THEMES, MOTIFS AND SYMBOLISM IN

HAMLET

-Themes:

The Impossibility of Certainty

What separates Hamlet from other revenge plays (and maybe from every play
written before it) is that the action we expect to see, particularly from Hamlet
himself, is continually postponed while Hamlet tries to obtain more certain
knowledge about what he is doing. This play poses many questions that other plays
would simply take for granted. Can we have certain knowledge about ghosts? Is the
ghost what it appears to be, or is it really a misleading fiend? Does the ghost have
reliable knowledge about its own death, or is the ghost itself deluded? Moving to
more earthly matters: How can we know for certain the facts about a crime that has
no witnesses? Can Hamlet know the state of Claudius’s soul by watching his
behavior? If so, can he know the facts of what Claudius did by observing the state of
his soul? Can Claudius (or the audience) know the state of Hamlet’s mind by
observing his behavior and listening to his speech? Can we know whether our
actions will have the consequences we want them to have? Can we know anything
about the afterlife? Many people have seen Hamlet as a play about indecisiveness,
and thus about Hamlet’s failure to act appropriately. It might be more interesting to
consider that the play shows us how many uncertainties our lives are built upon, and
how many unknown quantities are taken for granted when people act or when they
evaluate one another’s actions.

The Complexity of Action

Directly related to the theme of certainty is the theme of action. How is it possible to
take reasonable, effective, purposeful action? In Hamlet, the question of how to act
is affected not only by rational considerations, such as the need for certainty, but
also by emotional, ethical, and psychological factors. Hamlet himself appears to
distrust the idea that it’s even possible to act in a controlled, purposeful way. When
he does act, he prefers to do it blindly, recklessly, and violently. The other
characters obviously think much less about “action” in the abstract than Hamlet
does, and are therefore less troubled about the possibility of acting effectively. They
simply act as they feel is appropriate. But in some sense they prove that Hamlet is
right, because all of their actions miscarry. Claudius possesses himself of queen and
crown through bold action, but his conscience torments him, and he is beset by
threats to his authority (and, of course, he dies). Laertes resolves that nothing will
distract him from acting out his revenge, but he is easily influenced and manipulated
into serving Claudius’s ends, and his poisoned rapier is turned back upon himself.

The Mystery of Death

In the aftermath of his father’s murder, Hamlet is obsessed with the idea of death,
and over the course of the play he considers death from a great many perspectives.
He ponders both the spiritual aftermath of death, embodied in the ghost, and the
physical remainders of the dead, such as by Yorick’s skull and the decaying corpses
in the cemetery. Throughout, the idea of death is closely tied to the themes of
spirituality, truth, and uncertainty in that death may bring the answers to Hamlet’s
deepest questions, ending once and for all the problem of trying to determine truth
in an ambiguous world. And, since death is both the cause and the consequence of
revenge, it is intimately tied to the theme of revenge and justice—Claudius’s murder
of King Hamlet initiates Hamlet’s quest for revenge, and Claudius’s death is the end
of that quest. The question of his own death plagues Hamlet as well, as he
repeatedly contemplates whether or not suicide is a morally legitimate action in an
unbearably painful world. Hamlet’s grief and misery is such that he frequently longs
for death to end his suffering, but he fears that if he commits suicide, he will be
consigned to eternal suffering in hell because of the Christian religion’s prohibition
of suicide. In his famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy (III.i), Hamlet philosophically
concludes that no one would choose to endure the pain of life if he or she were not
afraid of what will come after death, and that it is this fear which causes complex
moral considerations to interfere with the capacity for action.

The Nation as a Diseased Body

Everything is connected in Hamlet, including the welfare of the royal family and the
health of the state as a whole. The play’s early scenes explore the sense of anxiety
and dread that surrounds the transfer of power from one ruler to the next.
Throughout the play, characters draw explicit connections between the moral
legitimacy of a ruler and the health of the nation. Denmark is frequently described
as a physical body made ill by the moral corruption of Claudius and Gertrude, and
many observers interpret the presence of the ghost as a supernatural omen
indicating that “[s]omething is rotten in the state of Denmark” ([Link].67). The dead King
Hamlet is portrayed as a strong, forthright ruler under whose guard the state was in
good health, while Claudius, a wicked politician, has corrupted and compromised
Denmark to satisfy his own appetites. At the end of the play, the rise to power of the
upright Fortinbras suggests that Denmark will be strengthened once again.
Performance
Hamlet includes many references to performance of all kinds – both theatrical
performance and the way people perform in daily life. In his first appearance,
Hamlet draws a distinction between outward behavior— “actions that a man might
play”— and real feelings: “that within which passeth show” ([Link].). However, the more
time we spend with Hamlet, the harder it becomes to tell what he is really feeling
and what he is performing. He announces in Act One, scene five that he is going to
pretend to be mad (“put an antic disposition on”.) In Act Two, scene one, Ophelia
describes Hamlet’s mad behavior as a comical performance. However, when
Hamlet tells Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that “I have lost all my mirth,” he seems
genuinely depressed.
Generations of readers have argued about whether Hamlet is really mad or just
performing madness. It’s impossible to know for sure – by the end of the play, even
Hamlet himself doesn’t seem to know the difference between performance and
reality. Hamlet further explores the idea of performance by regularly reminding the
audience that we are watching a play. When Polonius says that at university he “did
enact Julius Caesar” ([Link]), contemporary audiences would have thought of
Shakespeare’s own Julius Caesar, which was written around the same time
as Hamlet. The actor who played Polonius may have played Julius Caesar as well.
The device of the play within the play gives Hamlet further opportunities to
comment on the nature of theater. By constantly reminding the audience that what
we’re watching is a performance, Hamlet invites us to think about the fact that
something fake can feel real, and vice versa. Hamlet himself points out that acting is
powerful because it’s indistinguishable from reality: “The purpose of playing […] is to
hold as ’twere the mirror up to Nature” ([Link].). That’s why he believes that the Players
can “catch the conscience of the King” ([Link].). By repeatedly showing us that
performance can feel real, Hamlet makes us question what “reality” actually is.

Madness
One of the central questions of Hamlet is whether the main character has lost his
mind or is only pretending to be mad. Hamlet’s erratic behavior and nonsensical
speech can be interpreted as a ruse to get the other characters to believe he’s gone
mad. On the other hand, his behavior may be a logical response to the “mad”
situation he finds himself in – his father has been murdered by his uncle, who is now
his stepfather. Initially, Hamlet himself seems to believe he’s sane – he describes his
plans to “put an antic disposition on” and tells Rosencrantz and Guildenstern he is
only mad when the wind blows “north-north-west” – in other words, his madness is
something he can turn on and off at will. By the end of the play, however, Hamlet
seems to doubt his own sanity. Referring to himself in the third person, he says “And
when he’s not himself does harm Laertes,” suggesting Hamlet has become
estranged from his former, sane self. Referring to his murder of Polonius, he says,
“Who does it then? His madness.” At the same time, Hamlet’s excuse of madness
absolves him of murder, so it can also be read as the workings of a sane and
cunning mind.

Doubt
In Hamlet, the main character’s doubt creates a world where very little is known for

sure. Hamlet thinks, but isn’t entirely sure, that his uncle killed his father. He believes

he sees his father’s Ghost, but he isn’t sure he should believe in the Ghost or listen to

what the Ghost tells him: “I’ll have grounds / More relative than this.” In his “to be or

not to be” soliloquy, Hamlet suspects he should probably just kill himself, but doubt

about what lies beyond the grave prevents him from acting. Hamlet is so wracked

with doubt, he even works to infect other characters with his lack of certainty, as

when he tells Ophelia “you should not have believed me” when he told her he loved

her. As a result, the audience doubts Hamlet’s reliability as a protagonist. We are left

with many doubts about the action – whether Gertrude was having an affair with

Claudius before he killed Hamlet’s father; whether Hamlet is sane or mad; what

Hamlet’s true feelings are for Ophelia.

Religion, Honour and Revenge

In Hamlet, the codes of conduct are largely defined by religion and an aristocratic

code that demands honor—and revenge if honor has been soiled. As the play

unfolds and Hamlet (in keeping with his country’s spoken and unspoken) rules)

seeks revenge for his father’s murder, he begins to realize just how complicated

vengeance, justice, and honor all truly are. As Hamlet plunges deeper and deeper

into existential musings, he also begins to wonder about the true meaning of
honor—and Shakespeare ultimately suggests that the codes of conduct by which

any given society operates are, more often than not, muddy, contradictory, and

confused.

As Hamlet begins considering what it would mean to actually get revenge—to

actually commit murder—he begins waffling and languishing in indecision and

inaction. His inability to act, however, is not necessarily a mark of cowardice or fear—

rather, as the play progresses, Hamlet is forced to reckon very seriously with what

retribution and violence in the name of retroactively reclaiming “honor” or glory

actually accomplishes. This conundrum is felt most profoundly in the middle of Act

3, when Hamlet comes upon Claudius totally alone for the first time in the play. It is

the perfect opportunity to kill the man uninterrupted and unseen—but Claudius is on

his knees, praying. Hamlet worries that killing Claudius while he prays will mean that

Claudius’s soul will go to heaven. Hamlet is ignorant of the fact that Claudius, just

moments before, was lamenting that his prayers for absolution are empty because

he will not take action to actually repent for the violence he’s done and the pain he’s

caused. Hamlet is paralyzed in this moment, unable to reconcile religion with the

things he’s been taught about goodness, honor, duty, and vengeance. This moment

represents a serious, profound turning point in the play—once Hamlet chooses not

to kill Claudius for fear of unwittingly sending his father’s murderer to heaven, thus

failing at the concept of revenge entirely, he begins to think differently about the

codes, institutions, and social structures which demand unthinking vengeance and

religious piety in the same breath. Because the idea of a revenge killing runs counter
to the very tenets of Christian goodness and charity at the core of Hamlet’s

upbringing—regardless of whether or not he believes them on a personal level—he

begins to see the artifice upon which all social codes are built.

