Socialler and Socialler

I guess we are all just a barrell of lonely monkeys. I have been challenged by Lady B to write seven things about myself in a post "shorter than the Paleozoic era" (the Lady is a fond student of all things between a rock an a hard place). Assuming the Paleozoic era, like the parsec, is a unit of length rather than time as might be conjectured, I for one will not stand in the way of such contests of dispensing the excretory fluid. Setting the tattered manifest charter of impersonality aside for a second time (those scarred will remember the horrid lapse of standards of February this year) I will boldly endeavour to oblige the gaggle of coquettes in their thirst for brass tax.

1.

I could be compared to a summer's day

Though I am more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Some too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And oft is his gold complection dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

But my eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair I oweth;

Nor shall Death brag I wander'th in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time I groweth:

So long as men can breathe and eyes can see,

So  long lives this and this gives life to me

2. Most Terry Gilliam films presents a fairly accurate description of my mindscape.

Terry G

3. I invented the Spanish question mark and the royalties afforded me anually are partly to blame for the current economic turmoil in Spain.

The other one is copyright infringement

4. I am fascinated by the apparent humanity behind much of the lofty cultural expressions of history. Consider this: although civilisation has gradually become more advanced through the ages our perception of the value of cultural remnants of history has described an oppositely declining trajectory, as has our understanding of the basic functions of humanity behind those remnants. Therefore, discovering the lewdness of Hamlet, the greatest emo of all times, the fact that the English Enlightenment poet Stephen Duck died by ducking in 1756 or that Virgil got his name for not sleeping with ladies (because he was secretly otherwise inclined) delights me to no end.
 

 
5. My latest purchase is La Pucelle d'Orléans by Voltaire. A dirty sexist satire over the life of Joan of Arc, the book was found too licentious by the 18th century French! Since it was outlawed, banned and burned throughout France Voltaire brought it to London whose printers published in great excess and delight. I have found one of these copies from 1774 in a Viennese antiquarian bookstore and it is in the mail as this post is being written. Now all that remains is to learn French and I should be able to look forward to many a hearty, bawdy guffaw.


Juicy Joan,
too frivolous for the French

6. My hobbies are golf, masturbation and strangling animals. Simultaneously.



7. I get the creeps by the following: open drawers, clingfilm, thick ropes, dentists' drills, pictures of VD and jutting my jaw forwards so my lower front teeth get on the outside of my upper front teeth. On the other hand, I have been cut, shot (by myself), bitten by lots of different animals, had surgery in my stomach without anasthetic, cut the inside of my eyelid on rusty barbed wire, climbed a switched on electric fence and bled quite substantial amounts of blood on a wall. However, I am genetically conditioned to cry when animals in distress are rescued or when those two Italians sing and play for Lady and the Tramp in the original movie.

You've read it!

You can't un-read it!

Stay tuned for more verisimilitude!

Look it up.

Sources: pic1, pic3, pic5 

Ophelia’s Death - Three Representations

This article will explore issues concerning the representation of the death of the Ophelia character in Shakespeare’s Hamlet (i). Using a short introduction of the original representation as a starting point, I will go on to analyse the corresponding scenes or sections in Laurence Olivier’s 1948 film adaptation and Matt Haig’s appropriation, the novel The Dead Fathers Club (ii). In this analysis I will venture to examine the intertextual relationships between these and the original. Although one might write extensively on the subject, I will limit the discussion to particularly relevant aspects of each hypertext. All the relevant terms are taken from Julie Sanders’ Adaptation and Appropriation and the web pages of Yale Film Studies, and I refer to these for the definition of “scene” outside the context of the original play (iii).

The Hypotext – Shakespeare’s Hamlet

In the play, Ophelia’s death is represented indirectly through Gertrude’s account at the end of scene 4.7. However, it is important to recognise how the representation also spans both foreshadows and later references to the character’s death. This essay will only cover these when they are given particular relevance in the hypertexts. Thus, the main focus will be on the section 4.7.163 to the end of the scene.

In this representation, the queen relates to Claudius and Laertes how Ophelia, while decorating a willow with garlands fell with her flowers into a brook and passively lay singing until she drowned. This account contains some ambiguity as to whether Ophelia’s death was suicide or not. In scene 5.1, both clowns and priests seem to think it was and so represents Ophelia’s death as such. This is an ambiguity that appropriators would have to actively engage with.

