i'll carry you away from war

i'm thinking about what facts the text actually tells us that everyone agrees on, and it's 1. Gertrude and Claudius got married 2. RIGHT after King Hamlet died, like so soon that they just served leftovers 3. and nobody but Hamlet seems to be mad about it, and 4. Hamlet wasn't even there when his dad died because he was away at college. oh, and 5. Claudius definitely poisoned King Hamlet to death.

i know how this story is usually told by Prince Hamlet. i do. but if you just look at the facts, well, imagine some Steve Buscemi-lookin motherfucker, the younger brother of the king. he's in love with his sister-in-law. and the king, well, he 6. has managed to hold off the incursion of several hostile countries nearby, so he's probably Good At Violence. we'll cast him with Brian Blessed (or for the younger generations, Fassbender). Buscemi's probably been scared of him all his life, but also grateful that he doesn't have to be king, ever, because he's not the kind of guy who leads armies into battle.

but then Hamlet marries this Disney Princess of a woman (I'm imagining someone like Nicole Beharie or Lily Gladstone, that level of unreal beauty and charisma with some serious steel in the spine). and Claudius is like, oh no. because he knows what kind of man his brother is. listen to how Prince Hamlet describes the two of them (emphasis mine):

The counterfeit presentment of two brothers. See, what a grace was seated on this brow; Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself; An eye like Mars, to threaten and command; A station like the herald Mercury New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill; A combination and a form indeed, Where every god did seem to set his seal, To give the world assurance of a man: This was your husband. Look you now, what follows: Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear, Blasting his wholesome brother.

he's a big, strapping man's man. he threatens and commands. i bet he has a suit of his war armor hanging in his bedroom.

how would that man treat a woman?

maybe Claudius tries to warn Gertrude. maybe he just tries to be kind to her. either way, by some miracle, she falls in love with him. and after some time, she asks him to get rid of her husband. to save her.

what can Claudius do? he knows he's not Hamlet's equal in battle. so he does the only thing he can: he poisons him.

and it works. King Hamlet is dead; Claudius is king! Beautiful Gertrude is his and free, and she still chooses him! They hold a funeral, and then a wedding. The court rejoices! Happy ending!GRAND FINALE! ROLL CREDITS. The castle is still strewn with flowers, Claudius and Gertrude are still relieved and bewildered at their narrow escape, laughing together amongst the jubilation, and then,

and then,

the prince comes home.

II. I'm not sure that Prince Hamlet loved his father. He talks about him mostly like he did to Gertrude in the monologue above: admires his manliness and kingliness, grieves his death, bitterly compares him to the emasculate Claudius. He admired his father, maybe. If he was violent enough that it took murder for Gertrude to escape him, then maybe Hamlet experienced that too.

The play is about whether Hamlet will choose violence or not. No one disputes that. It's why Laertes is held up so often as his foil (though Ophelia is the closer foil, but that's a post for another time) -- he's violent and swift to take revenge. Hamlet is thoughtful; he fears death; he doesn't want to kill anyone. And in that way, the play is also about whether or not Hamlet is like his father.

In the medieval work Gesta Danorum by Saxo Grammaticus, which holds one of the earliest attestations of the story of Hamlet, as "Amleth," his father's name is Orvendil; not the same name at all. But Shakespeare gave them the same name. This is the mirror held up to nature: will this Hamlet be manly and violent? A strong king, a terrible husband and brother?

Imagine him in mourning colors among the wedding decorations. Imagine this scowling, confused, grieving young college student refusing to move on, refusing to rejoice with the court at his father's death. Gertrude and Claudius must be looking anxiously at each other: what kind of person will young Hamlet be? Is he like his father? How much? They try everything they can to bring him back to joy and life: inviting his college friends to stay, encouraging his ex-girlfriend to get back with him, even agreeing to have a Theater Night because he used to like theater, why not.

And then there Hamlet is in Gertrude's room, furious and seemingly out of his head. He is armed. He rears up to strike her. And in the firelight, just for a moment, he is silhouetted perfectly by his father's armor.

Polonius knows what that means. He calls for help.

You know the rest.

III. It's a ghost story, sure. It's a horror story, probably, about prince Hamlet's descent -- though I'd argue it's not a descent into madness, but into masculinity. He's struggling with his father's legacy. He's grieving and angry and confused.

And that's the play. He's the play. It's not The Tragedy of Hamlet, King of Denmark. The horror is that prince Hamlet can't stand the happy ending. He comes in at the moment when all is saved, and he's the fly in the ointment, the ink blot that spreads until it engulfs the scene.

When they bring him to see the ghost, he gets angry. Horatio and Marcellus don't want him to follow it, but he fights them. In fact, he threatens and commands, telling them the ghost has made him hardy, and that he will kill them if they try to stop him. His friends watch him walk away, worried and scared.

And that is when Marcellus says, "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."

IV. Okay, one more.

It ends badly, right? Most of them die. Fortinbras invades the castle and claims the kingdom.

But there is one little moment of hope, and it's this: as Hamlet is dying in his friend Horatio's arms, having given himself up to masculine violence and destruction, he thinks of what his last words should be. He's a college student who loved theater and music. He's just a kid.

So he makes a pun: "The rest is silence." And then he dies.

Violence didn't get all of him. Somewhere in there, part of him resisted. Part of him survived.