The second half of the play charts Hamlet’s descent into a new worldview—one

which is very similar to nihilism in its surrender to the randomness of the universe

and the difficulty of living within the confines of so many rules and standards at one

time. As Hamlet gets even more deeply existential about life and death,

appearances versus reality, and even the common courtesies and decencies which

define society, he exposes the many hypocrisies which define life for common

people and nobility alike. Hamlet resolves to pursue revenge, claiming that his

thoughts will be worth nothing if they are anything but “bloody,” but at the same

time is exacting and calculating in the vengeances he does secure. He dispatches

with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, charged with bringing him to England for

execution, by craftily outwitting them and sending them on to their own deaths. He

laments to Horatio that all men, whether they be Alexander the Great or a common

court jester, end up in the same ground. Finally, he warns off Horatio’s warning

about dueling Laertes by claiming that he wants to leave his fate to God. Hamlet’s

devil-may-care attitude and his increasingly reckless choices are the result of

realizing that the social and moral codes he’s clung to for so long are inapplicable to

his current circumstances—and perhaps more broadly irrelevant.

Hamlet is a deeply subversive text—one that asks hard, uncomfortable questions

about the value of human life, the indifference of the universe, and the construction

of society, culture, and common decency. As Hamlet pursues his society’s ingrained

ideals of honor, he discovers that perhaps honor means something very different

than what he’s been raised to believe it does—and confronts the full weight of

society’s arbitrary, outdated expectations and demands.

Women

Though there are only two traditionally female characters in Hamlet—Ophelia and

Gertrude—the play itself speaks volumes about the uniquely painful, difficult

struggles and unfair fates women have suffered throughout history. Written in the

first years of the 17th century, when women were forbidden even from appearing

onstage, and set in the Middle Ages, Hamlet exposes the prejudices and

disadvantages which narrowed or blocked off the choices available to women–even

women of noble birth. Hamlet is obsessive about the women in his life, but at the

same time expresses contempt and ridicule for their actions—actions which are,

Shakespeare ultimately argues, things they’re forced to do just to survive in a cruel,

hostile, misogynistic world.

Gertrude and Ophelia are two of Hamlet’s most misunderstood—and

underdeveloped—characters. Hamlet himself rails against each of them separately,

for very different reasons, in misogynistic rants which accuse women of being sly

seductresses, pretenders, and lustful schemers. What Hamlet does not see—and

what men of his social standing and his time period perhaps could not see if they

tried—is that Gertrude and Ophelia are products of their environment, forced to

make difficult and even lethal decisions in an attempt to survive and stay afloat in a

politically dangerous world built for men, not for women. When Gertrude’s husband,

King Hamlet, dies, she quickly remarries his brother, Claudius—who actually

murdered him. There are two possibilities: the first is that Gertrude knew about the

murder, and the second is that she didn’t. The text suggests that while Gertrude was

likely not directly involved in the murder, she was aware of the truth about Claudius

all along—and chose to marry him anyway. While Hamlet accuses his mother of

lusting after her own brother-in-law, killing her husband, and reveling in her

corrupted marriage bed with her new spouse, he fails to see that perhaps Gertrude

married Claudius out of fear of what would happen to her if she didn’t. Gertrude, as a

woman, holds no political power of her own—with her husband dead, she might

have lost her position at court, been killed by a power-hungry new or foreign king,

or forced into another, less appealing marital arrangement. Marrying Claudius was

perhaps, for Gertrude, the lesser of several evils—and an effort just to survive.

Ophelia’s trajectory is similar to Gertrude’s, in that she is forced into several

decisions and situations which don’t seem to be of her own making, but rather

things she must do simply to appease the men around her and retain her social
position at court. When Ophelia is drawn into her father Polonius and Claudius’s plot

to spy on Hamlet and try to tease the reason behind his madness out of him, she’s

essentially used as a pawn in a game between men. Polonius wants to see if

Hamlet’s madness is tied to Ophelia, and so asks Ophelia to spurn Hamlet’s

advances, return gifts and letters he’s given her in the past, and refuse to see or

speak with him anymore to see test his hypothesis. Ophelia does these things—and

incurs Hamlet’s wrath and derision. Again, as with his mother, he is unable to see the

larger sociopolitical forces steering Ophelia through her own life, and has no

sympathy for her uncharacteristic behavior. After the death of her father—at

Hamlet’s hands—Ophelia loses her sanity. Spurned by Hamlet, left alone by Laertes

(who is off studying in France, pursuing his future while his sister sits at court by

herself) and forced to reckon with the death of her father—after Hamlet, her last

bastion of sociopolitical protection—she goes mad. Even in the depths of her

insanity, she continues singing nursery songs and passing out invisible flowers to

those around her, performing the sweet niceties of womanhood that are hardwired

into her after years of knowing how she must look and behave in order to win the

favor of others—specifically men. Indeed, when Ophelia kills herself, it is perhaps out

of a desire to take her fate into her own hands. A woman at court is in a perilous

position already—but a madwoman at court, divorced from all agency and seen as

an outsider and a liability, is even further endangered. Though Ophelia kills herself,

she is perhaps attempting to keep her dignity—and whatever shreds of agency she

has left at the end of her life—intact.

Gertrude and Ophelia are subject to paternalistic condescension, sexual

objectification, and abuse. They are also subject to the constant psychological and

emotional weight of knowing that no matter how dehumanizing and cruel the

treatment they must face at court may be, things are even worse for women of

lower social standings—and if the two of them don’t keep in line, lose their positions

at court and face far worse fates. Gertrude and Ophelia make the decisions they

make out of a drive simply to survive—and yet Hamlet never stops to imagine the

weighty considerations which lie behind both women’s actions.

-Motifs:

Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and

inform the text’s major themes.

Incest and Incestuous Desire

The motif of incest runs throughout the play and is frequently alluded to by Hamlet

and the ghost, most obviously in conversations about Gertrude and Claudius, the

former brother-in-law and sister-in-law who are now married. A subtle motif of

incestuous desire can be found in the relationship of Laertes and Ophelia, as Laertes

sometimes speaks to his sister in suggestively sexual terms and, at her funeral,

leaps into her grave to hold her in his arms. However, the strongest overtones of

incestuous desire arise in the relationship of Hamlet and Gertrude, in Hamlet’s

fixation on Gertrude’s sex life with Claudius and his preoccupation with her in

general.

Misogyny

Shattered by his mother’s decision to marry Claudius so soon after her husband’s

death, Hamlet becomes cynical about women in general, showing a particular

obsession with what he perceives to be a connection between female sexuality and

moral corruption. This motif of misogyny, or hatred of women, occurs sporadically

throughout the play, but it is an important inhibiting factor in Hamlet’s relationships

with Ophelia and Gertrude. He urges Ophelia to go to a nunnery rather than

experience the corruptions of sexuality and exclaims of Gertrude, “Frailty, thy name

is woman” ([Link].146).

Ears and Hearing

One facet of Hamlet’s exploration of the difficulty of attaining true knowledge is the

slipperiness of language. Words are used to communicate ideas, but they can also

be used to distort the truth, manipulate other people, and serve as tools in corrupt

quests for power. Claudius, the shrewd politician, is the most obvious example of a

man who manipulates words to enhance his own power. The sinister uses of words

are represented by images of ears and hearing, from Claudius’s murder of the king

by pouring poison into his ear to Hamlet’s claim to Horatio that “I have words to

speak in thine ear will make thee dumb” ([Link].21). The poison poured in the king’s ear

by Claudius is used by the ghost to symbolize the corrosive effect of Claudius’s

dishonesty on the health of Denmark. Declaring that the story that he was killed by a

snake is a lie, he says that “the whole ear of Denmark” is “Rankly abused. . . .” (I.v.36–

38).

-Symbols:

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or

concepts.

Yorick’s Skull

In Hamlet, physical objects are rarely used to represent thematic ideas. One

important exception is Yorick’s skull, which Hamlet discovers in the graveyard in the

first scene of Act V. As Hamlet speaks to the skull and about the skull of the king’s

former jester, he fixates on death’s inevitability and the disintegration of the body.

He urges the skull to “get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let her paint an

inch thick, to this favor she must come”—no one can avoid death (V.i.178–179). He

traces the skull’s mouth and says, “Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not

how oft,” indicating his fascination with the physical consequences of death (V.i.174–

175). This latter idea is an important motif throughout the play, as Hamlet frequently

makes comments referring to every human body’s eventual decay, noting that

Polonius will be eaten by worms, that even kings are eaten by worms, and that dust

from the decayed body of Alexander the Great might be used to stop a hole in a

beer barrel.
Ophelia’s Flowers

When Ophelia begins to act mad in Act IV scene v, she gives flowers to Claudius,

Gertrude, Laertes, and keeps some for herself. She names each flower as she hands

it out and makes it clear they have specific significance. She gives Laertes rosemary

and pansies for “remembrance” and “thoughts,” respectively. Ophelia does not state

the significance behind the rest of her flowers, but they would have had cultural

connotations attached to them. Gertrude receives fennel and columbines to

represent her adultery. Ophelia gives Claudius and herself rue for bitterness and

repentance. She also gives Claudius a daisy for innocence and love, showing her

innocence is no longer with her, and neither is Hamlet. Finally, she says she would

have brought violets, but they all wilted when her father died. Violets could

represent faithfulness, meaning she suggests the faith or goodness of Denmark was

corrupted with Polonius’s murder. Conversely, violets could indicate her own virtue

and modesty, implying that with Polonius’s death, Ophelia has lost all adherence to

the social norms of her day. Although Ophelia is perceived to be insane by the other

characters, her particular choices of flowers give accurate and stinging reproaches

to each of them, indicating she may not be as mad as she seems.

Just two scenes later, Ophelia drowns bedecked in flowers as she would have been

at her wedding or her funeral. However, Ophelia does not get a wedding because

Hamlet spurns her, and her funeral is not allowed the proper ceremonial attention

because her death is ruled as a suicide. The flowers she wears, just like the flowers
she gives away, are a reproach as well as a symbol of innocence. They heighten the

tragedy of the play by reminding the other characters and the audience that Ophelia

should have been a young girl, perhaps a bride, and certainly celebrated in death.