Since the account of Ophelia’s death is given through plain narration, the symbolism used becomes central in the representation. Throughout the play Ophelia is consistently associated with flowers and those named by Gertrude symbolise either pain (the nettle), loyal love, innocence, the Virgin Mary or beauty (iv). In the same way as the flowers bore significance in scene 4.5, they here represent aspects of Ophelia and her relationship to Polonius and Hamlet. The willow is associated with sorrow weeping, water and mourning. It is a popular image on tombstones and has a similar shape. It was considered unlucky in contemporary folklore and is therefore a potent signifying agent (v).

Title page of the First Quarto

(Source: Cambridge University)

Bearing in mind that water is what kills Ophelia, one might further examine the symbolic meaning of water. The first clown refers to water as an agent of decay, at several instances throughout the play characters weep over the death of other characters, most notably Laertes over Ophelia, and even Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s death has an association to water (vi). Similarly, Old Hamlet, Gertrude and Claudius are all killed by some liquid. Water can further signify the forces driving Ophelia to her death, seeing as water envelops her much the same way as the intrigues of Elsinore did. These two meanings are supported by the mention of fish. Hamlet calls Polonius a fishmonger, meaning he treats Ophelia as if he were a fleshmonger, and later identifies fish in the chain of decay after death (vii). Admittedly, the latter link is debated but in the interplay of hypo- and hypertexts awareness of such issues is rewarding as will be shown below.

Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet (1948)

Laurence Olivier’s film adaptation of Hamlet was to become an iconic hypertext of the play informing several later appropriations, perhaps most notably Branagh’s 1997 film adaptation, but also several appropriations outside Olivier’s genre (viii). When analysing Olivier’s representation of Ophelia’s death, however, it is important to know something of the context of its creation (ix). Olivier was required by his studio, as is often the case with adaptations, to observe some requirements as to the length of the film and he therefore had to make some editorial omissions. This affects his representation of Ophelia’s death in this hypertext.

Olivier's Hamlet

(Source)

Genre and narrative tools

The Olivier Film is a generic transposition where the original play has been adapted into another dramatic genre. This accounts for some of the differences between hypo- and hypertext. The adapting auteur has to balance his fidelity between his hypotext, his artistic medium and his audience. This might lead him to apply some of the techniques of his medium for the benefit of his audience and use these in his approach to the hypotext. This accounts for a mise-en-scéne and a use of deep focus, low-key lighting and chiaroscuro which is characteristic for film noir, a film subgenre with which Olivier had frequently been associated.

Also, the editing process of film allows for changes in what is represented and how. Whereas Ophelia’s death was represented through Gertrude’s account to Claudius and Laertes in the hypotext it is presented as a long take flashback scene with a voice over in this hypertext. This is a partial inversion of the original; the visual narration takes prominence and at times substitutes the verbal, which was the defining feature of the original narration, lacking in direct visual representation (x). This move can be seen as part of a larger appropriative process of generic transposition. Olivier was embracing the potential of the film medium. In shooting the film, he could emancipate himself from the fixed focus of Elizabethan theatre and represent through techniques such as panning and zooming something that had to be told in the theatre. Also, he could edit the original play by inserting flashbacks and quickly change setting, as was done with this particular scene.

The dramatic situation of the original play limits the availability of narrative tools such as visual flashbacks. Plays are generally tied to a linearity in plot and if events outside this linearity are to be represented on stage other narrative tools must be used. In the Hamlet hypotext, this is done through simple verbal narration (like Gertrude's account of Ophelia's death or the Ghost's of his own) or through the play within the play. The representation of Ophelia’s death in this hypertext, however, employs the flashback as a tool not only for representing a scene in a new and more visual way, but also to comment on and revise our understanding of the original scene and the play itself.

The use of flashback in this scene might hold the answer to a question frequently raised concerning the original scene; how is Gertrude aware of the sequence of events and who were present? The answer seems to be one of generic requirements as the only applicable medium with which to portray Ophelia's death would be speech.

