Hamlet and Surveillance
Essay by Pooja Desai • November 19, 2015 • Essay • 497 Words (2 Pages) • 2,085 Views
Pooja Desai
9/18/15
Per. 2
#2 Hamlet Essay
“Hamlet and Surveillance”
Shakespeare's Hamlet is a play of deceit, betrayal, and treachery, which was an integral part of attaining and maintaining the power as a monarch in Elizabethan era. According to Michael Neill, " Shakespeare used Saxo's story of Hamlet's pretended madness and delayed revenge to explore the brutal facts about survival in an authoritarian state." It also adds the sense of mystery and intrigue to the play and makes it a study in psychology rather than a simple plot of revenge and tragedy.
During the time of Shakespeare there was an extensive network of spies and informers employed behind the public charade of charm and magnanimity by those in power. It helped to protect the interest of ruling monarch and incapacitate any traitorous movements. There was constant paranoia and anxiety about uprising and dissent not only from one's enemies but also from close family and friends. These same conditions are described at the castle of King Claudius," The play begins with the anxious watchers on the battlemented walls for nothing and no one in Claudius's Denmark is allowed to go unwatched." The king and his chief minister Polonius not only engage in eavesdropping themselves, but also enlist Hamlet's close friends and beloved to watch him and inform in the interest of the state. Because of the surveillance, Hamlet’s survival in this situation was extremely difficult.
Hamlet is aware of this web of surveillance, as he is “The observed of all observers." As noted in King Claudius’s statement" the cheer and comfort of our eye" Hamlet was definitely being closely watched. So he resorts to madness "which is as much disguise as it is revelation." He learns to face the opponent using his or her own game of “ smiling villainy". Madness became his shield against the betrayal of his loved ones starting from the meeting of the Ghost. He could hide his real motives and emotions behind the veneer of lunacy, and this helped him to stay alive and get his revenge.
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