They are a poignant reminder of all that is taken from her, and from Denmark, by the

delay and perversion of justice.

Hamlet’s Clothing

Hamlet’s black clothing symbolizes his grief over his father’s death. Just mere

months after King Hamlet’s passing, Claudius and Gertrude feel Hamlet casts

unnecessary gloom on the palace, so they ask him to cheer up, or at the very least

change out of his dark clothes. Hamlet refuses, saying that his clothes only

represent a small part of his true grief. Hamlet makes it clear from the beginning that

what he wears is a direct insight into his state of mind.

Perhaps more accurately, Hamlet uses his clothes to create an impression of his

state of mind. He is genuinely in a state of grief throughout the play, and that grief

serves to set him apart from the rest of the palace who have accepted Claudius as

king and move forward. Hamlet rebels by continuing to express his grief and

thereby remind the palace who once sat on the throne.

In Act II scene i, Hamlet changes his clothes to create a very different idea of his

mental state. Ophelia tells Polonius that Hamlet showed up to her room in a state of
disarray and partial undress. She describes the way Hamlet grabbed her, stared

wildly at her, and left, leaving her confused and frightened. This scene comes just

after Hamlet tells Horatio his plan to avenge his father includes acting as if he has

lost his mind to disguise his true intentions. Hamlet’s actions in Ophelia’s room

certainly make him look unbalanced, but Ophelia first notices something is wrong by

the disheveled state of his clothes. Once again, Hamlet uses his wardrobe to send a

message about his internal state.

The play leaves ambiguity about Hamlet’s sanity, whether he is merely acting or if

he genuinely loses touch with reality. Similarly, his clothes serve the dual function of

representing Hamlet’s choice to represent himself a certain way and giving an

actual reflection of his mind. He does mourn his father’s death, and he makes a

show of that mourning. He puts on the costume of a man out of his wits, and he

seems to really lose his grip on his sanity.

-Foreshadowing:

Few of the events of Hamlet are foreshadowed in a straightforward way, which is

striking because in Shakespeare’s tragedies, and especially in the tragedies which
have a supernatural element (like the Ghost in Hamlet), the play’s climactic events
are usually foreshadowed or even prophesied. The absence of foreshadowing helps
create the sense that in Hamlet certainty is hard to come by, and it also raises the
dramatic tension. Hamlet spends much of the play trying to decide whether or not
to kill either himself or Claudius: if either of these deaths were explicitly
foreshadowed, Hamlet’s deliberations would be less momentous.
Claudius’s death
Claudius’s death is partially foreshadowed by the Ghost. The Ghost is recognized by
Barnardo as a “portentous figure” (I.i.), and Horatio agrees that it “bodes some
strange eruption” (I.i.), but none of the characters who witness the Ghost in the
opening scene is certain about what its appearance means. Hamlet, by contrast,
jumps to the conclusion that the Ghost’s appearance indicates “foul play” ([Link].) before
he has even seen it, which may indicate the Ghost’s accusation that Claudius
murdered Hamlet’s father is all in Hamlet’s head.

Whether or not the Ghost’s story is a hallucination of Hamlet’s, Hamlet himself

doubts whether the ghost is “an honest ghost” ([Link]). It could also be said that the
Ghost does not foreshadow Claudius’s murder so much as cause it, so the exact
relationship between the Ghost’s appearance and Claudius’s death is hard to pin
down: the ghost’s appearance is part foreshadowing, part cause, and part red
herring. In Hamlet, even messages from beyond the grave are hard to interpret and
harder still to trust.
Hamlet’s madness
Horatio warns Hamlet that the Ghost “might deprive your sovereignty of reason/And
draw you into madness” ([Link].). The Ghost itself instructs Hamlet: “Taint not thy mind”
(I.v.). These warnings foreshadow Hamlet’s descent into madness. However, as
always in Hamlet, we see a further layer of complexity to the question of Hamlet’s
madness. After his encounter with the Ghost, Hamlet tells Horatio that he may “put
an antic disposition on” (I.v.), that is, pretend to be mad. The play, therefore, sets up
two different ways to understand Hamlet’s increasingly erratic behavior: as the real
madness predicted by the Ghost and Horatio, or as the “antic disposition” mentioned
by Hamlet. This uncertainty makes Hamlet’s character ultimately mysterious.
Polonius’s death
Hamlet’s murder of Polonius is foreshadowed when Polonius tells the assembled
court that he acted at university: “I did enact Julius Caesar. I was killed i’ th’ Capitol.
Brutus killed me” ([Link].). Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar was written at the same time
as Hamlet, and very likely the actors who played Polonius and Hamlet
in Hamlet would have played Caesar and Brutus in Julius Caesar. Contemporary
audiences would have recognized the actors, and they may have taken this line as a
hint that Polonius faces the same end as Caesar.
Even if audiences aren’t familiar with the actors or the plot of Julius Caesar, Polonius’s
line introduces the idea of the character being killed by a confidant. The
foreshadowing of Polonius’s murder raises the tension in the scene which follows:
Hamlet behaves more erratically than ever, and we realize that his behavior may, for
the first time in the play, have real consequences.

CHARACTER ANALYSIS
-Hamlet:

Hamlet has fascinated audiences and readers for centuries, and the first thing to
point out about him is that he is enigmatic. There is always more to him than the
other characters in the play can figure out; even the most careful and clever readers
come away with the sense that they don’t know everything there is to know about
this character. Hamlet actually tells other characters that there is more to him than
meets the eye—notably, his mother, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—but his
fascination involves much more than this. When he speaks, he sounds as if there’s
something important he’s not saying, maybe something even he is not aware of. The
ability to write soliloquies and dialogues that create this effect is one of
Shakespeare’s most impressive achievements.

A university student whose studies are interrupted by his father’s death, Hamlet is
extremely philosophical and contemplative. He is particularly drawn to difficult
questions or questions that cannot be answered with any certainty. Faced with
evidence that his uncle murdered his father, evidence that any other character in a
play would believe, Hamlet becomes obsessed with proving his uncle’s guilt before
trying to act. The standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt” is simply unacceptable
to him. He is equally plagued with questions about the afterlife, about the wisdom of
suicide, about what happens to bodies after they die—the list is extensive.

But even though he is thoughtful to the point of obsession, Hamlet also behaves
rashly and impulsively. When he does act, it is with surprising swiftness and little or
no premeditation, as when he stabs Polonius through a curtain without even
checking to see who he is. He seems to step very easily into the role of a madman,
behaving erratically and upsetting the other characters with his wild speech and
pointed innuendos.

It is also important to note that Hamlet is extremely melancholy and discontented

with the state of affairs in Denmark and in his own family—indeed, in the world at
large. He is extremely disappointed with his mother for marrying his uncle so
quickly, and he repudiates Ophelia, a woman he once claimed to love, in the
harshest terms. His words often indicate his disgust with and distrust of women in
general. At a number of points in the play, he contemplates his own death and even
the option of suicide.

But, despite all of the things with which Hamlet professes dissatisfaction, it is
remarkable that the prince and heir apparent of Denmark should think about these
problems only in personal and philosophical terms. He spends relatively little time
thinking about the threats to Denmark’s national security from without or the threats
to its stability from within (some of which he helps to create through his own
carelessness).
-Claudius:

Hamlet’s major antagonist is a shrewd, lustful, conniving king who contrasts sharply
with the other male characters in the play. Whereas most of the other important
men in Hamlet are preoccupied with ideas of justice, revenge, and moral balance,
Claudius is bent upon maintaining his own power. The old King Hamlet was a stern
warrior, but Claudius, his brother, is a corrupt politician whose main weapon is his
ability to manipulate others through a skillful use of language. When it comes to
international diplomacy, this influence actually works in Denmark’s favor. After all,
Claudius is the one who manages to convince the king of Norway to intervene in
Fortinbras’s planned invasion of Denmark. Within the royal court, however, his
speech is like the literal poison that he pours in Old Hamlet’s ear. Claudius has the
ability to convince others to follow his commands regardless of how morally
questionable they may be. Through his charisma and persuasive attitude, he gets
Gertrude to marry him, invites Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spy on Hamlet, and
turns Laertes into his ally.

While Claudius may outwardly present himself as a strong and unwavering leader,
he begins to crumble internally as the play progresses. His mounting fear of
Hamlet’s insanity exacerbates his self-preservation instincts, and the weight of his
evil deeds begin to take a toll on his conscience. Moments such as Claudius’s abrupt
departure from the Players’ performance and his “O, my offence is rank” soliloquy
suggest that he is capable of feeling guilt, and by including this detail, Shakespeare
reminds the audience that he is a complex individual rather than a stock character.
Unfortunately, Claudius’s sense of guilt is not strong enough to assuage his desire
for power. When Gertrude reveals that Hamlet has killed Polonius, for example,
Claudius only expresses concern for his personal safety and fails to acknowledge
that his wife had been in danger. His need to ensure the continuation of his rule
above all else ultimately leads to his demise. In Act 5, Scene 2, Claudius insists that,
in addition to Laertes’s sharpened sword and the poison on the blade, a poisoned
goblet must be present to guarantee that Hamlet dies. Ironically, the goblet, a
symbol of Claudius’s unchecked greed and desperation, is the thing that kills both
Gertrude and himself. His own cowardly machination inevitably destroys him.

-Gertrude:

Few Shakespearean characters have caused as much uncertainty as Gertrude, the

beautiful Queen of Denmark. The play seems to raise more questions about
Gertrude than it answers, including: Was she involved with Claudius before the
death of her husband? Did she love her husband? Did she know about Claudius’s
plan to commit the murder? Did she love Claudius, or did she marry him simply to
keep her high station in Denmark? Does she believe Hamlet when he insists that he
is not mad, or does she pretend to believe him simply to protect herself? Does she
intentionally betray Hamlet to Claudius, or does she believe that she is protecting
her son’s secret?

