Reading and Literature Studies · Reading Literary Texts

Hamlet, Part 4: Interpretations, Critical Lenses and Evaluating Productions

1.7 1.8 1.5About 70 minutes

Learning goals

I can explain and evaluate different interpretations of why Hamlet delays.
I can apply gender and power lenses to Hamlet and identify the perspectives and biases they reveal.
I can evaluate a stage or film production of a play using criteria and textual evidence.
I can make meaningful connections between Hamlet, other texts in this unit and today's world.

Words to know

interpretation
A reasoned explanation of what a text means, supported by evidence; more than one can be valid.

psychoanalytic reading
An interpretation that looks for hidden desires and fears in characters, based on the ideas of Sigmund Freud.

feminist reading
An interpretation that examines how a text represents women, gender roles and power.

surveillance
Close watching of people, often secretly, by those in power.

elective monarchy
A system in which the king is chosen by nobles rather than inheriting the crown automatically, as in Hamlet's Denmark.

production
A particular staging or filming of a play, with its own choices of setting, casting, cuts and emphasis.

ambiguity
The quality of being open to more than one meaning.

Hook: the play that won't sit still

In 1948, a famous film of Hamlet opened with a narrator announcing: This is the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind. Many readers would disagree. Some see a man who thinks too much; others a man with good reasons to doubt; others a man fighting feelings he doesn't understand. For more than four hundred years, Hamlet has been a mirror, just as Hamlet told the players a play should be: each age sees itself in it. In this lesson, you join the argument.

Remember from Grade 10

With Macbeth, you used lenses of power and politics, gender and class, and you evaluated the play's effectiveness. With Hamlet, the interpretations are more varied and the ambiguity is deliberate. Your job is not to find the answer but to build a well-supported one and answer the other side.

Interpretation 1: why does Hamlet delay?

He thinks too much. The English Romantic poet and critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge, lecturing in the early 1800s, saw Hamlet as a man whose huge powers of thought crowd out action. Evidence: the native hue of resolution / Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought (3.1).
He needs proof. Hamlet himself says the Ghost might be a devil trying to trick him: The spirit that I have seen / May be a devil (2.2). His delay is caution, and it leads to the Mousetrap test.
Hidden feelings about his mother. Sigmund Freud, and later his follower Ernest Jones, argued that Hamlet can't punish Claudius because Claudius did what Hamlet unconsciously wished to do. Evidence: Hamlet's intense focus on his mother's marriage. Laurence Olivier's 1948 film was influenced by this reading. Many critics find it speculative, since it depends on feelings the text never states.
Revenge itself is wrong. Christian teaching of Shakespeare's time forbade private revenge (Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord). Hamlet's conscience may be literally that: a moral sense that holds him back.
It's practical. Claudius is a king, surrounded by guards, and Hamlet needs a public justification. Hamlet himself never gives this reason, though.

Four answers to the most famous question about Hamlet: why does he delay? Each interpretation points to real evidence; the strongest essays weigh more than one.

Worked example

Let's evaluate two interpretations

Evaluate the "he thinks too much" and "he needs proof" interpretations. Which is better supported?

Criteria: a strong interpretation (1) fits the most evidence, (2) explains Hamlet's own words, and (3) accounts for contradictions.
"Thinks too much": fits the soliloquies (pale cast of thought, conscience does make cowards) and Hamlet's self-criticism. But it struggles with his impulsive killing of Polonius and his quick action on the ship.
"Needs proof": fits 2.2 (May be a devil) and the Mousetrap. But after the Mousetrap proves Claudius's guilt, Hamlet still delays (3.3), so proof alone isn't the whole story.
Weigh: each explains part of the play. Combined, they make a stronger reading: Hamlet's delay begins as reasonable caution, but continues because of a reflective nature that keeps finding reasons to wait.
Judgment: needs proof explains Acts 1 and 2 best; thinks too much explains Act 3 best. A combined interpretation is better supported than either alone.

Neither interpretation explains everything. Hamlet delays first for good reason (doubt about the Ghost), and then because his reflective nature keeps finding reasons to wait. A combined reading fits the most evidence.

Interpretation 2: the gender lens

The play has only two women, and both are defined largely by the men around them.