Furthermore, the use of flashback is a comment on the passive role of Ophelia in the hypertext and makes her more visually present in the representation of her own death. Several commentaries have been made with a similar agenda pertaining to the original Hamlet play, most notably by Stoppard (concerning Rosencrantz and Guildenstern) but also by Haig (see below) (xi). The choice to visually present this particular segment of the hypotext could also be in recognition of the influence of the visual expressions of the Pre-Raphaelites.

Voice over

In a complex play of intertextuality, the voice over serves as a way of invoking properties of one hypotext while properties of another hypotext is shown, itself a Pre-Raphaelite hypertext of the same hypotext. The narrative voice in the scene can be recognised as that of Gertrude, but no indications are given as to whom might be the audience of her narration. The plot of the hypertext moves directly from the end of scene 4.5 in the hypotext, which features the same characters as the ones concerned with said hypertext scene. Thus, the audience is by the editing choices of Olivier and perhaps by prior knowledge of the play led to believe that Claudius and Laertes are the audience. Additionally, Laertes extended reply to Gertrude’s account, and indeed the remainder of the act, is omitted presumably because it was not considered to fit well with the voice over. Here, one can once more register how the editorial choices of the appropriating agent and the iconicity of the hypotext inform the audience’s understanding of the hypertext.

Voice over is used at several other instances throughout the hypertext as a tool for narrative effect. Many of the soliloquies in the film are presented as voice overs and the combination of voice over and flashback is also frequently used, e.g. to portray the death of Old Hamlet or Hamlet’s brush with the pirates. Compared to the hypotext, the use of voice over retains some of the properties of stage performance but adds to the sensorial impression of the hypertext. Thus the use of voice over approximates the narration for an audience which is used to a medium more applicable for conveying sensory stimuli than the original, but it also underlines the subgenre of film noir with which both Olivier, this adaptation and the narrative tool is traditionally associated (xii).

Mise-en-scéne and the significance of omissions

Concerning the mise-en-scéne of this particular scene, it is important to be aware of not only the original play as a hypotext but also the Pre-Raphaelite legacy as a strong visual indicator for Olivier (xiii). Throughout the flashback the camera shows consecutively the brook, Ophelia floating down the brook singing in a manner reminiscent of painters such as Waterhouse, Hughes and Millais, a floating flower arrangement and finally the brook without Ophelia who, presumably, has drowned. However, it is worth noting that this sequence does not exactly follow the voice over, but it still includes what seem to be the main physical elements of the scene. Also, the circumstances immediately leading up to her entering the water are excluded visually. Whether this is in order to disregard the ambiguities pertaining to the nature of her fall inherent in the hypotext or to retain them is a matter of debate. Later sections, which address the issue in the hypotext, namely the clowns’ section and the funeral scene in act 5, have also largely omitted any mention of these ambiguities (xiv). The motives for this exclusion can be due to perceptions of a lack of consequence and centrality of the scene. Alternatively, the assumption that the ambiguity would be one familiar to the audience anyway could have been guiding. As a matter pertaining to Olivier's intentions, this discussion is arguably irrelevant (see Wimsatt and Beardsley (xv)). However, it is intrinsic to the hypertext and the tripartite relationship between this, the hypotext and the audience. Thus an awareness of such issues is central to our understanding of the relationship of a hypertext to a hypotext.

Similarly, the actual drowning is also omitted and substituted for a shot of the flowers which play an important associative role in relation to Ophelia in both hypo- and hypertext and are discussed below. Her death is rather shown through a combination of water and flowers, for Ophelia exits the frame and is replaced by flowers and as the camera moves on, following her, only a stretch of remarkably still water is shown. The diegetic representation of both her fall and her drowning in an offscreen space could also be seen as a "fidelity in the infidelity" to the hypotext; it somewhat echoes the narrative properties of the original play.

Symbolism

Throughout the hypertext as a whole, realism seems to be secondary to symbolism e.g. with Elsinore represented more as a mindscape than a realistic castle, and in the hypotext the imagery of water, plants and flowers was especially prominent in relation to Ophelia (xvi). This is also, albeit with a few moderations, true of the hypertext.

The willow, a powerful symbol from the hypotext, visually frames the account of Ophelia falling in the water and drowning. The willow in itself played an instrumental role in the original play, but as Ophelia is not shown to be in contact with the tree one must assume that the willow is present for its symbolic and associative value. Interestingly, the hanging twigs of the willow covers the inverted space of the shape of a tombstone for the better part of the scene further emphasising its symbolic aspect.