These questions can be answered in numerous ways, depending upon one’s

reading of the play. The Gertrude who does emerge clearly in Hamlet is a woman
defined by her desire for station and affection, as well as by her tendency to use
men to fulfill her instinct for self-preservation—which, of course, makes her
extremely dependent upon the men in her life. Hamlet’s most famous comment
about Gertrude is his furious condemnation of women in general: “Frailty, thy name
is woman!” ([Link].146). This comment is as much indicative of Hamlet’s agonized state
of mind as of anything else, but to a great extent Gertrude does seem morally frail.
She never exhibits the ability to think critically about her situation, but seems merely
to move instinctively toward seemingly safe choices, as when she immediately runs
to Claudius after her confrontation with Hamlet. She is at her best in social situations
([Link] and [Link]), when her natural grace and charm seem to indicate a rich, rounded
personality. At times it seems that her grace and charm are her only characteristics,
and her reliance on men appears to be her sole way of capitalizing on her abilities.

-Ophelia:

Ophelia’s role in the play revolves around her relationships with three men. She is
the daughter of Polonius, the sister of Laertes, and up until the beginning of the
play’s events, she has also been romantically involved with Hamlet. Given the
deeply entrenched patriarchal values that define the royal court, Ophelia’s ongoing
relationships with these men inherently restrict her personal agency. Polonius,
Laertes, and Hamlet frequently speak to her in either an infantilizing or sexualizing
manner, and the diametrically opposed nature of these approaches highlights just
how difficult life as a woman in the court can be.

Ophelia lacks the power to determine who she is as an individual because the men
in her life dictate how she must behave. During her first appearance in Act I, Scene 3,
Laertes and Polonius admonish Ophelia not to trust Hamlet’s expressions of love.
While they both talk down to her like a child, Laertes in particular draws on
sexualized imagery to make his case against Hamlet and Ophelia’s relationship. This
approach is rather ironic given that his primary message to Ophelia is to remain
chaste. She readily accepts their instructions, an act which reflects her submissive
nature, but the pressure she faces grows as Hamlet’s madness grows. After Ophelia
attempts to return his letters, for example, Hamlet delivers the famous “get thee to a
nunnery” monologue and harshly criticizes her sexuality. Between this jarring
moment, the lewd jokes Hamlet tells her during the play, and the untimely death of
her father, Ophelia begins to go mad herself.
The weight of the royal court’s impossible expectations drives her to lash out,
leading to the moment in Act 4, Scene 5 in which Ophelia tosses flowers about while
singing inappropriate songs. While each flower that she mentions has its own
unique symbolism, the act of her tossing flowers about hints at her attempt to free
herself from the pressure of maintaining a pure image. Ophelia ultimately drowns in
the river surrounded by flowers, and her suicide represents a reclaiming of her
personal agency. The fact that she allows the water to take her away, however,
reminds the audience that she is still a primarily passive character. The tragic nature
of Ophelia’s death stems from the fact that outside forces were fully responsible for
her suffering and that, in life, she was powerless to resist them.

-Polonius:

Laertes go abroad, and he draws out his last meeting with Laertes because he’s
reluctant to see him go. In the same scene, Polonius advises his daughter Ophelia to
avoid Hamlet because he’s worried about her. The secure and happy family unit of
Polonius, Laertes, and Ophelia provides a stark contrast with the dysfunctional unit
formed by Claudius, Gertrude, and Hamlet. The happiness of Polonius’s family is
reflected in his children’s reaction to his murder. Laertes passionately pursues
revenge, and Ophelia feels so struck with grief that she goes mad. At the same time,
Polonius reveals himself to be a far from perfect father. He sends Reynaldo to spy
on his son, and he uses his daughter as bait to trick Hamlet. Polonius’s actions
suggest that in Hamlet, even relationships that seem loving are ambiguous, a fact
which contributes to the play’s atmosphere of doubt and uncertainty.
Polonius also provides Hamlet with its main source of comic relief. As a comic
character, he consistently shows himself less wise than he thinks. For instance, in
Act Two he cleverly announces that “brevity is the soul of wit” ([Link].), but he does so in
the middle of a tediously long speech. The fact that Polonius gets himself so wrong
contributes to one of Hamlet’s central themes: the challenge of self-certainty.
Polonius’s amusing lack of self-awareness serves as a comic foil to Hamlet’s
existential struggle with self-knowledge. In this sense Polonius offers an alternative
and far less extreme perspective on the impossibility of perfectly knowing oneself.
This difference between Polonius and Hamlet results in a powerful example of irony
in Act Three, when Hamlet mistakenly kills Polonius, thinking it’s Claudius. Whereas
Polonius’s lack of self-awareness is ultimately harmless, Hamlet’s lack of self-
certainty drives him to his first act of violence, which completely and tragically
misfires.

-Laertes:

Laertes is introduced as a loyal son and citizen. He is protective over his sister
Ophelia and grateful for Polonius’s blessing before he leaves Denmark. Although he
serves the crown well, family is clearly his priority and the institution he is most
willing to fight for. From this portrayal, Laertes is a man intensely focused on honor.

As soon as Laertes’s family is harmed, his sense of loyalty shows its darker, more
violent side. His temper leads him to walk, sword drawn, into the court and
announce his plans to kill Claudius in revenge for Polonius’s death. Claudius and
Gertrude just manage to calm him down before he sees Ophelia’s mental state and
flies into a rage again. His intense loyalty to his family, which initially seems an
honorable quality, blinds him to any course of action but violence in retribution.
Laertes’s methods for achieving revenge are simple and blunt: he intends to find
Hamlet and kill him on sight. It is only Claudius’s influence that convinces Laertes to
make Hamlet’s death look like an accident.

As a fellow son of a murdered father, Laertes serves as a foil for Hamlet. Like
Hamlet, Laertes is single-minded in his quest for retributive justice. Unlike Hamlet,
Laertes is decisive and active in how he goes about achieving that justice. Laertes
wastes no time seeking the person at fault for Polonius’s and Ophelia’s deaths. He is
upfront with his intentions to get revenge and capable of following through with
them. However, while this decisiveness seems preferable to Hamlet’s wallowing and
procrastination, Laertes—like Hamlet—still dies in the end, indicating that obsession
with one’s family leads to the same result.

-Horatio:

A loyal friend and level-headed scholar, Horatio serves as a source of stability for
both Hamlet and the audience throughout the play. He stands by Hamlet’s side as
the action unfolds, and although he is rarely a direct participant in it, his consistent
presence gives the audience a clearer understanding of the situational and
psychological forces that drive his friend to madness. Shakespeare establishes
Horatio and Hamlet as a close pair from the first act of the play, highlighting their
shared educational background and emphasizing their respect for one another. The
fact that both men are university students suggests that both have a similar
intellectual capacity, and this detail plays a key role in interpreting Hamlet’s reaction
to seeing his father’s ghost. Knowing how distraught Hamlet is over the death of his
father and the ascension of Claudius to the throne, his interaction with the ghost
may initially come across as pure madness. The fact that a man as rational as
Horatio can also see the ghost, however, emphasizes to the audience the legitimacy
of Hamlet’s private conversation with his father’s spirit.

As the play progresses, the consistency of Horatio’s character draws even greater
attention to the psychological deterioration of his companion. He appears in a
number of key scenes which are pivotal to Hamlet’s quest for revenge, and his
measured responses to these moments contrast significantly with his companion’s
growing anxieties. In Act 3, Scene 2, for example, Hamlet excitedly celebrates
Claudius’s suspicious reaction to the Players’ performance while Horatio calmly
agrees with him. This steady loyalty is what later lands Horatio at Hamlet’s side
during his famous graveyard soliloquy and drives him to advise his friend to sit out
the duel with Laertes. By the final act, Hamlet is far removed from the type of logical
reasoning that he and Horatio once shared, and he suffers greatly as a result.
Horatio may be willing to commit suicide in order to follow Hamlet in death, but the
fact that he is the only major character who survives at the end of the play further
reinforces his function as a figure of stability. This role invites the audience to find a
sense of peace and closure in the wake of tragedy.

-Fortinbras:

Although his appearances on stage are brief, the character of Fortinbras

nevertheless allows Shakespeare to deepen his exploration of major themes such
as the psychology of revenge and dimensions of heroism. The audience learns in
Act 1, Scene 1 that Fortinbras has lost his father, the former king of Norway. Hamlet’s
father killed Old Fortinbras in a duel, and in the aftermath of this loss, Fortinbras’s
uncle became king. This line of succession parallels Claudius’s rise to power in
Denmark and establishes a distinct connection between Fortinbras and Hamlet. As
the action of the play begins to develop, however, Shakespeare highlights the ways
in which these two princes are foils of one another. While Fortinbras sets out with an
army in order to reclaim land lost in the duel, Hamlet ruminates on the message
from his father’s spirit and struggles to implement his plans for revenge. Intertwining
these two narratives throughout the play highlights the contrast between acting on
impulse and premeditation. Given that Fortinbras survives and ultimately takes the
Danish throne, Shakespeare seems to suggest that action, rather than intellect
alone, is the key to success.

This value of action also emerges through characterizations of Fortinbras as heroic.

When Hamlet learns of Fortinbras’s plan to take back land in Act 4, Scene 4, he
delivers a soliloquy in which he seems to express admiration for his ability to act.
Describing Fortinbras as possessing “divine ambition,” Hamlet views his willingness
to fight for his family’s honor as a mark of greatness. Meanwhile, he laments his own
failures to follow through on his vow for revenge. Fortinbras’s final appearance at
the end of the play also gives him the opportunity to take on a heroic role as he
restores order in the kingdom and provides closure for the audience. Through
Fortinbras’s ultimate success, Shakespeare is able to offer a vision of what Hamlet’s
revenge could have been were it not for his psychological impairments.