Gertrude. We never hear her private thoughts in a soliloquy. Did she know about the murder? The text is ambiguous: when Hamlet says the King was killed, she answers As kill a king!, which sounds like genuine shock. Hamlet's disgust at her remarriage drives his line Frailty, thy name is woman!, which turns one woman into a judgment of all women.
Ophelia. Her father and brother tell her what to think (I do not know, my lord, what I should think, she says to Polonius, who answers: Marry, I will teach you). She is used as bait by the King and her father, and rejected by Hamlet. Ironically, she speaks most freely only in madness, through songs and flowers. The critic Elaine Showalter's essay Representing Ophelia (1985) traced how artists and actors have portrayed Ophelia in very different ways over the centuries, often reflecting their own era's ideas about women.
Who plays Hamlet? Women have played Hamlet himself for centuries. The French actor Sarah Bernhardt famously played Hamlet in 1899, raising the question of whether Hamlet's qualities, thoughtfulness, wit, grief, are tied to gender at all.

Interpretation 3: the power lens

A surveillance state. Polonius spies on his son (he sends a servant to Paris to check on Laertes), the King and Polonius hide to watch Hamlet and Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are hired to spy, and Polonius dies hiding behind a curtain. Hamlet calls the country a prison: Denmark's a prison (2.2).
Who gets to rule? Denmark in the play is an elective monarchy: Claudius was chosen by the nobles. Hamlet complains that Claudius popped in between th' election and my hopes (5.2). Claudius rules smoothly in public, and his first speech is a masterpiece of political spin.
The ending. The royal family destroys itself, and a foreign prince takes the crown. Read through the power lens, the play shows how corruption at the top can cost a whole nation its independence.

Four famous versions of Hamlet. When you evaluate a production, ask what interpretation its choices express, then judge how well the choices fit the text.

Evaluating a production

Every production must make choices: what to cut (the full text runs about four hours), when and where to set it, how to play the Ghost, whether Hamlet's madness is real, how Gertrude and Ophelia are presented.

Laurence Olivier (1948): black-and-white, gloomy castle, much of the text cut (including Rosencrantz and Guildenstern); opens by declaring Hamlet could not make up his mind. It won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Kenneth Branagh (1996): uses the complete text, about four hours, in a grand 19th-century-style setting.
Michael Almereyda (2000): set in modern New York, where Denmark is a corporation and Hamlet (Ethan Hawke) is a young filmmaker; To be, or not to be is spoken while he walks the aisles of a video rental store.
On stage in Ontario: the Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario, founded in 1953, has staged Hamlet many times, and recordings of some Stratford productions have been released on film.

Criteria for evaluation: (1) Is the interpretation clear and supported by the text? (2) Do the cuts keep the play's main ideas? (3) Do the setting and design illuminate the play or distract from it? (4) How are the soliloquies staged: do we hear Hamlet's thinking?

Worked example

Let's evaluate a production choice

Evaluate Olivier's choice to open with This is the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind.

Criterion: is the interpretation clear and supported by the text?
Strengths: it gives first-time viewers a clear focus, and the delay is central to the play. It fits soliloquies like 3.1.
Weaknesses: it closes down the play's ambiguity. Hamlet does make up his mind several times (the Mousetrap, killing Polonius, rewriting the death warrant). The line makes the tragedy entirely about one flaw, ignoring Claudius's crime and the corrupt court.
Evidence of effect: because Olivier also cut Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and Fortinbras, the film becomes a private psychological drama rather than a political one.
Judgment: an effective, memorable choice for a film audience, but it narrows the play: it chooses one interpretation and cuts the evidence for others.

The opening line gives the film a clear focus but oversimplifies Hamlet. Combined with cuts to the political plot, it narrows a deliberately ambiguous play into a single-flaw tragedy.

Connection	What it reveals
The Great Gatsby	Gatsby insists of course you can repeat the past; Hamlet cannot accept that the past (his father, his mother's first marriage) is gone. Both are destroyed by the past.
Ozymandias	In 5.1 Hamlet imagines Alexander the Great turned to dust; Shelley shows a King of Kings reduced to a broken statue. Both reflect on power and mortality.
The Story of an Hour	Both Louise and Hamlet reveal their truest selves only when alone (her room, his soliloquies); the public world doesn't understand either.
Today's world	Surveillance, political spin, and grief over a parent's death or a family's remarriage are still recognizable.

