The Combination of Gankun Giant and Ordinary People —— An Analysis of Hamlet's Characters
During the Renaissance more than 400 years ago, Shakespeare rose suddenly in English literature. This great poet and playwright conquered many readers at that time and later generations with his profound thoughts, extensive contents, beautiful and rich language and superb artistic skills. As Shakespeare's masterpiece, Hamlet's classic image is undoubtedly the focus of the world's attention. Perhaps, as belinsky marveled, the untold Hamlet is actually "every one of us", the image of youth and vitality, the character of impulsive hesitation, the moral orientation of both good and evil, and so on. Hamlet's life experience reflects his inner sadness and heroism, and also embodies Hamlet's contradiction-the double combination of Gankun giant and everyman.
First, the conflict between reality and ideal in growth.
Hamlet was born a prince. He is noble, elegant, brave, knowledgeable and pursues pure love. He belongs to the ruling class of the upper class. In the words of Hamlet's lover filia, he is "the eyes of courtiers, the tongue of scholars, the sword of soldiers, and the beautiful flowers that the country expects;" The mirror of time, the elegant model of interpersonal relationship, the center of world attention. "Hamlet studied at Wittenberg University in Germany and was influenced by humanism. He is very accurate in judging people and shouts, "What a great masterpiece human beings are!" "Yes" is the essence of the universe! The spirit of all things! "On the relationship between people: Love and friendship also have their own views, hoping to replace the feudal relationship with the equal relationship of sincere treatment. At this time, he was young and optimistic, full of illusions about people and things. It can be seen that Hamlet should be a happy prince, with status, fame, power and love ... He is the pride of his parents and the future heir to the throne, and he has a bright future and destiny before him. However, with the realistic changes in his growth process, his ideals and grand plans were completely destroyed. I began to change from a noble prince to an ordinary person, savoring the ups and downs of life and falling into contradictions and pains.
The death of the old king marked a dramatic reversal of Hamlet's fate. His father's death plunged him into grief and lost his previous joy. Followed by the rapid remarriage of his mother, his uncle instantly became his stepfather, and the throne was deprived, which dealt a heavy blow to Hamlet with lightning speed. He used a "black coat" to resist his unacceptable reality, and also wrapped his painful and displaced heart at the moment. As a son, Hamlet lost the original human relations order, and the existence of the family collapsed with the death of his father and the remarriage of his mother. His mother not only failed to help him identify himself, but also suddenly left him and abandoned him. As a prince, Hamlet was also deprived of his natural inheritance. The new king Claudius questioned the hereditary of the throne with gorgeous rhetoric. In reality, tampering means depriving Hamlet of all the rights he had before. As a lover, Hamlet doubted the purity of Mr. filia's love and thought that she was a spy sent by the traitor king, so he completely broke off the relationship. At this time, Hamlet faced all the difficulties that ordinary people might face in life. Family disintegration, mother's abandonment, loss of throne, loss of love. He is no longer the former happy prince, but like an ordinary person, he is burdened with all kinds of unspeakable life troubles. The ugly phenomena he witnessed after the review made him realize that the reality was not as beautiful as he had imagined. Life ideals such as faithful love, loyal friendship and harmonious social relations, which were once regarded as treasures, have now gone up in smoke. Young Hamlet was lost in thought. He thought about kinship, denied love, usurped throne and despised love. This series of meditations has been accompanied by Hamlet's growing journey to the future, which makes him become melancholy and suspicious. When Hamlet learned the truth of the whole incident from his father's dead soul, he deepened his doubts and began his long road of revenge.
Hamlet's tragic reversal of fate not only made him see clearly the conflict between reality and ideal, but also further saw the hypocrisy of covering up evil. He completed the transformation from a high-flying prince to an ordinary person and began a serious and melancholy meditation.
Second, melancholy and thoughtful personality.