-Rosencrantz & Guildenstern:

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern may be played by two individual actors on stage, but
given that they always appear together, they essentially function as a single
character. Childhood friends of Hamlet, Claudius and Gertrude summon them to
Elsinore with the hope that they can determine why their son is acting strangely.
While they may have once been genuine friends with Hamlet, Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern’s behavior throughout the play suggests that they care more about
themselves than anyone else. The pair first arrives at the castle in Act 2, Scene 2,
and in addition to emphasizing what great friends they are to Hamlet, Claudius and
Gertrude offer them a substantial reward for spying on their son. The fact that
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are willing to betray Hamlet’s trust in exchange for
compliments and a bribe highlights their questionable moral code. Unlike Horatio,
whom Hamlet trusts completely, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern fail to find a way
into their friend’s inner circle. Their pleasantries and expressions of concern are not
enough to convince Hamlet of their authenticity, although they are honest enough
to admit to him that the king summoned them to Denmark. Moments like this, as
well as their decision to bring Hamlet’s favorite acting troupe to the castle, redeem
them slightly, but their insistence on remaining involved in the conflict drives them
to become part of the rottenness plaguing the kingdom. Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern fail in their mission to uncover their friend’s secrets, so Claudius
recruits them to accompany Hamlet to England where, unbeknownst to them, he
will die. Hamlet once again outsmarts the pair, however, and they end up going to
their deaths instead. Their self-interested nature, both in terms of their desire for a
reward and their dismissal of Hamlet’s true condition, ultimately lead to their
downfall.

FULL PLAY ANALYSIS

In telling the story of a fatally indecisive character’s inability to choose the proper
course to avenge his father’s death, Hamlet explores questions of fate versus free
will, whether it is better to act decisively or let nature take its course, and ultimately
if anything we do in our time on earth makes any difference. Once he learns his
uncle has killed his father, Hamlet feels duty-bound to take decisive action, but he
has so many doubts about his situation and even about his own feelings that he
cannot decide what action to take. The conflict that drives the plot of Hamlet is
almost entirely internal: Hamlet wrestles with his own doubt and uncertainty in
search of something he believes strongly enough to act on. The play’s events are
side-effects of this internal struggle. Hamlet’s attempts to gather more evidence of
Claudius’s guilt alert Claudius to Hamlet’s suspicions, and as Hamlet’s internal
struggle deepens, he begins to act impulsively out of frustration, eventually
murdering Polonius by mistake. The conflict of Hamlet is never resolved: Hamlet
cannot finally decide what to believe or what action to take. This lack of resolution
makes the ending of Hamlet especially horrifying: nearly all the characters are dead,
but nothing has been solved.
The play’s exposition shows us that Hamlet is in the midst of three crises: his nation
is under attack, his family is falling apart, and he feels deeply unhappy. The Ghost of
the old king of Denmark appears on the castle battlements, and the soldiers who
see it believe it must be a bad omen for the kingdom. They discuss the preparations
being made against the threat from the Norwegian prince, Fortinbras. The next
scene deepens our sense that Denmark is in political crisis, as Claudius prepares a
diplomatic strategy to divert the threat from Fortinbras. We also learn that as far as
Hamlet is concerned, his family is in crisis: his father is dead and his mother has
married someone Hamlet disapproves of. Hamlet is also experiencing an internal
crisis. Gertrude and Claudius are worried about his mood, and in his first soliloquy
we discover that he feels suicidal: “O that this too, too sullied flesh would melt” ([Link].).

The three crises of the play’s opening—in the kingdom, in Hamlet’s family, and in
Hamlet’s mind—lay the groundwork for the play’s inciting incident: the Ghost’s
demand that Hamlet avenge his father’s death. Hamlet accepts at once that it is his
duty to take revenge, and the audience can also see that Hamlet’s revenge would
go some way to resolving the play’s three crises. By killing Claudius, Hamlet could in
one stroke remove a weak and immoral king, extract his mother from what he sees
as a bad marriage, and make himself king of Denmark. Throughout the inciting
incident, however, there are hints that Hamlet’s revenge will be derailed by an
internal struggle. The Ghost warns him: “Taint not thy mind nor let thy soul
contrive/Against thy mother aught” (I.v.). When Horatio and Marcellus catch up to
Hamlet after the Ghost’s departure, Hamlet is already talking in such a deranged
way that Horatio describes it as “wild and whirling” (I.v.), and Hamlet tells them that
he may fake an “antic disposition” (I.v.). The audience understands that the coming
conflict will not be between Hamlet and Claudius but between Hamlet and his own
mind.

For the whole of the second act—the play’s rising action—Hamlet delays his
revenge by pretending to be mad. We learn from Ophelia that Hamlet is behaving
as if he is mad with love for her. We see him make fun of Polonius by talking
nonsense which contains half-hidden jokes at Polonius’s expense. Hamlet tells
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that he has “lost all [his] mirth” ([Link].). Only at the end of
Act 2 do we learn the reason for Hamlet’s delaying tactics: he cannot work out his
true feelings about his duty to take revenge. First, he tells us, he doesn’t feel as
angry and vengeful as he thinks he should: “I[…]Peak like John-a-dreams, unpregnant
of my cause” ([Link].). Second, he’s worried that the Ghost wasn’t really a ghost but a
devil trying to trick him. He decides he needs more evidence of Claudius’s crime: “I’ll
have grounds/More relative than this” ([Link].).

As the rising action builds toward a climax, Hamlet’s internal struggle deepens until
he starts to show signs of really going mad. At the same time Claudius becomes
suspicious of Hamlet, which creates an external pressure on Hamlet to act. Hamlet
begins Act Three debating whether or not to kill himself: “To be or not to be—that is
the question” (III.i.), and moments later he hurls misogynistic abuse at Ophelia. He is
particularly upset about women’s role in marriage and childbirth—“Why wouldst
thou be a breeder of sinners?” (III.i.)—which reminds the audience of Hamlet’s earlier
disgust with his own mother and her second marriage. The troubling development
of Hamlet’s misogynistic feelings makes us wonder how much Hamlet’s desire to kill
Claudius is fuelled by the need to avenge his father’s death, and how much his
desire fuelled by Hamlet’s resentment of Claudius for taking his mother away from
him. Claudius, who is eavesdropping on Hamlet’s tirade, becomes suspicious that
Hamlet’s madness presents “some danger” (III.i.) and decides to have Hamlet sent
away: Hamlet is running out of time to take his revenge.

The play’s climax arrives when Hamlet stages a play to “catch the conscience of the
king” ([Link].) and get conclusive evidence of Claudius’s guilt. By now, however, Hamlet
seems to have truly gone mad. His own behavior at the play is so provocative that
when Claudius does respond badly to the play it’s unclear whether he feels guilty
about his crime or angry with Hamlet. As Claudius tries to pray, Hamlet has yet
another chance to take his revenge, and we learn that Hamlet’s apparent madness
has not ended his internal struggle over what to do: he decides not to kill Claudius
for now, this time because of the risk that Claudius will go to heaven if he dies while
praying. Hamlet accuses Gertrude of being involved in his father’s death, but he’s
acting so erratically that Gertrude thinks her son is simply “mad […] as the sea and
wind/When they each contend which is the mightier” ([Link]). Again, the audience
cannot know whether Gertrude says these lines as a cover for her own guilt, or
because she genuinely has no idea what Hamlet is talking about, and thinks her son
is losing his mind. Acting impulsively or madly, Hamlet mistakes Polonius for
Claudius and kills him.

The play’s falling action deals with the consequences of Polonius’s death. Hamlet is
sent away, Ophelia goes mad and Laertes returns from France to avenge his father’s
death. When Hamlet comes back to Elsinore, he no longer seems to be concerned
with revenge, which he hardly mentions after this point in the play. His internal
struggle is not over, however. Now Hamlet contemplates death, but he is unable to
come to any conclusion about the meaning or purpose of death, or to resign himself
to his own death. He is, however, less squeamish about killing innocent people, and
reports to Horatio how he signed the death warrants of Rosencranz and
Guildenstern to save his own life. Claudius and Laertes plot to kill Hamlet, but the
plot goes awry. Gertrude is poisoned by mistake, Laertes and Hamlet are both
poisoned, and as he dies Hamlet finally murders Claudius. Taking his revenge does
not end Hamlet’s internal struggle. He still has lots to say: “If I had time […] O I could
tell you— / But let it be” ([Link].) and he asks Horatio to tell his story when he is dead. In
the final moments of the play the new king, Fortinbras, agrees with this request: “Let
us haste to hear it” ([Link].). Hamlet’s life is over, but the struggle to decide the truth
about Hamlet and his life is not.

QUOTES BY THEME
-Madness:

I perchance hereafter shall think meet

To put an antic disposition on
(I.v.)
When the Ghost tells Hamlet about Claudius’s murder, Hamlet responds strangely:
he tells his friend Horatio and the watchman Marcellus that he is going to pretend to
be mad. He has no obvious reason to fake insanity, and Horatio, at least, seems to
think that Hamlet is already behaving strangely: he describes Hamlet’s words as
‘wild and whirling’ (I.v.132). Hamlet’s ‘antic disposition’ is one of the play’s great
mysteries. As the play continues, Hamlet behaves more and more eccentrically, and
neither the audience nor Hamlet’s other characters can be certain whether Hamlet is
pretending or not. Hamlet refuses to make straightforward distinctions between
madness and sanity, or between reality and pretense.
I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is
southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.
([Link].312–13)
Hamlet directs these lines to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. His words imply that,
just as the wind only occasionally blows from the north-north-west, so too is he only
occasionally struck by madness. These words also contain a warning. When Hamlet
uses the proverbial expression "I know a hawk from a handsaw," he indicates that he
remains mostly in control of his faculties and that he can still distinguish between
like and unlike things. In effect, Hamlet is warning his companions that he can tell
the difference between a friend and an enemy.

The body is with the King, but the King is not with the
body.
([Link].23–24)
Hamlet says this to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. His words sound like an example
of madness, and his two companions appear to take it as such. However, as with
many other examples of Hamlet's double-speak, there is a method to the (apparent)
madness. Here Hamlet refers to the metaphysical distinction between the king's
physical body and the body of the state for which he serves as the head. The first
half of the sentence may refer to either of these two understandings of body, but
the second half seems to refer directly to Polonius, a "king" who's been separated
from his body through death.

