The Existentialist Views of Hamlet

The Existentialist Views of Hamlet

Do we matter? Will anything we do endure? These are questions from existentialism. The dictionary defines existentialism as "the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for his acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad" (Merriam Webster). In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Hamlet struggles with the concept that nothing from our lives last and time grinds everything away. Hamlet's major conflict was his existentialist view of the world.

Does a prince of Denmark have any worth if "Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that loam, whereto he was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel? Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away" ( V. i. 206-209)? Hamlet saw examples of lives crumbling to dust. Twenty thousand men and twenty thousand ducats are spent on "A little patch of ground that hath in it no profit but the name. To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it." ( IV. iiii. 19-21). These lives are expended for nothing and even Hamlet's father, a good and wise king, was murdered with only Hamlet mourning for an extended period. The king's wife said "Seek for thy noble father in the dust: Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity." ( I. ii. 72-74) and she later encourages Hamlet to stop pretending to mourn for his father. Hamlet protests that he feels actual grief for his father but he fears that his father's life is already becoming meaningless.

This existentialist worldview forced Hamlet to overanalyze before action...

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.... Hamlet died believing his life counted for nothing.

Works Cited and Consulted:

Bloom, Harold. Introduction. Modern Critical Interpretations: Hamlet. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1986.

Bradley., A. C. Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth. New York: Penguin Books, 1991.

Burton, Philip. "Hamlet." The Sole Voice. New York: The Dial Press, 1970. N. pag. http://www.freehomepages.com/hamlet/other/burton-hamlet.htm

Mack, Maynard. "The World of Hamlet." Yale Review. vol. 41 (1952) p. 502-23. Rpt. in Shakespeare: Modern Essays in Criticism. Rev. ed. Ed. Leonard F. Dean. New York: Oxford University P., 1967.

Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1995. http://www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/hamlet/full.html