Hamlet was smart, optimistic, cheerful and active when he was studying at Wittenberg University. The sudden death of his father, the rapid remarriage of his mother and the usurpation of his uncle made Hamlet, who had always been carefree and melancholy, unhappy. However, melancholy and meditation are not Hamlet's nature.
On the surface, Hamlet's melancholy comes from his father's death, his mother's abandonment and the loss of love. He returned to Denmark from wittenberg to mourn his father. It is human nature to show his sadness. No one will be surprised that his son mourned his father's death and felt depressed. It also reflects his side as an ordinary person and has the normal feelings of ordinary people. But as time goes on, the sadness will fade away. However, Hamlet did not get rid of his sadness. His mother, Joe Root, believes that all living people will die and step into permanent peace from life. She asked Hamlet to take the death of "noble father" as a very common thing and put aside "gloomy air". His uncle Claudius first apparently affirmed that the prince's "filial piety" is "a pure and extraordinary thing", and then thought that Hamlet's "stubborn sadness is a kind of stupidity that goes against the sky and is not something a man should do", and asked Hamlet to admit this is a fact. Commander Polonius thinks Hamlet's melancholy is because his proposal to his daughter, Mr. Philia, was rejected. Therefore, they think that Hamlet's melancholy comes from his father's death and the loss of love. However, Hamlet was depressed, not only because Claudius killed his brother, bullied his wife and usurped the throne, but because he was sharp-eyed and saw the evil of society at that time from his personal sins. He saw the court corruption conspiracy, courtiers flattering and cunning, domestic public grievances boiling, social unrest, neighboring Norway ready to move. The Danish royal family, which originally represented his noble birth, has now become "the world is a big prison, and Denmark is the worst one". In Hamlet's view, Claudius's crime is only one of all the evils that exist in the world. The problem is that the whole era is upside down and chaotic, running counter to the ideal. "Beautiful nature, I thought it was just a barren land, a collection of dirty miasma. The original ideal god-like human beings, now it seems, are nothing more than life made of mud. " Therefore, Hamlet realized that his responsibility was not simply to avenge his father and kill a traitor, but to take on the responsibility of reviving Gan Kun and combine personal revenge with reforming society.
Hamlet determined the mission of revenge for his father, but he couldn't find a suitable way. He expects to change the status quo, but he can't. It is easier to avenge your father than to reorganize Gankun. Hamlet became more and more melancholy and fell into deeper meditation. "To be or not to be, this is a question worth considering. Is it silently enduring the cruel arrow of fate, or is it more noble to stand up against the endless suffering of the world and sweep away the suffering through struggle? " It fully reflects his inner meditation: to do or not to do? Hamlet saw that this was a life-and-death struggle, and his inner contradictions conflicted between subjectivity and objectivity. Moreover, at this time, Hamlet considered not only his own survival and destruction, but also the survival and destruction of mankind and even the whole universe. Hamlet transcends ordinary people's thinking about their own destiny, but exists as a giant of Gankun.
Third, involuntary action.
Reality asked Hamlet to take action, but he hesitated. From Hamlet's melancholy and brooding character, we can find the reason why he delayed revenge. On the other hand, we can also find the answer from his father's dead soul. Hamlet seldom took the initiative, but was inspired and driven by his father's ghost. We can see that Hamlet's revenge is involuntary for two reasons.
In the process of repeated exploration, Hamlet became more and more aware of the ugliness of reality and the disillusionment of ideals, thus denying everything of value. He lamented that "everything in the world seems so disgusting, stale, boring and boring to me!" Hum! Hum! This is a barren and hopeless garden, full of vicious weeds. " As a result, he fell into a pessimistic and unhappy situation, which led Hamlet to hesitate and be in a dilemma. The tendency to take action and the tendency to avoid action compete with each other. But because of the order of his father's ghost, his revenge was promoted. When Hamlet identified the culprit by directing the play in the play, he still couldn't confirm his own conclusion that the adult world was evil. So he suddenly gave up his revenge plan. This kind of self-denial behind-the-scenes attack actually shows Hamlet's doubts about revenge at this time. Hamlet, who has a perfect tendency, hopes that his revenge is not violence against violence. Hamlet is no longer facing a simple act of revenge, but he believes in an axiom that exists between heaven and earth. At this moment, he must choose to wait and endure.