Her speech is nothing,

Yet the unshapèd use of it doth move
The hearers to collection. They yawn at it
And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts,
Which, as her winks and nods and gestures yield them,
Indeed would make one think there might be thought,
Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.
(IV.v.7–13)
In these lines a gentleman reports to Gertrude and Horatio concerning Ophelia's
descent into madness and her incoherence—that is, her "unshapèd use" of
language. What's interesting here is the gentleman's emphasis on how others strive
to make sense of her bewildering language. Ophelia seems to act in a way that
implies her words carry intentional meaning, and so those around her seek to
rearrange (i.e., "botch") the words in order to make some sense of them. But the
gentleman persists in thinking that her words represent pure madness. Thus, "Her
speech is nothing."

Young men will do’t if they come to’t,

By Cock they are to blame
(IV.v.)
Unlike Hamlet’s madness, Ophelia’s madness is unquestionably genuine.
Nevertheless there is a mystery about her mental condition. In her madness, Ophelia
sings snatches of songs, most of which sound like popular songs of Shakespeare’s
day. Her choice of songs seems to reveal two obsessions. The first is with the death
of fathers and old men, which isn’t surprising, because her father has just died. The
second is with young men who seduce young women but don’t marry them. Many
readers have wondered whether she is thinking of Hamlet—but it’s impossible to
know for sure.

Was 't Hamlet wronged Laertes? Never Hamlet.

If Hamlet from himself be ta'en away,
And when he's not himself does wrong Laertes,
Then Hamlet does it not. Hamlet denies it.
Who does it, then? His madness.
([Link].203–7)
Just before they begin their fencing match, Hamlet acknowledges the pain he has
caused Laertes. In these lines, however, Hamlet also denies responsibility for having
killed Laertes' father. He indicates that his fit of madness effectively separated
himself from himself, and he underscores this sense of distance from himself by
speaking in the third person. Having been separated from himself, Hamlet argues
that he cannot be held responsible for any act that his madness, in fact, committed.

-Performance:
These indeed “seem”
For they are actions that a man might play
([Link].)
When Gertrude asks Hamlet why he still seems so upset about his father’s death,
Hamlet takes offence at her use of the word “seems.” He describes his clothes and
appearance at some length before agreeing—strangely—that everything he’s said
so far could indeed be an actor’s performance. “But,” he adds, “I have that within
which passes show” ([Link].). Both Hamlet and the audience will have to wrestle with the
difficulty of telling pretend or performed feelings from the real feelings which
characters cannot “show”.

The play’s the thing

Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King
([Link].)
When the Players arrive, Hamlet decides to stage a play in which Claudius’s crime is
represented, because Hamlet has heard that seeing their own crimes on stage
sometimes makes people reveal their guilt. Hamlet believes very strongly in the
power of theatre to touch people’s innermost feelings. Nevertheless, Hamlet’s
decision to stage a play is a strange one. He has struggled over and over with the
difficulty of discovering a person’s real feelings from their outward presentation, and
yet he seems to believe he will be able to discover Claudius’s guilt by watching his
face at the play. This line suggests that Hamlet is not being entirely honest with
himself. The play may be just another delaying tactic.

The purpose of playing[…] is to hold as ‘twere the mirror up to Nature

([Link].20-22)
Before the Players go on stage, Hamlet gives them a lecture about acting. This line
shows us that Hamlet is a true theatre-lover, but it also reveals his awareness of the
slippery distinction between reality and performance. The thrust of Hamlet’s lecture
is that acting should be as close as possible to reality, in order to reflect reality back
at the audience. As Hamlet continues, however, the closeness of Hamlet’s own
performance to reality troubles us: we find it more and more difficult to tell the
difference between Hamlet’s real feelings and his performed madness.
What’s Hecuba to him, or he to her,
That he should weep for her?
([Link].)
As Hamlet watches the First Player perform a speech about the legendary Queen
Hecuba, Hamlet is amazed to see the Player begin to weep. Hamlet compares
himself to the Player: while the Player weeps for a person he never knew, Hamlet
has so far done nothing to avenge his own murdered father. This contrast creates a
whole new layer of doubt for Hamlet. Can his feelings about his father be real if they
are not making him act? When performed feelings are so convincing, how can he
tell between a performance and reality?

Call the noblest to the audience

([Link].)
In the play’s final moments, the new King, Fortinbras, agrees to Hamlet’s dying
request—relayed by Horatio—that Hamlet’s story should be told again. Fortinbras
gives the necessary orders in strikingly theatrical language, creating a sense that
although Hamlet is ending, another play is about to begin. Hamlet’s body will be
carried “to the stage” ([Link].) and a new audience will try to decide the truth of
Hamlet’s story. The last moments of the play suggest that in the world of Hamlet,
there is no end to uncertainty, and no end to performance.

-Decomposition and decay:

The satirical rogue says here that old men have grey beards, that their faces are
wrinkled[…]and that they have a plentiful lack of wit together with most weak
hams ([Link].193-7)
When Polonius asks Hamlet what he is reading, Hamlet teases Polonius by
pretending that his book is about old men. Hamlet frequently dwells on the physical
and mental deterioration that comes with age. In other ways, too, this scene reveals
Hamlet’s obsession with decay. He compares human conception and childbearing
to “maggots in a dead dog” ([Link].).

O, my offence is rank; it smells to heaven

([Link].36)
In a soliloquy—the only soliloquy in the play not spoken by Hamlet—Claudius admits
murdering his brother, and he describes his guilt in the language of decay. His crime
smells bad, like something going off. Throughout Hamlet, moral faults are described
in the language of rot, decay and disease. The Ghost’s “foul crimes” must be “purged
away” (I.v: purging was a Renaissance medical procedure) and Gertrude sees “black
and grievèd spots” ([Link].) on her soul. This line creates a sense that the decay and
sickness which infects everything in Hamlet has a spiritual dimension: the characters
are not just doomed to die but doomed to damnation.

Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio

(V.i.174)
This line—one of the most famous in literature—is prompted by Hamlet’s discovery
that the skull he is holding belongs to his father’s former fool, Yorick. In a play
obsessed with death and decay, the appearance of an actual skull on stage is a
climactic moment, and it causes Hamlet to meditate at length on the horror of
decomposition: “My gorge rises at it” (V.i.). Hamlet remembers Yorick’s “gambols,
your songs, your flashes of merriment” (V.i.), which creates an eerie effect: none of
Hamlet’s other characters could be described as jolly, but Yorick’s skull is still
“grinning” (V.i.).

-Doubt:

l’ll have grounds

More relative than this
([Link].538-9)
For the whole of the second act, Hamlet delays his revenge: although he trusted the
Ghost at first, he has begun to wonder whether the Ghost might actually be a devil
trying to tempt him into committing a terrible sin. It’s too great a risk to murder
Claudius on the evidence of the Ghost’s testimony: Hamlet needs more proof of
Claudius’s guilt. Throughout the play, Hamlet struggles with the impossibility of
being absolutely certain about anything.

You should not have believed me

(III.i.116)
In the space of five lines Hamlet tells Ophelia that “I did love you once” (III.i.) and also
that “I loved you not” (III.i.). The audience finds itself in the same position as Ophelia:
we don’t know what to believe. Hamlet reveals more of his innermost thoughts than
any of Shakespeare’s characters, but he still remains in many ways a mystery. We
never learn whether he really loved Ophelia, or why he decides to treat her so badly
as he pursues his revenge. It may even be that Hamlet himself does not know the
answer to these questions. At the heart of Hamlet lies profound uncertainty and
doubt.
The rest is silence
([Link].342)
These are Hamlet’s last words. Unlike many of Shakespeare’s tragic heroes, Hamlet
never resigns himself to death or embraces it. He spends his final moments
imagining the world after his death and begging Horatio to ‘report me and my cause
aright’ ([Link].323). When death finally catches up to him, Hamlet’s greatest regret is
that he must stop talking. Despite the thousands of dazzling words Hamlet has
poured out, he has gotten no closer to understanding the truth or purpose of his life.

-Misogyny:
Frailty, thy name is Woman
([Link].146)
Hamlet begins the play extremely upset by his mother’s remarriage: in his first
soliloquy, he pours contempt on his mother, and he extends that contempt to all
women. Here he blames the “frailty” of women for his mother’s decision. As the play
progresses, Hamlet reveals his obsession with a specific form of what he sees as
female frailty: his mother’s vulnerability to sexual temptation. When Hamlet finally
confronts his mother, her sexuality is what seems to offend him. He accuses her of
“honeying and making love/Over the nasty sty” ([Link].).

I have heard of your paintings well enough. God hath given you one face and you
make yourselves another[…] It hath made me mad.
(III.i.141-6).
During an angry tirade against Ophelia, Hamlet blames his madness on women,
particularly on what he sees as women’s habit of disguising themselves with make-
up and feminine behavior. Hamlet often struggles with the difficulty of separating
disguises from reality, but he also seems obsessed with female sexuality. Earlier in
his tirade against Ophelia he tells her: “Get thee to a nunnery” (III.i). Although it’s
impossible to pin down the exact nature of Hamlet’s madness, his misogynistic
outbursts suggest that his feelings about women play an important role in it.

-Plotting, Spying and Stratagems:

Look you, sir,

Inquire me first what Danskers are in Paris,
And how, and who, what means, and where they keep,
What company, at what expense; and finding
By this encompassment and drift of question
That they do know my son, come you more nearer
Than your particular demands will touch it.
(II.i.6–12)
At the top of Act II Polonius instructs Reynaldo to spy on his son, Laertes, in Paris.
Polonius goes into great detail, explaining not only the types of information he
wants, but also how Reynaldo should go about procuring that information. Although
it isn't entirely clear what reasons Polonius has for spying on his son, his plot does
demonstrate that he is a scheming and potentially treacherous figure.

I'll have these players

Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle. I'll observe his looks.
I'll tent him to the quick. If 'a do blench,
I know my course.
([Link].520–24)
In a long soliloquy in Act II, Hamlet announces his intention to use the troupe of
players to set a trap for Claudius. He will instruct the troupe to perform a scene that
reenacts Claudius' murder of the king. During the performance Hamlet will spy (or,
as it actually happens in Act III, he will have Horatio spy) on Claudius to see if his
reaction to the scene incriminates him. If Claudius "do blench" (i.e., flinch), Hamlet
will know what to do next.

