Obsession of Filial Loyalty
Confronted by the ghost of his father to seek revenge against his uncle, Claudius, Hamlet is driven by a sense of filial loyalty which develops into madness, an obsession. The mimesis enfolds when Hamlet's attempts to kill Claudius are complicated by his own relationships. The thin line between madness and sanity becomes widely contested by the audience. In moments when Hamlet reveals his inner emotions of self-loathing, the audience becomes aware of the gross extent to which Hamlet is consumed by his lack of action: "I am pigeon-livered, a lack gall/ To make oppression bitter, or ere this/ I ha' fatted all the region kites/ With this slave's offal" (II.ii.529.532). This internal conflict comes to define the play, reiterated by Hamlet in his soliloquies. In Act III, Scene ii, he contemplates: "Thus conscience does make cowards of us all" (III.i.83)
The rising action in the development of Hamlet's resolve against his uncle to avenge his father reaches its climax with the death of Polonius, shrugging his actions off as trivial with fitting epitaph: "Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell" (III.iv.31). The spiral of reactions magnify the universal theme of death. Just as in Act II, Scene ii, Hamlet meditates on death in comparing the troubles of living with the uncertainty of the afterlife, death carries a different meaning to each of the major characters. Ophelia, in her emotional detachment drawn from her grief which drives her to a suspicious death, illustrates the link between death to the central theme of madness, a theme which unites the series of events within the play. This moment marks a reversal in fortune, the peripeteia, for in her madness, Ophelia exposes the qualities which the audience has admired, his wit and honor, which instead carry tones of loss of virginity and death for Ophelia. Not only does this moment result in the death and speculated suicide for the female protagonist, it incites the anger of her brother, Laertes, and brings about the sword fight which is thick with the blood of unintended deaths.
The young prince is one with whom the audience can sympathize as one bound to honor but faced with a terrible task at hand, to take the life of another. In the larger scope, he grapples with the same question with which humanity is often challenged: to define who he is after the death of a loved-one. His wit and sarcastic humor wins the heart of many, reemphasizing his role as an admirable leader of the people. Within the falling action, Hamlet's mindset changes from questioning the uncertain future to accepting that some events are out of his control: "If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to/ come, it will be now" (V.ii.193-194). In accepting his fate, a contrast to his famous "To be, or not to be" soliloquy, Hamlet recognizes that darkness may lay ahead, coinciding with anagnorisis. An ironic end comes to the major characters, guilty with blood on their hands of another's death. Laertes, in attempting to revenge his father, comes to respect Hamlet in his final moments as he is killed with the sword which he had poisoned. Hamlet, too, sees Laertes as a "portriature" of himself (V.ii.78), motivated by the same reason. Claudius, in plotting the death of Hamlet, not only unwittingly kills his wife but is forced to drink of the cup which he, too poisoned. Even when the young prince falls, pierced by the poisoned sword of Laertes, he enters a final redemption. In the moment of suspense, Hamlet becomes one with death: one who had inflicted death, challenged death and embraced death. The audience experiences a final moment of catharsis as Fortinbras sets out, when confronted by a scene of unnatural carnage, sets out to commemorate Hamlet as a hero, one who should be admired for the deepest sense of loyalty: one that merits death.