Hamlet is always in a passive position in revenge for his father. He was not at the scene when his father was killed, and all the facts were relayed by his father's ghost, lacking direct evidence. As for the wedding of mother and uncle, it was even more hasty, and he could not object at all. Hamlet, regardless of himself, took out the killer weapon of "pretending to be crazy" to find out the truth of the incident. But it was not until the truth came out that his uncle killed his brother and usurped the throne. His uncle is standing at the peak of power, challenging the justice and legal order of the whole world. It is he who plays Hamlet's opponent. But he found that the misfortune in his family was just one of the evils, and the reality was even more cruel than he had imagined. He still needs to constantly understand the people and society around him and dare not act rashly. As a humanist, Hamlet's personal revenge task became a kind of social responsibility at this time, which drove Hamlet to take further action and bear the arduous and harsh realistic burden. Therefore, Hamlet embodies the contradictory combination of ordinary people and Gankun giants in action.
Fourth, misunderstanding of women.
In the process of involuntary action, Hamlet felt the cold silence and loneliness of the world around him. The remarriage of his mother made him doubt his family, the abandonment of his friends made him disbelieve in friendship, the spying of his lover kept him away from love, and the harsh reality made him a lonely man. All these eroded Hamlet's original ideal of "human" and gave him a fatal blow. As an idealist with a strong idealistic tendency, Hamlet persistently embodies his ideals about people, life, kindness and beauty in women. Young Hamlet should have enjoyed the simplicity and beauty of youthful love, but after a series of changes, he completely subverted his beautiful understanding of women.
Hamlet's prejudice against women mainly comes from his mother's harm to him. At the beginning, young Hamlet had beautiful fantasies about women, chastity, kindness and sincerity. Because his mother ran away from home, his father couldn't wait to get married two months after his death. Therefore, "Hamlet expressed his deep helplessness and attachment with fierce words, and his mother betrayed himself, which made Hamlet extremely shocked and miserable emotionally. He can't stop the development of the situation. The more he doubts, the more he gets into trouble. The more he is in trouble, the more he hopes to regain his mother's love and attention in a sharp way. But Hamlet realized that his mother, as a woman, had already become the most suspicious variable in life. " Hamlet seems to have a desperate insight into all the secrets of women, realizing that his mother is dominated by lust and "wants to get into the bed of incest" and become the person who "lives in a bed full of sweat and dirt and makes love in a filthy pigsty". He issued words that are still recognized by some people: "Fragility, your name is woman!" " This is an unforgettable injury to Hamlet. "It can be said that Hamlet lost all the mother images in his childhood memory in an instant and gained a re-evaluation of women." At this time, Hamlet asked his mother in full accordance with his ideals and moral standards. The ambivalence towards his mother makes Hamlet despise and be close to women. He is both violent and sad.
Poor Ophelia certainly became the victim of Hamlet's misunderstanding of women. Belinsky said of Hamlet: "He doesn't believe in the reality of love and the dignity of women; Like a madman, he trampled his feelings under his feet and tore up the sacred relationship between him and that pure and beautiful woman with ruthless hands. The woman once gave him everything wholeheartedly and innocently, and he once loved her deeply and tenderly. He mercilessly and rudely insulted a gentle woman like her, as if she were about to abandon everything in the world that reminded him of happiness and kindness. " Just because Mr filia was inadvertently used as a pawn in the power struggle, she was easily used as a spy. Then, Ophelia changed from the goddess in Hamlet's heart, "the immortal idol in my soul, the most gorgeous Mr. filia" to another terrible image. "I also know how you can draw. God gave you a face, and you made one for yourself. You are obsessed with flattery, making obscene noises, giving names to creatures created by God and showing off your ignorance. " And his mockery of women is full of real pain, "... go to a nun ... or marry a fool if you have to;" Because smart people will understand what kind of monsters you will turn them into. Go find a nun. Go as soon as possible. Goodbye! Hamlet took the pure goddess Ophelia as the object of ridicule in a paranoid position and hurt her with violent language, which indirectly led to Ophelia's death.
