THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN’S MAN 195
the play to test his mother’s
conscience. Indeed, much of
Hamlet’s melancholy stems from
anger with his mother, whose
marriage to Claudius he thinks
incestuous. The Player Queen
makes a speech about fidelity, in
which she swears never to remarry
in the event of her husband’s
death: “The instances that second
marriage move / Are base respects
of thrift, but none of love. / A
second time I kill my husband
dead / When second husband
kisses me in bed” (3.2.173–176).
With this play-within-the-play,
Hamlet seizes control of events
by taking up arms against his
troubles in a way that is otherwise
rare in the course of the action of
the play proper, during which he is
often paralyzed by indecision, a
character flaw that proves fatal.Outrageous fortune?
Hamlet is not a man in a good
position. He has left the university
at the age of 30 and returned to live
at home; his father has died and he
cannot reconcile with his mother
after her remarriage; and he is
forced to take on the responsibility
of avenging his father’s murder in
secret. Although Hamlet’s famous
question is “to be or not to be”
(3.1.58), it is the question he asks
immediately after that haunts him
more than anything: “Whether ’tis
nobler in the mind to suffer / The
slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune, / Or to take arms against a
sea of troubles, / And, by opposing,
end them” (3.1.59–62).
Hamlet chooses to suffer the
outrageous fortune that he believes
is an external attack rather than an
internal conflict. Assuming the
position of a self-confessed victim
of fate, much like Romeo, HamletHamlet (right, Ladi Emeruwa) fights
with Claudius (left, John Dougall) in a
production by the Globe Theatre that
was set to play in 205 countries during
a world tour between 2014 and 2016.
...but, O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? ‘Forgive
me my foul murder’?
That cannot be, since
I am still possessed
Of those effects for which
I did the murder—
My crown, mine own
ambition, and my queen.
May one be pardoned and
retain th’offence?
Claudius
Act 3, Scene 2 You are the Queen, your
husband’s brother’s wife.
But—would you were not
so—you are my mother.
Hamlet
Act 3, Scene 4shakes off responsibility for his
actions, namely delaying revenge,
murdering Polonius, rejecting
Ophelia, and having Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern executed. In the
play’s final act, Hamlet speaks of
providence and the inevitability of
his defeating the King. If, however,
the so-called outrageous fortune is
removed from the equation, what is
left is a series of bad decisions that
have ill consequences. ❯❯