Tragedy in Shakespeare’s Drama“Tragedy revolves around the primary contract of man and nature, the contract fulfilled by man’s death, death being, as we say, the debt he owes to nature. What makes tragedy tragic, and not simply ironic, is the presence in it of a countermovement of being that we call the heroic, a capacity for action or passion, for doing or suffering, which is above ordinary human existence.”1 While the role and effect of the gods was an important feature for Classical drama, by Elizabethan times the gods were treated as the personifications of natural forces, lending tragedy written by Elizabethans a social, political and historical thematic focus less prevalent in earlier times. The Elizabethans also downplayed Christian conceptions in their tragedies, often choosing royalty or nobility as their focal heroic and tragic figure. To them, nature had an order, and it was from a wheel of fortune which, set in motion by ambition, that provides consequence. Dramatic tragedy is the study of the interplay of cause and effect, usually magnified out onto a grand scale. The tragic figure could be overall a good man, or an evil one, as it was the story of heroic levels of tragedy itself which propels the inevitable conflict and resolution of nature and fate. An important feature is that tragedy provides a completion to a tale, if only because the hero usually ends up dead. History is a major component in Shakespeare’s tragedies, even more so than most of his contemporaries. Frye discerns three types of tragedies in Elizabethan drama: there’s the social tragedy, which has its roots in a sense of history and involves the fall of royalty. There’s the tragedy of lovers, with personal, passionate, and social aspects. There’s the tragedy of the search for identity. Frye terms these tragedies of order (exemplified by Macbeth, Hamlet, and Julius Ceasar), passion (Romeo and Juliet, Troilus and Cressida), and tragedies of isolation (King Lear, Othello), and recognizes that each contains overlapping elements. Shakespeare makes use of the supernatural in some of his tragedies, although in a different way than in his other plays. They provide a focal point for madness, and these incidences also work to provide limits on human perspective and endeavor. Ghosts are related to the dominant ruling figures, and come in and out of scenes with purpose, not to stun the audience. Supernatural and extra-natural and meteorological events occur in large part to paint an atmosphere of unpredictability in the face of ordered nature. The human events in the tragedies reflect this atmosphere, on their own scale. Intertwined within his plays, as well as many others of the Elizabethan era, are the notions of personal loyalty, tragic revenge, and the setting of events into motion that develop into an ambiance of existential irony. Drama is heightened; it can be said that the increase in the drama increases the audience’s appreciation for the tragedy. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, is a classic Shakespearean tragedy of the “order” type. First presented in 1602, it is set in Elsinore, Denmark, at the beginning of the 13th century. The late king of Denmark was haunting Elsinore Castle. Horatio brought the prince, Hamlet, to visit the ghost. Hamlet hadn’t taken his father’s death well – he had doubts about the stated cause, and he is also concerned that his mother, Gertrude, has taken Claudius (Hamlet’s uncle) to husband a tad too quickly. The ghost informed his son that Claudius had murdered him, and that vengeance would be appropriate, but he wanted Gertrude spared. Hamlet left with some doubt as to whether the ghost was really his father’s shade, or some evil spirit. Claudius, faced with potential war with Norway, as well as a nephew he couldn’t decide was either mad or over-ambitious, hired two of Hamlet’s friends to spy on him. This failed, as Hamlet figured out what was what easily. Meanwhile, the chamberlain also started spying on Hamlet, thinking that the latter was smitten by his daughter, Ophelia. It was in this atmosphere that Hamlet decided to hire a troupe of players to re-enact in play form the death day of his father as relayed to him by the ghost, and had the performance presented to Claudius. Claudius indeed was unnerved, and walked out from the play before it concluded. Thus, Hamlet decided to kill his uncle. After a confrontation with his mother, Hamlet (thinking it was Claudius behind the curtains) killed the snooping chamberlain. King Claudius sent him to England to have the English kill him. Hamlet discovered this, altered the orders so that the friends who bore this note would die instead, and he returned to Denmark. Meanwhile, Ophelia had committed suicide, and her brother decided to revenge their father’s death – he thought it was Claudius, although Claudius managed to convince the brother, Laertes, that it was Hamlet’s doing. Claudius encouraged a duel between the two, and stacked the deck by giving Laertes a poisoned sword and providing a cup of poison for Hamlet to take care of any thirst he might have during the duel. Gertrude, unaware, drank the poison. Laertes poisoned Hamlet with a blade thrust, and Hamlet dealt Laertes a fatal wound. As they were all dying, Laertes told Hamlet that Claudius had poisoned the sword, and so Hamlet immediately leapt up to kill Claudius before he himself died. Since Denmark was now king-less, young Fortinbras of Norway (whose own father had been slain by Hamlet’s father before the story onset), takes the throne. Hamlet’s apparent indecisions during the play is not a sign of weakness, rather Shakespeare was giving voice to the drama of ideas and thought. Action is important; but the knowledge of what to do is not laid out clearly – as in so many aspects of life, to begin with. Here, such need for knowledge is magnified in its ramifications. In this play, there are three tragic arcs – each of a murdered father and an avenging son. Hamlet avenges his father. Laertes avenges the chamberlain. Fortinbras, while not exactly avenging his own father in the same way, gains what his father had been killed trying to acquire. “Hamlet is forced to strike everything out of his ‘tables’ that represents thought and feeling and observation and awareness, and concentrate solely on hatred and revenge, a violent alteration of his natural mental habits that make his assuming madness only partly voluntary. It is the paradox of tragedy that he shows us infinitely more than hatred and revenge, and that nothing is left of it except silence for him and the telling of his story for us.” 3 References: 1) Northrop Frye. My Father as He Slept: The Tragedy of Order. In: William Shakespeare – The Tragedies (Modern Critical Views), edited by Harold Bloom, 1985. Chelsea House Publishers, New York. 2) Harry Levin. Interrogation, Doubt, Irony: Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis. In: William Shakespeare – The Tragedies (Modern Critical Views), edited by Harold Bloom, 1985. Chelsea House Publishers, New York. 3) Masterpieces of World Literature in Digest Form, edited by Frank N. Macgill, 1949, 1952. Harper and Brothers, New York. |