Hamlet didn't realize that they were also in the position of being killed and damaged. They were all victims of the power struggle. He didn't fully understand the women around him and their love and will. Hamlet's love and hate for women is absurd and sad, and the beauty of ordinary women is destroyed in her concept. At this point, it is Hamlet's retrogression from giant Kun to Shu Ren.
Fifth, the moral orientation of paying equal attention to good and evil.
In Hamlet's melancholy and contemplative drama, we should make it clear whether we want revenge or not and choose the way of revenge. Is it aboveboard revenge or revenge for the purpose by hook or by crook? This makes his conscience balance between the moral principles of good and evil. "He not only saw the greatness and sublimity of human nature, but also saw the smallness of human beings, the badness, selfishness and narrowness of human nature. ..... people are regarded as' the essence of the universe, the primate of all things', and people are degraded as' things extracted from the earth' ". He showed extreme disgust and disgust at his uncle's usurpation, his mother's incest and his lover's forced treachery, but he also had instinctive moral scruples about bloodshed and revenge. Therefore, he hesitated and did not retaliate. Hamlet put everything around him under his moral microscope as the starting point of his thoughts and actions.
Hamlet has his kind and fair side. He vowed to rectify Gankun, avenge his father and kill the usurper's uncle, which was an act of upholding justice, punishing evil and promoting good. But the purpose of unscrupulous means exposes the essence of evil. His heartless injury to his beloved Mr. filia, his indifference after stabbing his father Polonius by mistake, and clearing the way for his revenge have sent Rosen Glanz and Gierden Stern to a dead end. From Hamlet's standpoint, they really deserve to die, because they are the accomplices of Claudius, the head of evil. However, Hamlet's pursuit of human nature and self-verification, as well as his expectation of establishing an upright future king image, are despicable, selfish and narrow-minded.
Hamlet revenges his father and reorganizes Gan Kun. He shouted angrily, "This is an era of upside-down chaos. Unfortunately, I have to assume the responsibility of rectifying Gankun! " This is the good side of his moral orientation, which shows that Hamlet's attention has shifted from personal misfortune and family problems to the universal evil of society. He fought against the evil forces that ruled Denmark, led by Claudius, and took it as his duty to save the people, turning personal suffering into people's suffering. It is also a proof that Hamlet is a giant of Gankun. He rebuked politicians as "good players who steal the day"; The way to expose lawyers is to "play with swords and shadows and reverse black and white"; Think that landlords are "not much smarter than animals"; Laughing at a jester like Rosen Glanz is "a sponge that absorbs the king's favor, interests and titles"; Scold treacherous court officials like Polonius as "fishmongers" and "water flies"; He listed the pain of living in this world as follows: "the humiliation of oppressors, the indifference of arrogant people, the pain of despised love, the delay of laws, the cruelty of officials and the contempt of villains." Hamlet's criticism of reality proves his kindness, sympathy and justice.
In a word, the image of Hamlet contains endless meanings, and his life is accompanied by growing pains. The conflict between ideal and reality, the deviation of family ties and the hopelessness of love, and the weak responsibility and will to transform Gan Kun. The contradiction between Gankun's giants and ordinary people is vividly reflected. Hamlet was never satisfied with personal revenge. With a curious heart, he pursued the realization of social justice and the perfection of his own humanity in the struggle against social evil and his own human weakness. Finally, Shakespeare asked him to end his tragic life by the sword, and successfully completed the last and most tragic stroke of his complex and complete character description. But Hamlet did not fall in vain, leaving an example of how not to compromise with evil. Since then, Hamlet, a combination of Gankun giant and everyman, has been reborn in the hearts of different readers!