For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither.

That he, as 'twere by accident, may here
Affront Ophelia. Her father and myself,
We'll so bestow ourselves that, seeing unseen,
We may of their encounter frankly judge,
And gather by him, as he is behaved,
If 't be th' affliction of his love or no
That thus he suffers for.
(III.i.29–36)
Here Claudius explains to Gertrude his plan to spy on Hamlet and Ophelia. He and
Polonius will hide and look on to see what Hamlet does when he arrives. They
believe that if Hamlet doesn't know he's being watched, he'll act without pretense
and give them a better sense of what's going on with him. More specifically, they
believe his behavior will demonstrate once and for all whether or not his love for
Ophelia has caused his "affliction" of melancholy and madness.

Let's further think of this,

Weigh what convenience both of time and means
May fit us to our shape. If this should fail,
And that our drift look through our bad performance,
'Twere better no assayed. Therefore this project
Should have a back or second that might hold
If this did blast in proof.
([Link].146–52)

Claudius utters these lines to Laertes as they fashion their plot to kill Hamlet.
Claudius emphasizes that he and Laertes will have to perform like actors, and he
worries that if a "bad performance" should reveal their scheme, they will need some
backup plan to ensure Hamlet's death no matter what. Following this quote,
Claudius goes on to say that if Laertes does not manage to kill Hamlet in their duel,
then a poisoned chalice of wine shall be offered to Hamlet following the match.
THEMES, SYMBOLISM & MOTIFS IN
DORAN GRAY
-Themes:

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.
The Purpose of Art
When The Picture of Dorian Gray was first published in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine in
1890, it was decried as immoral. In revising the text the following year, Wilde
included a preface, which serves as a useful explanation of his philosophy of art. The
purpose of art, according to this series of epigrams, is to have no purpose. In order
to understand this claim fully, one needs to consider the moral climate of Wilde’s
time and the Victorian sensibility regarding art and morality. The Victorians believed
that art could be used as a tool for social education and moral enlightenment, as
illustrated in works by writers such as Charles Dickens and George Gissing. The
aestheticism movement, of which Wilde was a major proponent, sought to free art
from this responsibility. The aestheticists were motivated as much by a contempt for
bourgeois morality—a sensibility embodied in Dorian Gray by Lord Henry, whose
every word seems designed to shock the ethical certainties of the burgeoning
middle class—as they were by the belief that art need not possess any other
purpose than being beautiful.
If this philosophy informed Wilde’s life, we must then consider whether his only
novel bears it out. The two works of art that dominate the novel—Basil’s painting and
the mysterious yellow book that Lord Henry gives Dorian—are presented in the vein
more of Victorian sensibilities than of aesthetic ones. That is, both the portrait and
the French novel serve a purpose: the first acts as a type of mysterious mirror that
shows Dorian the physical dissipation his own body has been spared, while the
second acts as something of a road map, leading the young man farther along the
path toward infamy. While we know nothing of the circumstances of the yellow
book’s composition, Basil’s state of mind while painting Dorian’s portrait is clear.
Later in the novel, he advocates that all art be “unconscious, ideal, and remote.” His
portrait of Dorian, however, is anything but. Thus, Basil’s initial refusal to exhibit the
work results from his belief that it betrays his idolization of his subject. Of course,
one might consider that these breaches of aesthetic philosophy mold The Picture of
Dorian Gray into something of a cautionary tale: these are the prices that must be
paid for insisting that art reveals the artist or a moral lesson. But this warning is, in
itself, a moral lesson, which perhaps betrays the impossibility of Wilde’s project. If,
as Dorian observes late in the novel, the imagination orders the chaos of life and
invests it with meaning, then art, as the fruit of the imagination, cannot help but
mean something. Wilde may have succeeded in freeing his art from the confines of
Victorian morality, but he has replaced it with a doctrine that is, in its own way, just
as restrictive.
 Advertisement

The Supremacy of Youth and Beauty

The first principle of aestheticism, the philosophy of art by which Oscar Wilde lived,
is that art serves no other purpose than to offer beauty. Throughout The Picture of
Dorian Gray, beauty reigns. It is a means to revitalize the wearied senses, as indicated
by the effect that Basil’s painting has on the cynical Lord Henry. It is also a means of
escaping the brutalities of the world: Dorian distances himself, not to mention his
consciousness, from the horrors of his actions by devoting himself to the study of
beautiful things—music, jewels, rare tapestries. In a society that prizes beauty so
highly, youth and physical attractiveness become valuable commodities. Lord
Henry reminds Dorian of as much upon their first meeting, when he laments that
Dorian will soon enough lose his most precious attributes. In Chapter Seventeen, the
Duchess of Monmouth suggests to Lord Henry that he places too much value on
these things; indeed, Dorian’s eventual demise confirms her suspicions. For although
beauty and youth remain of utmost importance at the end of the novel—the portrait
is, after all, returned to its original form—the novel suggests that the price one must
pay for them is exceedingly high. Indeed, Dorian gives nothing less than his soul.

The Superficial Nature of Society

It is no surprise that a society that prizes beauty above all else is a society founded
on a love of surfaces. What matters most to Dorian, Lord Henry, and the polite
company they keep is not whether a man is good at heart but rather whether he is
handsome. As Dorian evolves into the realization of a type, the perfect blend of
scholar and socialite, he experiences the freedom to abandon his morals without
censure. Indeed, even though, as Basil warns, society’s elite question his name and
reputation, Dorian is never ostracized. On the contrary, despite his “mode of life,” he
remains at the heart of the London social scene because of the “innocence” and
“purity of his face.” As Lady Narborough notes to Dorian, there is little (if any)
distinction between ethics and appearance: “you are made to be good—you look so
good.”

The Negative Consequences of Influence

The painting and the yellow book have a profound effect on Dorian, influencing him
to predominantly immoral behavior over the course of nearly two decades.
Reflecting on Dorian’s power over Basil and deciding that he would like to seduce
Dorian in much the same way, Lord Henry points out that there is “something terribly
enthralling in the exercise of influence.” Falling under the sway of such influence is,
perhaps, unavoidable, but the novel ultimately censures the sacrifice of one’s self to
another. Basil’s idolatry of Dorian leads to his murder, and Dorian’s devotion to Lord
Henry’s hedonism and the yellow book precipitate his own downfall. It is little
wonder, in a novel that prizes individualism—the uncompromised expression of
self—that the sacrifice of one’s self, whether it be to another person or to a work of
art, leads to one’s destruction.

-Men & Women:

Lord Henry’s philosophies frequently criticize women and marriage, and the era
of Dorian Gray’s London society, and indeed Oscar Wilde’s, becomes vivid to us in
his dialogu e. He says that women are a “decorative sex”, and that there are

always only a few worth talking to. We see his marriage with Lady Victoria
Wotton as a very separate affair, both parties leading distinct lives and meeting the
other occasionally. When Victoria leaves him, Henry expresses sadness and misses
her company. Though his description of sadness is far from a romantic declaration, it
does seem that many of the women provide the male characters with essential and
distracting company, and actually, it is the hostesses that at times enable the
lifestyles of connection and fashion that men like Henry and Dorian boast of. Ladies
like Lady Narborough and the Duchess are the connectors. Henry says of the
Duchess Gladys that her clever tongue gets on his nerves, which is comically
hypocritical. And she has the same disregard of her husband as the men have for
women when she falls in love with Dorian. In this way, she is used to illuminate the
actions and paradoxes of the men’s world.
With women taking somewhat of a back seat in Dorian’s tale, the romantic energy
between the men takes center stage. Though there are no explicitly homosexual
relationships, there are definitely homoerotic ones, and words like "admiration" and
"fascination" begin to acquire a double meaning in the text. In a world where beauty
is the ideal and knowledge is attractive, the older gentlemen’s longing for Dorian
and his admiration of them adds another layer of taboo to the secrecy of the
characters’ private lives.

-Motifs:
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The picture of Dorian Gray, “the most magical of mirrors,” shows Dorian the physical
burdens of age and sin from which he has been spared. For a time, Dorian sets his
conscience aside and lives his life according to a single goal: achieving pleasure. His
painted image, however, asserts itself as his conscience and hounds him with the
knowledge of his crimes: there he sees the cruelty he showed to Sibyl Vane and the
blood he spilled killing Basil Hallward.

Homoerotic Male Relationships

The homoerotic bonds between men play a large role in structuring the novel.
Basil’s painting depends upon his adoration of Dorian’s beauty; similarly, Lord Henry
is overcome with the desire to seduce Dorian and mold him into the realization of a
type. This camaraderie between men fits into Wilde’s larger aesthetic values, for it
returns him to antiquity, where an appreciation of youth and beauty was not only
fundamental to culture but was also expressed as a physical relationship between
men. As a homosexual living in an intolerant society, Wilde asserted this philosophy
partially in an attempt to justify his own lifestyle. For Wilde, homosexuality was not a
sordid vice but rather a sign of refined culture. As he claimed rather romantically
during his trial for “gross indecency” between men, the affection between an older
and younger man places one in the tradition of Plato, Michelangelo, and
Shakespeare.

The Color White

Interestingly, Dorian’s trajectory from figure of innocence to figure of degradation
can be charted by Wilde’s use of the color white. White usually connotes innocence
and blankness, as it does when Dorian is first introduced. It is, in fact, “the white
purity” of Dorian’s boyhood that Lord Henry finds so captivating. Basil invokes
whiteness when he learns that Dorian has sacrificed his innocence, and, as the artist
stares in horror at the ruined portrait, he quotes a biblical verse from the Book of
Isaiah: “Though your sins be as scarlet, yet I will make them as white as snow.” But
the days of Dorian’s innocence are over. It is a quality he now eschews, and,
tellingly, when he orders flowers, he demands “as few white ones as possible.”
When the color appears again, in the form of James Vane’s face—“like a white
handkerchief”—peering in through a window, it has been transformed from the color
of innocence to the color of death. It is this threatening pall that makes Dorian long,
at the novel’s end, for his “rose-white boyhood,” but the hope is in vain, and he
proves unable to wash away the stains of his sins.