The flowers surrounding Ophelia and immediately following her downstream like a funerary arrangement are not easily identified. However, through the voice over monologue the audience is led to believe that they are the flowers mentioned. Thus, with the flowers visually representing Ophelia's death, directly following her being alive and preceding her drowning, the centrality of floral symbolism is retained from hypotext to hypertext. Bearing in mind that scene 4.5 in the hypotext is shown directly preceding the representation of Ophelia’s death in the hypertext the symbolic meaning of each flower, so central to that scene, remains so in this representation. The omission of Gertrude's notes on the long purples, particularly on the meaning-laden name "dead men's fingers", might be because the reference to Polonius, any motivation for suicide or the added botanical information seemed unnecessary in a scene with added visual symbolism. This also seems natural given Olivier’s editorial situation.

The properties of the water could act as a commentary on Ophelia’s role in the hypotext. Only fleetingly described in the original, the nature of the brook gains some significance in a visual representation. The water is remarkably still, even Ophelia's impact barely ripples the surface, raising doubts as to how controlled her descent was and thus furthering some of the ambiguity of the original (xvii). Then, the current of the brook becomes central as a contrast to Ophelia's inactivity. The current controls Ophelia and in this way becomes symbolic not only of her death but also of the causes of it, i.e. the forces in the play for which Ophelia is a pawn. This, combined with the above mentioned sudden replacement of Ophelia with a calm stretch of water seems to foreshadow the underrepresentation in the following scenes, comment on her role in the original play and also echo the definite tagline of the play; "the rest is silence" (xviii).

The motif of water in relation to death therefore is present, but seems strangely underrepresented compared with the hypotext. Although many of the foreshadowing associations mentioned in the original are present in the hypertext, Laertes’ response to Gertrude's account is omitted, the clown's thoughts on death and water at the beginning of act 5 are also excluded and only the image of water as an agent of decay is retained (xix). This serves to undermine the role of Ophelia by limiting the references to her originally prompted in the hypotext. Whether this is done due to editorial concerns, which is an aspect of the generic transposition, or acts as a commentary on the expedient role of Ophelia is beyond the spatial scope of this essay. What is certain, though, is that despite omissions Olivier’s film shows closer links to the hypotext than the next hypertext: Matt Haig’s novel.

Matt Haig’s The Dead Fathers Club

Matt Haig’s novel is an appropriation of the hypotext. It is a complex transposition, most notably in genre, setting and perspective. The characters are similar and the plot of the hypertext mirrors that of the hypotext relatively closely. However, they deviate decisively when the reader reaches the section corresponding to the Representation of Ophelia’s death in the original (xx).

Cover

(Source: Fantasticfiction.co.uk)

The Deviation

In this hypertext the Ophelia character clearly tries to commit suicide, but survives. While Ophelia’s death is described as a solitary event on her part in the hypotext, it is far from so in the hypertext. An issue mentioned earlier was that of who were present and why Ophelia was not saved but in this section Haig offers another answer than that given by Olivier by rewriting the original sequence altogether. The appropriated Ophelia, Hamlet, Ghost and Claudius are all present as Leah, Philip, the ghost of Philip’s father and Uncle Alan and Philip and Alan ultimately saves Leah who tries to commit suicide by hurling herself off a weir. This is not as much an interpolation as a consistent deviation from the hypotext or in layman’s terms; an alternative ending. However, the drowning is retained by having Uncle Alan drown.

By having several characters present in this section, Haig is able to comment more directly on characters and their relationships in the hypotext. When faced with a suicidal Leah Philip recognises that he is to blame, something which seems far distant from Hamlet’s mind in the funeral scene (xxi). Furthermore, when having jumped in after Leah, he partly experiences the drowning of the hypotext Ophelia but where Ophelia both in the hypotext and in Olivier’s hypertext seemed strangely passive, Philip kicks off his shoes and presents a diametrically opposite alternative (xxii). This fits in well with Haig’s alternative plot. Uncle Alan whose middle name is Peter is also present, fishing (xxiii). Throughout the hypertext it is unclear whether Alan really is a bad person, as most of his actions are ambiguous. When he is the one who ultimately saves both Philip and Leah, the image of the appropriated Claudius proves to be a distorted product of the appropriated Hamlet’s mind . Without actually redeeming Claudius, Haig comments on the one-sided depiction of him and the disruptive effect of Hamlet’s mind (xxiv). However, the reader is left guessing as Alan suggestively and suddenly appears to see the ghost, precipitating his drowning but in the process having his hands washed clean (xxv).

