TSR Wiki > Study Help > Subjects and Revision > Revision Notes > Hamlet > Hamlet - Personal Play or Political?
Personal play or political?
Personal/individual
- Hamlets soliloquies – inferiority
- Family issues e.g. Polonius subplot
- Hamlet’s oedipal issues
- Hamlet and Ophelia
- Revenge spurred by personal reasons
- Even Claudius has a conscience
- Tragic flaw – “vicious mole”
- Personal journey of Hamlet
- Murder is fratricide – biblical reference
Political
- Claudius – new political order
- Fortinbras subplot
- Decay – “something is rotten in the state of Denmark”
- Denmark preparing for war
- Sentinels on guard
- Kingship issues –usurpation
- Claudius and Gertrude – power not love?
Eastern Bloc countries
See it mostly political – Stalin had it banned
- usually up to director
- Hamlet changes his attitude to political
- have to co-exist – can’t exist without the other
- maybe personal is political – they are royal and exalted figures
- all actions are political in totalitarian dictatorships
- emerging as a new capitalist society.
Comments
Originally posted by BeckySparrow on TSR Forums.
