Sunday, March 2, 2008
hamlet, act 5
The last act of this play is fast-paced and full of excitement...and death. Claudius and Laertes' plans to kill Hamlet backfire, also bringing death to themselves and the queen. As the fatal fencing match between Hamlet and Laertes begins, Hamlet proposes a truce between themselves, as an apology on his part. Laertes doesn't exactly reciprocate the action, but seems to forgive Hamlet, at least to his face. Laertes proves to be unwilling to accept responsibility for his part in the plan--even as he is dying he blames everything on Claudius. Also, when he is about to stab Hamlet with the poisoned sword, he says "and yet it is almost against my conscience." It's hard to tell whether his actions actually reflect his thoughts. In the end they all die; Hamlet asks Horatio to tell the story of what happened, and Fortinbras becomes the heir to the Danish throne.
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3 comments:
I agree that this final act was indeed fast paced and exciting, but I felt that it was a major let down. The whole play was building up to this once scene, in which basically everyone dies in a short span of time. It felt very rushed. The scene was anti-climactic. Hamlet had been plotting to revenge his father throughout the entire play and ended up just forcing Claudius to drink some of the poison. It just kind of happened and there wasn't anything really leading up to it. Gertrude and Laertes just happened to die too, although it was fitting and ironic that Laertes died too, "I am justly killed with mine own treachery."
Hamlet didn't really fear dieing. He had struggled with the idea of it throughout the play. In the beginning, he said that he would kill himself if it was not a sin and then later in his to be or not to be speech, he pondered "to die, to sleep." He accepts that he is to die once he has been poisoned, and only wants to make sure that he is remembered for what occurred. He also sees happiness in death when speaking to Horatio. “Absent thee from felicity awhile And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain To tell my story.” All Hamlet wants is to be remembered and honored in death, which is what he ultimately achieves.
This final scene was a new side of Hamlet. I had expected Hamlet to have a big dramatic killing of Claudius, but it all happened so fast. In the beginning of Act V scene 2, Hamlet is much more calm and civilized. When telling Horatio all about the truth of how Claudius "killed my king and whored my mother", he is very collected with his thoughts and Horatio makes more of a scene about it than Hamlet does.
During the fight, Hamlet does not seem to fear dying himself, but is more focused on revenge and killing Claudius and Laertes. When it is finally time for Hamlet to die, he basically just gives instructions to Horatio, "But let it be.- Horatio, I am dead. Thou livest; report me and my cause aright To the unsatisfied". There is practically no fear in his voice at all. I think the gravedigger had influenced Hamlet's thoughts of death in a way because he was confronted by a man who has such a miserable job and works with the dead, but still takes time to make jokes and be "witty" with Hamlet. I think this makes Hamlet realize death shouldn't be something to be afraid of but something to accept.
I thought that the ending of Act 5 would have been a bit more climactic. In a way it was sort of a let down. Gertrude dies from drinking the potion that was meant for Hamlet, and while I wasn't really expecting this, the whole scene seemed a little rushed. Gertrude dies. Then almost immediately after so does the King when Hamlet forces him to drink the potion. THEN, in the next stanza, Laertes dies. One of the things I noticed about this was that the other characters died off rather quickly, but Hamlet, who was stabbed the same time as Laertes, is alive longer than him. I thought that was interersting. Hamlet doesn't seem to be too upset about dying and that rings you to his past speeches about death and how he saw it as a good thing. Lastly, he asks Horatio to tell his story. I thought that much was nice ending. When I read that it made me feel like it was Horation who wrote the play to tell everyone about the life of Hamlet and all that he went through, just like he promised.
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