Furthermore, other scenes from the hypotext are represented in this suicide-section. Leah has the words “dead” and “gone” written in blood on her arms before jumping. This, coupled with her earlier singing, echoes scene 4.5 in the hypotext (xxvi). Philip confronts the persistent ghost of his father, who is responsible for upsetting the situation as in the play, and then defies him by jumping after Leah. This is reminiscent not only of his doubts of the authenticity of the ghost throughout the play, but also of his resolve from scene 5.2 onwards. Philip’s decision to defy the Ghost is also indicative of Haig’s decision to defy the hypotext. Bearing in mind the symbolic value of water, also present in this hypertext, Philip’s jump mimics Hamlet’s entering Ophelia’s grave for a scuffle in scene 5.1 (xxvii). In general, Haig seems to react to the excessively tragic ending of the hypotext by merging and editing the extended last act into one section including Leah’s attempted suicide and its aftermath.

Narration and genre

In the hypotext, the account of Ophelia’s death was narrated by Gertrude. In Olivier’s hypertext the narration was done through visual means and recitation. As mentioned above, the narration in this hypertext sets it distinctly apart from both.

The narrative situation of the hypotext is briefly alluded to when the Laertes of the novel, Dane, breaks the news to Philip and his mother Carol that “she [Leah] is gone” and asks “where” (xxviii). However, one of the generic properties of a novel is a prominent narrator, often more so than in drama. Therefore, as Philip is the narrator, he intrudes on the sequence like Hamlet intruded on Ophelia's funeral. Whereas in the hypotext Ophelia's death in every practical sense was kept separate from the Hamlet character, in the hypertext the appropriated Hamlet must have an active or at least influential part because he is the narrator. In the play, however, this could be avoided by transferring the narrative voice to Gertrude. Also, through the transgeneric process of transposition Haig can emancipate himself from the confinements of dramatic narration, most notably the audience’s need for immediate appeal and stimulation. Where the hypotext had to be brief and the Olivier hypertext had to be visually appealing, the novelist is able to extend his narration, include whichever elements he wants and structure the narration freely due to this (xxix). It is of course also a question of the communicative medium employed; where dramatic forms of art communicate through sound and images, novels do so through text.

The proximated language of the narration yields more links to the hypotext. The language used is that of the 11-year-old protagonist which entails capital lettering and text size for emphasis, lack of punctuation and playful arrangement of words on the page. Throughout the relevant section, language plays an important part. At the climax of the section, which arguably is the climax of the novel, the narrator switches from past to present tense and for the duration of the climax uses minimal punctuation (xxx). This is similar to Olivier’s use of the potential techniques of his medium for effect. It also works as a comment on what in the receptive context of the novel must seem like an archaic form of English in the hypotext and argues a certain immaturity in the original Hamlet character.

Furthermore, the formulations of the associations made by this pre-adolescent mirror elements from the hypotext. Leah is described as “an animal that might climb trees”, the motif of the bestial and grotesque as well as the morbidity of the clowns from the hypotext are noted through the formulations on blood and insects and his child-like comparison of himself to Spiderman reflects Hamlet’s notions of the Ghost and the association between him and gods (xxxi). Also, formulations like “my words got drowned” mimic the wordplay of the hypotext (xxxii).

Symbolism

While the floral symbolism, so prominent in the hypotext and the Olivier hypertext, is largely absent in this, the imagery of water, fish and death is more prominent. The willow is exchanged for a weir which nicely incorporates many of the actual and symbolic properties of the willow and is a proximation probably more easily recognisable for the modern reader. The current beneath the weir is the main agent of death exhibiting many of the same qualities as in Olivier’s film but much more prominently and extensively. This may again have to do with the generic and dimensional properties of the original scene and the appropriation. In the water, Leah initially seems very passive, as in the hypotext, but Philip’s intervention makes her spring into action (xxxiii). If the water and the current symbolises the destructive forces affecting Leah this comments on Ophelia’s basic submissive and unassertive role in the hypotext.

