a non issue. Hamlet kills Polonius accidentally, mistaking him for Claudius. His intention is without doubt: in the moment of action, it is Claudius that Hamlet thinks he is killing. It just so happens that it was not Claudius concealed behind the curtain, but rather Polonius.6

In addition to the internal inconsistencies that these three positions are encumbered with and the omissions they make in order to prove themselves, we have seen that they also contradict each other in fundamental ways. The psychological perspective takes the position that Hamlet cannot act because of a psychological restraint: the Oedipal complex. The theological perspective shows that, although he does hesitate because of the uncertainty surrounding the providence of the Ghost, once proof of the Ghost’s statement is attained Hamlet does act but kills the wrong man. We have also seen that a moral explanation with regards to a religious or personal repugnance that the act of revenge might present is unsupported by the text, and brings to the surface additional conflicts with regards to how the play mixes general Christian values with those of a pagan or barbaric nature. The Catholic/Protestant confusion is never resolved and the text is full of passages that are both supportive and contradictory with regards to the perspectives we have just examined.

This brings us to the very crux of the problem: all of these points of view demand a kind of coherency that is not always commensurate with reality. They deny art the ability to be, on some level, incomprehensible. We cannot understand the mystery of Hamlet in purely rational terms – as some kind of localised system of cause and effect – because the very nature of play lies in the unravelling of reason itself; the innate incoherence of the play is, in fact, the vehicle of its meaning. However, by addressing the myriad of inconsistencies we find in the text directly – by deconstructing them and putting their elements into play – Shakespeare’s drama begins to show itself as an expression of late 16th century neurosis brought on by a large scale changes in the foundations of Western thought.

When viewed from an historical perspective, the apparent inconsistencies in the play begin to reveal elements that are consistent with of the kinds of changes that were undermining the epistemological foundations of European thought late in the 16th century. The Protestant reformation begun by Martin Luther in 1517, criticised the Church and the Pope; the most controversial points in Luther’s thesis centred on the practice of selling indulgences and the Church’s policy on purgatory. Although Protestantism was established unequivocally in England under Edward VI, on a popular level religion in England was still in a state of flux. Following a brief Roman Catholic reaction during the reign of Mary 1553-1558, Protestantism was restored by Elizabeth I but remained on shaky ground for sometime. With this in mind, it seems very likely that Shakespeare’s audience would have understood the significance of the religious confusion as it was presented in the play as the issue of Christian factionalism would have been front and centre in the social psyche of the day.

Politically things were also changing at this time. The conception of ruler as a divinely ordained entity was being challenged by new conceptions of power acquisition, not the least of which being those found in Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince7 (posthumously published 1531/2). Machiavelli delivers a cold, relativistic pragmatism with regards to the role of the prince and the manner by which his power should be acquired and maintained; a universal understanding of ruler is exchanged for a conception based on contingency which leaves no space for moral absolutism. The old pretensions of Christian morality and divine right of kings – as well as the traditional conception of lineage – were being challenged. In Hamlet, the amoral nature of Machiavelli’s politics is perfectly incarnate in Claudius who plays the benevolent uncle/king while his dark soul bubbles with ambition. In his very person, he strips away the conception of royal lineage and family cohesion. The fact that Polonius is killed in his place depicts poetically the old rationality unknowingly going off to slaughter; its outdated rhetoric rendered useless, it is put down by Hamlet’s blade.

Additionally, we can site the paradigm shift away from the Ptolemaic model of the heavens introduced by the Copernican Revolution as well as the discovery of the New World late in the 15th century as contributing factors to this general mood that everything that had once been understood as immutable was now breaking apart. Church, state and family, as well as geography and the heavens, were no longer able to be conceived of in their traditional guises. And this was only the beginning, the Scientific Revolution of the 17th Century was to completely reform mankind’s understanding of himself and his position in the universe, culminating in new ideas about subjectivity such as Descartes’ “Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum”, which treats perception of the external world with scepticism.

