Meaning Of Words And Words In Hamlet

“Words, Words, Words”, is a play written by David Ives and is considered by many to be an outstanding play. This play was written in the 1990’s and has since then inspired and even educated people. In order to understand the play, one must understand the time period in which the play was written as well as the idea around which the story is focused. Despite its simple and fun look and idea, this play has many allusions to Shakespearian poetry, as well as other works of literature which helps to draw in a very wide audience. A critic of Shakespeare said; “Shakespeare’s mode of conceiving characters out of his own intellectual and moral faculties, by conceiving any one individual or moral faculty in morbid excess and then placing himself, thus

mutilated and diseased, under given circumstances.” (Morgan 258) And in David Ives place the thing that helps the reader really fall in love with the play is the authors ability to take someone or even something like an idea and place it into a story, like he did with Houdini for example and in this case with the idea of evolution.
This play was written in the 1990’s and that is probably the reason why the topic of the play is what it is. Just like with Shakespeare, as Louis Cary put it, “By the time Shakespeare took on Hamlet, both the character and the basic outlines of the story were antiques” (Cary 783) however it was the way he presented Hamlet and the characters that made Hamlet a masterpiece. The same thing is with David Ives “Words, Words, Words” The topic was nothing new at all in fact many people had written about evolution and the infinite monkey theorem, but no one presented it like Ives did. The 1970’s-1990 was a time of progress and new culture and freedom. At this time people began to really depart from the older morals, beliefs and systems. Somewhere around this time, teaching only evolution in schools also became legal. This play is based off of an essay by Emile Borel, who in this essay introduced the “infinite monkey theorem”. The idea of this theorem is pretty simple; it says that given enough time a monkey hitting keys randomly can type out a copy of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. This idea seems ridiculous since that would take a lot of things to come together at the same time and at the right place, yet, Borel using his mathematical skills calculated that it was possible. The trick is that the experiment would have to have an unlimited amount of monkeys or an unlimited amount of time, in the case of the poem; they have an unlimited amount of time. “I know, I know, I know. Three monkeys typing into infinity will sooner or later produce Hamlet.” (Line 16) At this time however, Christianity was also prominent and it seems that he thought of that as well. The joking and fun language as well as, the part that he never says that evolution is true; instead he says it in a joking way, therefore not offending anyone. “What’s really frightening is that if we stick around this cage long enough, we’re gonna evolve into Rosenbaum.” (Line 94) This is true to some people, those that believe in evolution, and it’s simply a joke to the people who do not believe in evolution. Also before this he quotes John Milton’s Paradise lost, and the quote is about a story in the Bible, “Of man’s first disobedience and the fruit…” (Line 37) and by quoting this he also kind of makes the religious people happy. The amazing thing is how he managed to put together all this, in a time when the American ways were being reformed, and make it fun to watch or read. In fact it is still a fun play to watch in our time, because of the different allusions to things that we come across in schools.
This play references many other works, people and events.

The first one that the reader comes across is the title. “Words, Words, Words” is not only a really remarkable title for the play that talks about monkeys typing words, but also a quote from Shakespeare’s Hamlet of when Polonius is talking to Hamlet. The next reference the reader comes across is when Swift is talking about what will happen if they actually manage to type up Hamlet and what will happen next. In this part Swift also quotes Hamlet but does not write it down. “Boy there’s the respect that makes calamity of so long life! For who would bear the whips and scorns of time…” (Line 118) However, quotes from Hamlet are not the only allusions that we see in this play. If we take a look at the names of the three monkeys they also tell us something about the monkeys as well. The first monkey is Milton; this is the same monkey that quotes John Milton in the beginning in Lines 35-40. Then there is Swift whose name describes his character and actions. He is the really hyper one that at the end makes a plan to kill the doctor. And the last monkey is Kafka. Her name sounds funny and makes no sense and that exactly what Kafka does, she is very dreamy and rarely puts in a remark, however when she does put one in then she wants to be heard. Also she is only able to type one letter repetitively until in the end she writes Hamlet, which makes no sense. Not only did the allusions to Shakespeare and the Bible make this play exciting to read but it was more the allusions to what you hear in the everyday world. The first allusion like this that we see is in Line 72 where the author refers to post modernism to describe what Kafka wrote. This of course makes a lot more sense to people who are into art or ever took an Art Appreciation course in school or college. And most likely the funniest part is in lines 100-110 where they are talking about using the system and Milton puts on a show in order to earn a cigarette and

then they flashback to when Swift broke a typewriter and was given a whole pack of Marlboros but he “took a crap on ‘em” (Line 106) as a political statement. With these kinds of allusions that can relate to almost any person; artists, poets, regular people, politicians etc. it is hard to go around how well it fit for the time that it was written in and how fantabulous the set-up is.
There are many ways to look at this play, one can look at it as a comedy or drama or even as the author trying to say something to the people, about their culture. One of the most interesting moments is in line 110-120 where they are talking about what will happen if they accomplish the task that they were given and what will happen next. They were set up there to “prove the inadvertent virtues of randomness” and what if they did? What would happen? Would they be given something else to try to write? David Ives loved to use his imagination in his plays and he definitely liked the question “What if?” For example in his play The Lives and Deaths of the Great Harry Houdini where he portrays Houdini as a serial killer and what would happen if he was one. He was doing the same thing in this play. What if Evolution and the Infinite monkey theorem were proven true and that it is possible to have such a random thing happen over time? This would prove evolution but what would happen next? Would evolution be celebrated as the amazing theory that is true and was finally proven right? Or would people ask for more proof and make more experiments that would need to be done and proven. So on the surface it seems like the monkeys are simply terrified by what the future holds, while there is much deeper meaning to that part of the poem. Ives grew up in a multi-cultural environment and time where a lot of new things, ideas and cultures were being developed and shaped as well as the beliefs of the people. He very well knew that everyone believes in something and most likely even if clearly proven wrong in their thinking or belief they will not turn from it because they simply cannot see that they are wrong. And even if they do see that they were proven wrong they will demand more and more proof and will most likely never turn from what they believed.
This play is clearly not only a comedy and way for people to show off their acting skills, but it is possibly even an expression of belief and the author’s personal thoughts. The author does not only attempt to describe the nature of people when it comes to being proven wrong but he also takes a controversial topic as his main theme. Then he takes this controversial topic and writes it in words that will not offend anyone but on the contrary will entertain them. In this he manages to accomplish many things, he describes the multi cult redness of the time by trying to appeal to all of them, as well as the concerns of the time, like is evolution true or not, and should we teach it or is it impossible. By tying all these things together in one play that I a masterpiece that should be seen by all, the author proves one last thing, which is that nothing is impossible.