The fish imagery is also highly present in the section. An often evoked image in the hypertext, the aquatic creature symbolises and at times foreshadows death (xxxiv). This is due to the habitats of the characters and the fish; both die if they enter the other’s. Thus, when Philip feels a fish brush is face and sees his disadvantage the fish is an symbol and a harbinger of death (xxxv). Alan acts as a figure of transition; moving Philip and Leah into their element but dying in the process symbolically represented as a fish on land (xxxvi).

Conclusion

Both the adaptation and the appropriation were generic transpositions of the hypotext. This has been fundamental in their versions of Ophelia’s death as each genre offers alternative tools for narration to the hypotext. In Olivier’s film the visual representation and the use of flashback with voiceover gave the scene a distinctly different outlook and the novel’s potential for narrative technique and extent proved beneficial for Haig. While the latter uses the death of Ophelia to more actively engage with the hypotext both can be seen to comment on Ophelia’s role in the entire hypotext through their versions of her death. Whether retaining or closing gaps of ambiguity or appropriating the original scene artistically or realistically, both in some way engage with her originally passive unassertiveness.

With a hypotext representation so heavily dependent on linguistic imagery, Gertrude’s account being rather short, it is interesting to see how symbolism is retained or abandoned and to study how it evokes and modifies the original account. Why is the water important and not the flowers in Haig’s appropriation and would Olivier’s representation have been the same without the flowers?

How the representations of Ophelia’s death inform our view of the character, how appropriations engage with the iconicity of each of the representation’s constituents and also how Ophelia’s madness is represented in the original and appropriations are fertile grounds for further analysis. Also, the role of the subplot of Ophelia’s life, death and relations in relation to the main plot and the Hamlet character as represented in appropriations could also prove a good basis for a work much more extensive than this. What is certain is that the complexity of the character and the ambiguities surrounding her death will continue to engage scholars and appropriators alike in the times to come

Endnotes
i. William Shakespeare: Hamlet, ed. by Philip Edwards, 2nd edn, Cambridge 2003
ii. Laurence Olivier: Hamlet, [1948] (DVD), Matt Haig: The Dead Fathers Club, London 2007
iii. Julie Sanders: Adaptation and Appropriation, London 2006, The Yale Film Studies web pages: http://classes.yale.edu/film-analysis/, last visited 07.06.2010
iv. Rowena Shepherd et.al.: 1000 symbols, London 2002, Texas A&M University’s web page: http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/archives/parsons/publications/flowers/flowers.html, last visited 07.06.2010. Also, Tate Gallery has a very informative and relevant page on the floral symbolism in Millais’ painting of Ophelia: http://www.tate.org.uk/ophelia/subject_symbolism.htm, last visited 07.06.2010
v. Shepherd et.al. 2002. The willow was a popular symbol for Shakespeare; it also appears in Othello and Twelfth Night.
vi. Shakespeare 2003: 5.1.145, 4.5.185-189, 5.2.12-62
vii. Ibid: 2.2.172, 4.3.19-29
viii. Kenneth Branagh: Hamlet, [1997] (DVD)
ix. Unless otherwise stated, the scene discussed will be Olivier 1948: 1:49:42-1:51:05
x. Branagh (1997) in this respect keeps closer to the hypotext with stage directions more or less as indicated in the play with only a minor shot of Ophelia submerged at the end of the scene.
xi. Tom Stoppard: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, London 1968
xii. The Yale Film Studies web pages, last visited 07.06.2010
xiii. See Elaine Showalter: Representing Ophelia: Women, Madness, and the Responsibilities of Feminist Criticism in William Shakespeare: "Hamlet", ed. Wofford, Susanne, New York 1994, pp.220-240
xv. Olivier 1948: 1:51.06- 1:59:37
xv. Monroe C. Beardsley et.al.: The Intentional Fallacy in Vincent B. Leitch et al (eds): The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, New York 2001, pp. 1374-1387
xvi. See Elaine Showalter (1994) for more on this symbolism
xvii. As a curiosity, one might notice how the scene has been edited by initially playing the tape forwards and backwards to match Ophelia’s appearance with the monologue. This can particularly be seen in the direction of the ripples of water.
xviii. Shakespeare 2003: 5.2.337
xix. Olivier 1948: 1.43.32
xx. Haig 2007: 281-295
xxi. Haig 2007: 286, Shakespeare 2003: 5.1
xxii. Haig 2007: 289
xxiii. The biblical Peter was a fisherman.
xxiv. Haig 2007: 292-294
xxv. Ibid: 294, 312
xxvi. Shakespeare 2003: 4.5.29, Leah’s song in Haig 2007: 273
xxvii. Note that this is according to an early dramatic custom based on Q1. A short text on this can be found in the footnote to the appropriate line on p. 235 in the cited Hamlet edition.
xxviii. Haig 2007: 281, Shakespeare 2003: 4.7.164-165
xxix. A very good publication on this is Clayton Hamilton: Materials and Methods of Fiction, New York 1911, 95-102.
xxx. Haig 2007: 291 onwards
xxxi. Ibid: 273, 286-287, 291 (the comparison to gods can be found from Shakespeare 2003: 3.4.55 onwards)
xxxii. Haig 2007: 286
xxxiii. Ibid: 289
xxxiv. This image is established as early as Haig 2007: 14.
xxxv. Ibid: 291-292
xxxvi. Ibid: 310