Hamlet is caught in the centre of all this. There is nowhere for him to rest, nowhere he can find a foothold in this world that seems to dissolve into irrationality at every touch. While Ophelia literally drowns in her own madness, Hamlet is reduced to philosophical games to keep himself from slipping into dementia; and, even then, his hold on sanity seems tenuous at best. Philosophically this is a very different world from the clear spiritual and social track offered by pre-Reformation Catholicism and a far cry indeed from the Aristotelian claim that the universe itself is based on clear immutable laws and that aesthetically, poetry should be an image of this coherency. In Hamlet’s world nothing is as it seems: Rosencrantz and Guidenstern’s friendship turns into treachery, a lover (Ophelia) becomes a spy and an uncle becomes a father.

We now have an alternate conception of the nature of Hamlet’s delay in which it is viewed as an expression of the angst brought on by epistemological uncertainty. With the intention of reaching a more profound understanding of this timeless theme, I will now turn to look briefly at two of Hamlet’s tragic predecessors, Oedipus and Orestes, as dramatised by Sophocles and Aeschylus respectively. In addition to the psychological similarities we considered above, Hamlet and Oedipus resemble each other in a contextual way as well. Both struggle to confront the impossible complexity of their situations in an attempt to understand the nature of their emotions and the meaning of action already manifested in the world. Hamlet constantly agonises over what it means to act and, when he does, he kills the wrong man. Oedipus is confronted with the results of his own actions – the significance of which were unknown to him, or rather, misunderstood by him from the start. Both Hamlet and Oedipus are tyrannised by their emotions; the actions aroused by their feelings do not result in rational effects of clearly understood causes, but rather, finish in confusion, or, as with Oedipus, the horrific revelation that all that was understood to be true was an illusion and that he himself is the agent of his own deception and the cause of the curse on Thebes.

Both are, in effect, imprisoned by a crisis in the relationship between emotion and knowledge; the link between intention, understanding and the manifestation of action is broken. Both prince and king are polluted (miasma) by their situation; but, while Oedipus exiles himself to Colonus and receives a purification (catharsis), Hamlet can receive no such absolution: he must take the remnants of family and state with him to the grave, welcoming Fortinbras and his conquering armies with his last breath.

While Oedipus shares a great deal with Hamlet in terms of psychological angst, it is the plight of Orestes that mirrors most remarkably the epistemological concerns that we uncovered in approaching Hamlet from an historical perspective. Aeschylus’ Oresteia is the story of mankind’s emergence into reason and democracy; and, although it moves in a direction opposite to that of Hamlet, the fundamental problems confronting us here are almost identical to those we have been examining up to this point. The Greek term ate8 sums up the conditions of crisis, both in the rotting state of Hamlet’s Denmark and in the cursed house of Atreus. Ate, as generally defined by E.R. Dodds,9 refers to a condition distinct from that of rationality, often involving a curse, some kind of supernatural conflict, the intervention of daemonic forces or some such situation that either tempts a mortal character, or group of characters, towards irrationality or renders conditions such that rational understanding and coherent action are rendered impossible. We see this force cursing the house of Atreus from its mythological inception; Cassandra, at the moment of her arrival from the conquered Troy, senses this dark power in the house of Agamemnon and Clytamnestra and recoils in horror. E.R. Dodds writes:

Cassandra sees the Erinyes [Furies] as a band of daemons, drunken with human blood; to Clytamnestra’s excited imagination, not only the Erinyes but ate itself are personal fiends to whom she has offered her husband as a human sacrifice; there is a moment in which she feels her human personality lost and submerged in that of the alastor [avenger, passer of sin from parent to child] whose agent and instrument she was.10

As in Hamlet, the characters in Aeschylus’ play move through an atmosphere thick with ate; their very beings are permeated with it, emerging as they do from their polluted history of infanticide, cannibalism and blood vendetta. Agamemnon is infected with it as he confronts the meaning of Chalcas’ interpretation of the omen of the eagles and the pregnant hare; he must face the impossible conflict between the action demanded by Zeus and the sacrifice demanded by Artemis. Pressed into action that goes beyond any rational instinct, he kills his daughter, committing the most heinous act in order to appease a religious conflict, thereby stimulating the ate that lurks in the house of Atreus. These religious conflicts do not go away with the forcing of Agamemnon’s hand; rather, they intensify as the drama progresses, invigorated by the confusion created around irrational acts.

