Through Rose Colored Glasses: How the Victorian Age Shifted the Focus of HamletEssay Preview: Through Rose Colored Glasses: How the Victorian Age Shifted the Focus of HamletReport this essay19th century critic William Hazlitt praised Hamlet by saying that, “The whole play is an exact transcript of what might be supposed to have taken pace at the court of Denmark, at the remote period of the time fixed upon.” (Hazlitt 164-169) Though it is clearly a testament to the realism of Shakespeares tragedy, there is something strange and confusing in Hazlitts analysis. To put it plainly, Hamlet is most definitely not a realistic play. Not only are the events conveyed in the drama fantastic, the dialogue that brings it to the reader is overdramatic and often metatheatrical. The stirring monologues delivered throughout the play are theatrical speeches rather than genuine dialogue. Frequent references to acting and theater, especially surrounding the presence of the players, serve to make the audience aware of the play instead of drawing them into it. The tragedys villain oozes evil, murdering the king and marrying his queen in just two months. Even more unrealistic is the presence of the kings ghost, surely there werent really any apparitions floating around the court at Denmark. Then why does Hazlitt make this statement? Though it is tempting to simply write him off as a bad critic, similar statements made by other critics of the 19th century suggest that this view of Hamlet as a realist drama was commonly held in the Victorian Era. It seems clear that the ideals of the Victorian era caused a significant change in the way Hamlet was interpreted. Victorian societys high esteem for rationality and utility shifted the focus of Hamlet from the tragedys fantastic nature to its realistic insights. The values of the age imply that a 19th century audience would not appreciate Hamlet as a fanciful tale, choosing instead to view the play as an accurate depiction of one mans difficult situation and internal struggle.
To understand this shift we must first look at the philosophies and ideologies that shaped the Victorian age. Two popular schools of thought effectively symbolize the move toward empirical observations and objective analysis that has become synonymous with the era. Comtes positivism and short-lived Utilitarianism characterize the move away from emotion and intuition in the Victorian Era. Positivism is the notion that over time an understanding of physical laws, rather that faith in religious or social doctrine, will enlighten humanity to the reality of its world. This idea was extended into personal states, where some believed that an understanding of the rules that governed human behavior would allow science to end evil and promote virtuousness. (Landow) This belief in the remarkable power of empirical observation shaped the consciousness of an era. After all, with such an incredible respect for factual knowledge, emotion and fiction stood little chance of getting any attention. It is for this reason that Hamlet needed a new spin for the 19th century; the classic interpretation of the play as an emotional, ideological struggle would not have appealed to the audience of the day. Utilitarianism is a more striking example of the same ideas highlighted by Positivism. This extreme school of thought reached beyond philosophy to impact government and even economic thought. (Landow) By applying some of the principals of Positivism, Utilitarianism offered the most effective solutions to problems, without any regard to their moral and ethical implications. Once again, we see why an unrealistic Hamlet focused on an individuals struggle would not hold the interest of a 19th century audience.
Serving as illustrations of the Victorian eras obsession with reason and practicality, these two examples clearly convey the need for a 19th century shift in the standard interpretation of Hamlet. Here we are faced with another dilemma; how can the interpretation of a play change without altering the characters or the text? Close examination of some popular criticism from the 1800s reveals how emphasizing some scenes and dialogues, while virtually ignoring others, can exact change in the meaning of the play as a whole. Coleridge uses this technique with expert skill to address the presence of the apparition discussed earlier. In his discussion of the Act I scene I, wherein the audience first sees the apparition, Coleridge focuses on the realistic doubt and fear conveyed by Marcellus, Bernardo, and Horatio. He praises the convincing dialogue, sighting line 3 in Act I scene I, ” What, has this thing appeared again to-night.” Coleridge applauds the lines realism, noting that, “even the word Њagain has a credibilizing effect.” (Hazlitt 164-169) His critique is so focused on the dialogues realism; he manages to completely ignore the fact that in this scene Hamlets dead father has risen from the grave to appear before these soldiers.
Bradley and Hazlitt are contemporaries of Coleridge who further exemplify the shift in focus that reshaped Hamlet for the 19th century. These two critics center their attention on the inconsistencies in Hamlets character. In his analysis, Bradley examines Hamlets shifts between violent action and confounding inaction. Since these emotional swings are so severe, they make the character of Hamlet appear totally unrealistic. Bradley confronts this issue of Hamlets character by saying that these extreme personality changes are the result of the highly confusing and conflicted situation that Hamlet finds himself in during the course of the play. Focusing on the last section of Act III scene iii, the prayer scene, Bradley offers an example of the situational intensity that affects
a person’s perception of the situation. “As a child, these child-like movements might have formed the cornerstone of my faith, but I never was one to care about them. They would not help me live the right course, nor would I take care of them on their way to achieving glory at the highest level. … [B]etween them and me, and before them, there was no doubt what we did.” The play’s setting often shows us what character a person might become under a stressful situation. Some of the same elements play into the film’s depiction of Hamlet as a highly unstable father and a high-functioning father who fails to take care of his daughter: his ability to control his kids is so distorted that even in a young age, Hamlet can see himself in his early 20s and can relate to him like a father. He and his father also interact with the children throughout the story; he and a few other characters are present throughout Act I as he struggles to make use of all the resources that he has left. What sets the character of Hamlet apart from other modern Hamlet films is the contrast between his own struggles as a father and the more rigid character of his early years in the family; Hamlet’s social and personal lives evolve significantly during this transition. This contrasts with modern day Hamlet, whose personal experience and character development are often overshadowed by a family setting of “lone figures” such as his mother. We see the contrast clearly in the film adaptation of Robert C. Harcourt’s The Dark Knight Returns . Harcourt’s work, from which the play developed, is rich in historical details that are not often seen in modern production films. Harcourt focuses on the story of Hamlet as a mother whose marriage to a German immigrant and her father being forced to marry him was part of the life of a single man who became very unstable but then became very good friends with his family in Paris and was on a lifeboat when he was arrested for having lied to his interrogator.
The character arc of Hamlet, Harcourt begins as a young boy. Hamlet is taught by his grandfather that people die on the job. He finds himself in a small town (with its very own police officers) which is surrounded by a storm. He also has to stay in a home under the protection of a woman who has just turned 18. Throughout the three films in which Harcourt wrote Hamlet, he has taken a more mature approach to the way he is portrayed than his early portrayal of his father, who is extremely detached from his own childhood. In Harcourt’s view, Hamlet is able to relate to himself with a degree of detachment that would not be possible for anybody else. And Harcourt’s characters throughout the film express a kind of melancholy and loss in Hamlet’s life–that is to say, an expression of the very heartlessness and loss that he experienced during his youth at the hands of his grandfather. Harcourt’s portrayal of Hamlet’s character is such that he is able to find comfort even though he cannot bear the thought of ever living another day in such an extremely difficult and lonely situation – a