Four centuries later, human nature hasn’t changed much

At the ripe middle age of 50, I am studying Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Again. I actually read Hamlet back in high school, some 30 years ago, when it was just some stupid play where people talked funny and everyone died in the end. Three decades the wiser, as a master’s degree student at the University of Guam, I can now appreciate the brilliance of William Shakespeare’s nuances, his mastery with words, his humor, and his statement about life in 1600.

Hamlet, for those of you who may not remember the play from your high school days, is the prince of Denmark, who arrives home upon hearing news of his father’s death only to find his mother married to his Uncle Claudius, who has taken over as king, which was of course supposed to be Hamlet’s role. The speed with which all this has happened is illustrated when Hamlet tells his friend Horatio, “The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.” Remember, back at the turn of the 17th century, they didn’t have refrigeration, so to have cooked meat for a funeral and then to have used the leftovers for a wedding, the wedding had to have taken place the following day.

Upset by the speed at which his mother has jumped ‘with such dexterity to incestuous sheets,” (what a line!) Hamlet becomes even more traumatized when the ghost of his father appears and tells Hamlet that his uncle poisoned him. To top it off, the Norwegian army, whose king Hamlet’s father had slain, is planning to invade Denmark’s shores. Hamlet hatches a convoluted plot to exact some sort of revenge on his uncle (but not on his mother, because his ghostly father has told him to leave his mother out of it). He feigns madness and writes a play that reveals the exact way in which his uncle murdered his father and then married his mother in order to assure himself of his uncle’s guilt. While confronting his mother about her wantonness, he stabs at a curtain in her chambers and accidentally kills the king’s counselor, who has been hiding behind the curtain to listen in on their conversation. This guy, Polonius, is the father of the young woman Hamlet loves. She becomes so distraught over her father’s death that she drowns. The king, knowing that his stepson is on to him, hatches a plot with Polonius’ son Laertes to have Laertes exact revenge on Hamlet by poisoning the tip of his rapier (sword) and stabbing Hamlet with it during a duel. The king decides to add some insurance by having a cup of poisoned drink standing by for Hamlet. During the duel, the queen drinks from the poisoned cup; Laertes stabs Hamlet with his poisoned rapier, they scuffle and switch rapiers and Hamlet stabs Laertes with the poisoned rapier; the Queen falls, says she has been poisoned, then dies; Hamlet stabs the king and forces him to drink the poison; the king dies; Laertes dies; then finally, Hamlet dies.

It is the ultimate soap opera; a story of “carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts, of accidental judgments, casual slaughters, of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause…” says Hamlet’s friend, Horatio, says while standing amidst dead bodies at the play’s end.

The brilliance of Hamlet seems to be that as a troubled hero, he transcends time. Four centuries later, parents are still doing things that mess up their kids, people are still committing adultery (this is never actually stated in the play, but it is assumed that the queen would not have jumped so dexterously into her brother-in-law’s sheets had they not been doing some jumping before he poisoned her husband), plotting against each other, making political deals, and accidentally or intentionally killing each other. People are still struggling with depression, contemplating whether “to be, or not to be,” and dealing with the issues that life hands them. Sure, we have refrigerators, the internet, cell phones and other technology that Shakespeare never imagined, but his play proves that human nature, despite all of our advances, hasn’t really changed that much. Turn on the TV or log onto the internet and we still have
“the whips and scorns of time,
Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely (insolent abuse),
The pangs of dizprized love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns (insults)
That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes (received from unworthy persons)…”

Studying Shakespeare proves one thing above all others: That the more things change, the more they stay the same.