Agamemnon’s deed committed, the power of the ate gnawing away at the house of Atreus swells and empowers Clytamnestra, not only to take her revenge on Agamemnon, but also to corrupt the existing monarchy into a tyranny, thereby eroding the political status quo. In killing Agamemnon, she facilitates the destruction of the family as well as the lineage between father and son; it shatters the expectation that the son should not only receive the father’s throne, but also his guilt. In this respect she is very much like Claudius – an usurping mother rather than an uncle – and becomes the locus of Prince Orestes’ desire for revenge. Orestes, like Hamlet, hesitates before acting on his desire, but Pylades – who brings to mind Horatio – reminds him of his oath to Apollo and revenge is enacted. This action shatters everything and Orestes now sees before him the terrifying incarnation of the Furies who claim justice for this violation of the ancient chthonic laws which tie the psyche of mankind with the rites of nature. Haunted by these ancient daemons, he falls into madness, unable to understand the meaning of his bloody action and the passion that drove it on. It is only through the intervention of the younger gods – Apollo and Athena – and by the consensus of the polis in the newly incarnated Areopagus, that these conflicting forces are controlled, subsumed and given a rational context in which to function. The guilt born out of the bloody chaos of the past is annulled. The religious incoherence between the old gods, the young gods and the Furies is balanced, and Orestes can be acquitted by the deciding vote of Athena. The curse on the house of Atreus is lifted and family, tribe and state are redefined in rational, civilised terms; mankind is purified and the ate that so polluted his reason is washed away.

Both Shakespeare and Aeschylus offer us profound insights into the effects that epistemological failure and massive upheavals in the foundations of understanding have on the human psyche and civilisation itself. By addressing the fundamental institutions of mankind – religion, justice, family and politics – as well as the relationship between barbarism and civilisation, both dramatists touch at the very heart of the human process and the foundational elements that constitute knowledge and understanding. Both Hamlet and the Oresteia present the interconnected nature of reason, passion and action by placing it in crisis. They both show the impossibility of freedom when mankind is deprived of consistent rational structures on which to base his knowledge of the world. They also demonstrate the inability for passion to manifest itself as coherent action when fundamental elements of understanding are in conflict. The fact that both plays are born out of myth speaks to the timeless power of this recurring theme and brings to the surface the danger and hope implicit in the process of humanity.

Aeschylus traces western man’s emergence out of barbarism and blood vendetta. He depicts the awakening of the ancient Greek culture into the light of civilised democracy, religion and social contract which is backed by law and and the gods. The trial of Orestes creates the very foundational understandings by which the passions themselves are defined in a civilised environment and their engagement with the world secured, albeit tenuously, within the rational boundaries of civilised institutions and common social psychological constructs.

Shakespeare, inversely, presents us with a situation in which the erosion of these foundational understandings is all but complete. This is a nightmarish world where only incoherent fragments remain of the rational foundations of the past – an eerie, enigmatic environment in which everything Hamlet touches falls away from him. Shakespeare shows us that, far from freeing passion, this failure of reason leads the individual and society into the chains of neurotic confusion, the tyranny of madness and irrational acts of barbaric destruction. While the final optimism of the Oresteia contrasts sharply with hopelessness of Hamlet it is clear that both plays demand their audience to consider the fragility of the relationship between rational thought and coherent emotional engagement with the world.

November, 2007

NOTES:
1. William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Arden Edition, London: Thompson, 2003
2. Aeschylus, The Oresteia, trans. Robert Fagles, London: Penguin Classics, 1977
3. Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays, trans. Robert Fagles, London: Penguin Classics, 1984
4. I have chosen to ignore the aesthetic perspective – put forward by Voltaire in the 18th century and T.S. Eliot in the 20th – which postulates that the glaring inconsistencies in the play are not purposeful and that Hamlet is simply an artistic failure.
5. Ernest Jones, Hamlet and Oedipus, New York: Norton Library, 1979
6. Jones does address this issue obliquely, offering a complicated theory which presents, among other things, Polonius and Claudius as a kind of mythical bifurcated father figure. See Jones p.133-150
7. Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, London: Penguin Classics, 2003
8. Ate is often seen in in more recent publications with a circumflex: Atê. I retain Dodds spelling as he is my reference here.
9. Dodds, The Greeks And The Irrational, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968 p.28-50
10. Ibid p.39-40