How Does Pyrrhus Change In Hamlet

“To be or not to be” has many more meanings than to live or not to live, or to kill one’s self or not to. Inside Hamlet’s educated mind he sees parallels with his story and Greco-Roman mythology, the play in the mousetrap and even in the events immediately preceding the play. He tries to justify his actions using his trust in the mimetic ability of literature that he has come to trust but instead finds the story of Pyrrhus, which only serves as a vehicle to detail his murderous wantings. Pyrrhus also find himself in the situation of a son searching for revenge for his murder father. Though, unlike Hamlet, Pyrrhus instead lacks the intellect of Hamlet, which causes his transformation into a murderous psychopath, killing the wounded Priam. This mocks the very moral ground Hamlet hopes to rest his revenge upon, in other words, “

Pyrrhus is a parricide no less than Paris. He kills Priam as Priam’s son killed Pyrrhus’ father and the symmetry and reciprocity mock the moral authority the revenger would clam” (Kastan 264).

Hamlet thinks he conceives a brilliant plan to catch Claudius by overwhelming his emotions to force him to admit to murdering his brother, the King. Little does Hamlet know that the plot of his backfires and shows the plot and emotional similarities in the world of Gonzago and his own world. At his request, the players include a “dozen or sixteen lines”(II.ii.541) into play. To insert these lines Hamlet depicts the murder, Lucianus, as the nephew of the king, instead of the brother to the king. Unintentionally, Hamlet draws attention towards himself as the play seems to mimic him as Lucianus, the murder, instead of Claudius as Lucianus. Most scenes should not have the interpretation changed by an issue of semantics and familial relations. Nut, this proves the exact opposite of the play. Shakespeare, therefore, prompts Hamlet to contend with a contradiction, a paradox: if Lucencious is the brother of the King the action is immoral, if Lucencious is the nephew of the king the action is

moral. “In holding the mirror up to degenerate nature Hamlet unwittingly establishes the symmetry that revenge must deny” (Kastan 264). Ultimately Hamlet must come to the conclusion that any rational and virtuous man would not kill Claudius because it is a killing on par with the aforementioned legends and ultimately shadows the acts of his uncle. Again Hamlet is faced with a decision: to listen to this namesake and take righteous revenge on Claudius or to not follow through. This paradox taught him throughout the entire play until he finally resolves it by seeing killing Claudius as a heroic struggle between good and evil when after he poisons Gertrude. “Only when he can persuade himself that revenge is a mode of restoration rather than reprisal can Hamlet move towards its execution” (Kasan 263). Hamlet sees parallels in his life and in literature to the mission the ghost set him on and thus struggles with ethical contradictions until such contradictions no longer exist and Hamlet can kill Claudius.

Kastan, David Scott. “'His Semblable Is His Mirror': Hamlet and the Imitation of Revenge.” Shakespeare Studies, edited by Lynn M. Zott, vol. 19, 1987, pp. 111–124. Literature Resource Center.