Bibliography

Beardsley, Monroe C. et.al.: The Intentional Fallacy in Leitch, Vincent B. et al (eds): The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, New York 2001, pp. 1374-1387

Haig, Matt: The Dead Fathers Club, London 2007

Hamilton, Clayton: Materials and Methods of Fiction, New York 1911, also available on http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30776/30776.txt, last visited 07.06.2010

Sanders, Julie: Adaptation and Appropriation, London 2006

Shakespeare, William: Hamlet, ed. by Pilip Edwards, 2nd edn, Cambridge 2003

Shepherd, Rowena et.al.: 1000 symbols, London 2002

Showalter, Elaine: Representing Ophelia: Women, Madness, and the Responsibilities of Feminist Criticism in Shakespeare, William: "Hamlet", ed. Susanne Wofford, New York 1994, pp. 220-240

Stoppard, Tom: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, London 1968

Films
Branagh, Kenneth: Hamlet, [1997] (DVD)

Olivier, Laurence: Hamlet, [1948] (DVD)

Web pages
Tate Gallery’s web page: http://www.tate.org.uk/ophelia/subject_symbolism.htm, last visited 07.06.2010

Texas A&M University’s web page: http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/archives/parsons/publications/flowers/flowers.html, last visited 07.06.2010

The Yale Film Studies web pages: http://classes.yale.edu/film-analysis/, last visited 07.06.2010
(Original article written for the course ENG3243, 05.06.2010)Literature

“Don’t worry, I’m okay” - An analysis of “The Sopranos" as an appropriation of “Hamlet”

Introduction

In the following I will analyse the HBO hit television series The Sopranos as an appropriation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Although one might write extensively on the subject, I will limit this essay to discussing how the setting, protagonist and some themes can be seen as appropriations of the original play. All relevant terms are from Julie Sanders' Adaptation and Appropriation (i). I will focus my attention mainly on the first season, although my conclusions are representative for the series as a whole.

Setting

The plot in Sopranos takes place in a relatively limited setting. The crime family controls the New Jersey area in New York and, apart from a few very brief excursions like Tony’s visit in Italy in the second season and sporadic visits to Florida, most of the action takes place in the northern East Coast area. Most of the episodes are located in New Jersey with local sights frequently represented in order to emphasise its importance. Whenever the geographical setting changes in the series, it is always tied up with a parallel plotline interpolated in the episode in order to maintain the connection to the basic geographical setting. Likewise, the show never leaves its Italian American, masculine mobster milieu. At times, characters visit other social, vocational or ethnic groups, but always as emissaries if not in the context of the plot then as a tool for contrast and social commentary.

The temporal setting is also quite limited. Although there are a few flashbacks in episode 7, season 1, time in the series is often remarkably linear. The interconnectedness of the episodes further underlines this linearity. The series is built around the protagonist’s handling of different situations, conflicts and challenges that arise. Since there often is an overlap between these situations and since they often span more than one episode, the timeline does not only seem linear. It also seems to be rather limited and in real time. The show is supposed to be following the everyday life of Tony’s families and we see his private family developing like a family would; children passing through their teens and various educational institutions. The show was shot more or less consecutively from 1999 to 2007 so the visual development of characters closely follows that of the actors. In this way, the audience gets the impression that nothing is left out and that the order of events is genuinely linear.