-Symbols:

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or
concepts.
The Opium Dens
The opium dens, located in a remote and derelict section of London, represent the
sordid state of Dorian’s mind. He flees to them at a crucial moment. After killing
Basil, Dorian seeks to forget the awfulness of his crimes by losing consciousness in a
drug-induced stupor. Although he has a canister of opium in his home, he leaves the
safety of his neat and proper parlor to travel to the dark dens that reflect the
degradation of his soul.

James Vane
James Vane is less a believable character than an embodiment of Dorian’s tortured
conscience. As Sibyl’s brother, he is a rather flat caricature of the avenging relative.
Still, Wilde saw him as essential to the story, adding his character during his revision
of 1891. Appearing at the dock and later at Dorian’s country estate, James has an
almost spectral quality. Like the ghost of Jacob Marley in Charles Dickens’s A
Christmas Carol, who warns Scrooge of the sins he will have to face, James appears
with his face “like a white handkerchief” to goad Dorian into accepting responsibility
for the crimes he has committed.

The Yellow Book

Lord Henry gives Dorian a copy of the yellow book as a gift. Although he never gives
the title, Wilde describes the book as a French novel that charts the outrageous
experiences of its pleasure-seeking protagonist (we can fairly assume that the book
in question is Joris-Karl Huysman’s decadent nineteenth-century novel À
Rebours, translated as “Against the Grain” or “Against Nature”). The book becomes
like holy scripture to Dorian, who buys nearly a dozen copies and bases his life and
actions on it. The book represents the profound and damaging influence that art can
have over an individual and serves as a warning to those who would surrender
themselves so completely to such an influence.

QUOTES BY THEME
-Appearances:
I am less to you than your ivory Hermes or your silver Faun. You will like them
always. How long will you like me? Till I have my first wrinkle, I suppose.
Dorian makes a wry observation about Basil’s preoccupation with beauty after
seeing in the finished painting how Basil idealized Dorian’s own handsomeness.
Dorian accuses Basil of preferring art to his friends, because pieces of art will never
change or grow old. The painting has made Dorian realize both the power and the
transient nature of appearances, and he becomes jealous of anything that will
remain beautiful forever. His accusation of Basil reveals that Dorian projects his
feelings onto others, assuming they feel as he does. Basil has made it clear that he
values Dorian for more than his looks.
Sibyl is the only thing I care about. What is it to me where she came from? From
her little head to her little feet, she is absolutely and entirely divine.
Dorian describes his adoration for Sibyl Vane to Lord Henry. Dorian previously
explained that the theater manager wanted to tell him about Sibyl’s past, but he was
not interested in learning more about her. Sibyl herself attracts him and he regards
her history with other people as irrelevant. His observations on her petite body and
porcelain skin reveal that Dorian’s feelings for Sibyl focus on her appearance rather
than her personality. Dorian not only values his own good looks, but those of others
as well.

Dorian says she is beautiful, and he is not often wrong about things of that kind.
Your portrait of him has quickened his appreciation of the personal appearance
of other people.
As Lord Henry tells Basil of Dorian’s engagement to Sibyl, he explains what he
knows of Sibyl from Dorian. Her appearance made a strong first impression with
Dorian, a key piece of information that Lord Henry feels necessary to pass on to
Basil. Although Dorian must have been aware of his good looks before Basil painted
his portrait, he did not place much value in his appearance until seeing the portrait.
As a result, he now sees beauty as the only thing worth having or noticing.

And yet who, that knew anything about Life, would surrender the chance of
remaining always young, however fantastic that chance might be, or with what
fateful consequences it might be fraught?
Dorian sees what his actions have done to his soul in the name of youth and beauty.
He considers praying to undo the link between his soul and his portrait. Yet here
Dorian reveals that even though he’s seen his soul’s decline, he doesn’t consider this
consequence severe enough to try to alter the situation. His rationalization that
anyone who “knew anything about Life” would make the same choice has an
element of dramatic irony: Dorian’s still-young life hasn’t given him the experience
to assess the cost of remaining young and beautiful.

-Art:
Good artists simply exist in what they make, and consequently are perfectly
uninteresting in what they are. A great poet, a really great poet, is the most
unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating.
Lord Henry shares his ideas about artists, including Basil, with Dorian. Lord Henry repeats
the idea throughout the novel that interesting people cannot be good artists because artists
must give their entire selves over to their work. He sees art as basically a different realm
from life itself, suggesting that artists do not relate meaningfully to the world, having
invested everything of themselves into their art.
How little you can know of love if you say it mars your art! Without your art you
are nothing.
Dorian responds to Sibyl after she explains that, now that she has experienced real love,
she can no longer professionally act. Dorian lashes out because her pursuit and excellence
in the art of acting played a large role in her appeal. Just as he believes nothing in his life
has any significance compared to his beauty, he sees Sibyl’s art as essential to her
personality.

I am so glad that you have never done anything—never carved a statue, or

painted a picture, or produced anything outside of yourself! Life has been your
art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.
After Dorian laments what has become of his life, Lord Henry remarks on the
accomplishments Dorian has made. Just as Lord Henry believes that artists put all of
themselves into their art, he sees Dorian as having put all of himself into living well and
enjoying life. If Dorian had tried to do anything else, he could not have been as fully
committed to his way of living. However, the reader knows that because Dorian has put so
much into the spectacle of his life, he has never contemplated his own soul.

-Good Vs Evil:
I love Sibyl Vane. I want to place her on a pedestal of gold and to see the world
worship the woman who is mine. What is marriage? An irrevocable vow. You
mock at it for that. Ah! don’t mock. It is an irrevocable vow that I want to take. Her
trust makes me faithful, her belief makes me good. When I am with her, I regret
all that you have taught me. I become different from what you have known me to
be. I am changed, and the mere touch of Sibyl Vane’s hand makes me forget you
and all your wrong, fascinating, poisonous, delightful theories.
Dorian responds to Lord Henry’s questioning his need for marriage to Sibyl Vane. Until
Dorian met Lord Henry, he led an innocuous life, innocent of any wrongdoing. Lord Henry
has acted as an influence of evil in Dorian’s life, an influence that Dorian embraced.
However, after meeting Sibyl, Dorian begins to question all he has learned from Lord
Henry. Dorian feels pulled in two different directions, good and evil.

He was prisoned in thought. Memory, like a horrible malady, was eating his soul
away. From time to time he seemed to see the eyes of Basil Hallward looking at
him. Yet he felt he could not stay. The presence of Adrian Singleton troubled him.
He wanted to be where no one would know who he was. He wanted to escape
from himself.
The narrator reveals Dorian’s inner thoughts and feelings after he arrives at the opium den.
Now that Dorian has corrupted other people and committed murder, he knows that he has
fully given up on trying to live a good life and can be considered evil. In his mind’s eye he
sees Basil, who appears as a timeless paragon of goodness, as well as memories of his
former life, and Dorian cannot bear the guilt. Other than when he viewed his marred
portrait, this reflection represents the first time Dorian realizes the consequences of his
actions and feels any remorse.

-Morality:
How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will
remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June…. If it
were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture
that was to grow old! For that—for that—I would give everything! Yes, there is
nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!
Dorian has just seen the finished portrait of himself and makes a wish that he has no idea
will come true. Although he does not expect his wish to be granted, the timeless portrait’s
grim reminder of the fleeting nature of beauty arouses Dorian’s desperation to find a way
to stop aging. His claim that he would give his soul in exchange for eternal youth reveals
how much he fears his own mortality.

The next day he did not leave the house, and, indeed, spent most of the time in
his own room, sick with a wild terror of dying, and yet indifferent to life itself.
The narrator explains how Dorian responds after seeing James Vane in the window of his
country home and fainting from the sight. Dorian fears that James Vane has come to kill
him as revenge for his sister’s suicide. However, he does not care much about the value of
his own life in the moment, and it seems he never has. Even when finally faced with his own
mortality, Dorian does not feel the need to make his life worthwhile.

-Influence:
But in some curious way—I wonder will you understand me?—his personality has
suggested to me an entirely new manner in art, an entirely new mode of style. I
see things differently, I think of them differently. I can now recreate life in a way
that was hidden from me before.
Basil explains to Lord Henry the effect Dorian has on him as a person and as an
artist. Although Basil has always been a talented painter, Dorian brings out his very
best skills. Lord Henry becomes interested in how Dorian’s power over Basil can
influence his art so much, and later decides to influence Dorian in the same way.
While Dorian’s influence over Basil was unintended, Lord Henry’s intentional
manipulation has drastic consequences for Dorian.

Because to influence a person is to give him one’s own soul. He does not think his
natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him.
His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of
someone else’s music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The
aim of life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly—that is what
each of us is here for.

Soon after they first meet, Lord Henry explains to Dorian the immorality of one
person exerting influence on another. He claims that influencing anyone else would
take away that person’s chance to know who they truly are. Of course, Lord Henry
then takes it upon himself to remake Dorian to think and act in the same way he
does. Although Lord Henry characterizes his influence as immoral, he does not
necessarily care about acting immorally.

Talking to him was like playing upon an exquisite violin. He answered to every
touch and thrill of the bow…. There was something terribly enthralling in the
exercise of influence. No other activity was like it.
Lord Henry reflects on what it feels like spending time with Dorian Gray. He thinks of
hearing his own ideas echoed in Dorian’s voice, which shows how easily he
manipulates young Dorian. Lord Henry compares this feeling to playing music, with
complete control of what comes out of the instrument. We can see that Lord Henry
views his use of influence as a form of art on its own.

Yes… his painting had quite gone off. It seemed to me to have lost something. It
had lost an ideal. When you and he ceased to be great friends, he ceased to be a
great artist.
As Lord Henry and Dorian discuss Basil’s disappearance, Lord Henry reflects on the
fact that Basil’s artistic ability diminished after Dorian stopped spending as much
time with him. Lord Henry’s observation shows that Dorian influenced Basil’s art a
great deal, and the difference could be seen in Basil’s work and not simply sensed
by Basil’s imagination. Lord Henry laments that even if Basil had lived, he would
never have produced another great work of art.