Connections that extend understanding of Hamlet.

Just for fun

If you've seen The Lion King, you've met a version of this plot: a king killed by his envious brother, and a prince who runs from his responsibility until his father's spirit appears in the sky and tells him to remember. The film is often compared to Hamlet. The main differences: Simba gets a happy ending, and Hamlet never had a song about having no worries.

Hands-on activity

Two scenes, two productions

You need: access to two filmed productions of Hamlet (check your public library's streaming services and DVDs, or the Stratford Festival's recordings), a notebook, and a family member.

Choose one scene: the Ghost (1.5), To be, or not to be (3.1), the closet scene (3.4), or Ophelia's madness (4.5).
Watch it in both productions. For each, note setting, how lines are delivered, what is cut, and camera or staging choices.
Use the four criteria to write a paragraph evaluating which version better serves the text, with at least two specific details from each.
Ask your family member which version they preferred and why. Did their reasons match your criteria?

What to look for: specific details (where Hamlet stands, who else is on screen, which lines are cut, how the camera moves), a criterion stated clearly, and a judgment that acknowledges a strength of the version you rank lower.

Your turn

Name three interpretations of why Hamlet delays and one piece of evidence for each.

Why is Gertrude's knowledge of the murder ambiguous?

What does Ophelia's line I do not know, my lord, what I should think reveal through the gender lens?

Give two examples of surveillance in Hamlet.

What was unusual about Branagh's 1996 film?

State two criteria for evaluating a production.

Make a meaningful connection between Hamlet and The Great Gatsby.

More practice: warm-up

Which actor played Hamlet in a famous 1899 production?

Which film version opens with This is the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind?

Where is the Stratford Festival?

What does Hamlet call Denmark in 2.2?

What is an elective monarchy?

More practice: on your own

Why do many critics consider the Freud and Jones interpretation speculative?

How does the power lens change the meaning of the ending?

Why might a director cast a woman as Hamlet, and what might the choice reveal?

Evaluate Almereyda's choice to set To be, or not to be in a video rental store.

How is Ophelia's madness a form of speech in a play where she is otherwise silenced?

Challenge

The poet T. S. Eliot argued in 1919 that Hamlet is most certainly an artistic failure, because Hamlet's emotions are stronger than anything in the play seems to explain. Evaluate this claim.

Write an analytical paragraph applying the gender lens to Ophelia, with at least two quotations.

Design a production concept for a modern Canadian Hamlet. Name the setting, one key casting or design choice, and explain what interpretation it expresses.

Check your understanding

Quiz

Which interpretation of Hamlet's delay is supported by The spirit that I have seen / May be a devil?

The Freud and Ernest Jones interpretation focuses on Hamlet's...

A feminist reading of Ophelia would most likely notice that...

Branagh's 1996 film is known for...

Which is the best criterion for evaluating a production?

Denmark's a prison supports a reading of the play focused on...

For parents and teachers

What this lesson teaches: ENG3U Reading 1.7 (evaluating interpretations and productions with criteria and evidence), 1.8 (critical literacy: perspectives and biases related to gender and power) and 1.5 (connections to other texts and the world), completing the study of Hamlet.

How to help at home:

Watch one scene in two film versions together and argue (kindly) about which is better.
Ask: Why do you think Hamlet waits? and accept any answer that has evidence.
If you can, see a live production: the Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario, and many community theatres stage Shakespeare.

Common difficulties:

Looking for the one right answer. In this play, the best answer is the one with the strongest evidence that also deals with the other side.
Evaluating films by personal taste only. Ask: Better at what? According to which criterion?
Applying the Freudian reading as fact. It is one interpretation, and many critics question it.

Facts used: Olivier's Hamlet (1948) opens with the line quoted and won the Academy Award for Best Picture; Branagh's (1996) uses the full text, about four hours; Almereyda's (2000) stars Ethan Hawke in modern New York; Sarah Bernhardt played Hamlet in 1899; T. S. Eliot's essay Hamlet and His Problems (1919); Elaine Showalter's Representing Ophelia (1985); the Stratford Festival was founded in 1953.