Although transposed in time and geography, the setting shares several of these characteristics with Hamlet. Hamlet’s excursions from Elsinore are limited both in time, frequency and extent in much the same relative proportions to the play as those of the series. While both time span and geographical setting might differ in extent, “Hamlet” taking place in and around the royal seat of Denmark within a few months and Sopranos being played out across several states and several years, this may be seen as a product of genre since a television series generically can accommodate a more extensive setting. Features of the setting, like the general linearity of time and the relative conformity of geographical location are thus received in another genre. Furthermore, both source text and appropriation is located within a masculine power sphere, an environment of macro- and micro political struggles where perhaps the micro political dynastic conflicts are most clearly linked. However, even though Tony’s brushes with the FBI as a representative of overarching society are more prominent in the appropriation, the threat from Norway and the ambiguous role of its representative Fortinbras as representatives of macro politics are also ever present in the hypotext, albeit admittedly not as explicitly as in the hypertext.

This proximation entails added potential for both the hypotext and the hypertext. Sopranos, by mimicking the setting of Hamlet, can more easily explore personal issues that are accommodated by a limitation of the physical environment and like the play focus viewer attention on these issues rather than distracting them with constant change of setting and the implications this has for the plot’s effect in conveying themes. It also makes a further reception of themes, characters, character relationships, conflicts and other forms of analogy possible. Finally, the proximation gives Hamlet relevance for a new audience, one which might under other circumstances have remained unfamiliar with the archetypes, plot structures and issues discussed in the play.

Character, Characterisation and Conflict

Both the hyper- and the hypotext are dramatic forms of art, which puts an obvious stock in characters. Therefore, it is to be expected that many aspects of the appropriation’s relationship to the original would be somehow represented by the characters. A clear indication of this is given in the titles of the play and the series; Hamlet referring to its protagonist and The Sopranos referring to Tony Soprano and the two families that bear his name. With the connection between the protagonists made, we may proceed to explore how the characters of the series may have corresponding characters in the play, how relationships may compare and how the characters may represent received themes.

The eponymous Tony Soprano is the troubled prince of a feudal construct. The acting boss leads his own society, the Soprano crime family which partially overlaps with his private family and “there’s the rub”(ii) . Tony’s father, Johnny, is dead and his brother, Corrado “Junior” Soprano, thinks he is entitled to be the next boss. He strikes a note with Tony’s mother, Livia, and these two become a constellation with which Tony frequently has to grapple. Throughout the series, Tony acts as the de facto boss while Junior, without his knowledge, acts as a cover.

There are numerous ways in which the Tony character echoes and imitates Hamlet. Firstly, their situations are similar. Both have lost a father whose example guides them but also instils a sense of inadequacy. The series, in fact, opens with Tony seeking help from Dr. Melfi, the psychiatrist, because he feels that the golden age is passed and that his world is on the decline. He feels that his father requires him to run his criminal organisation as smoothly as he did. Both protagonists have trouble with similar constellations of elderly family members, and in a sense, both are individuals whose basic existence, at least for the duration of the play/series, is founded on opposition against established society. In Tony’s case this is an alternative form of government which pitches him both as an opponent of the established order but also as an individual within a limited dynasty. This, drawing on notions of American anti-statism, is an intercultural form of analogue as the basic motif of the individual vs. society is echoed, although in a different cultural setting (more on this below)(iii).

Secondly, and perhaps most decisively, the two protagonists correspond in personality. Both present a combination of violence and meditation. In Hamlet’s case, this is shown in his treatment of most of the other characters and in his soliloquies. For Tony, as well as for the medium, a soliloquy would be out of place but the basic motif for the series, a mobster in therapy, provides a channel for Tony’s inner self. Both characters have to put on a show to their surroundings for the sake of their being, the twist being that Tony has to act stong and mentally stable to avoid being seen as weak, while Hamlet has to act mad to avoid being seen as a threat. This is represented in the following passage from The Sopranos:

“Junior: Are you okay? You’ve been acting [mental] lately. I haven’t seen a long face like that since you were a kid.
Tony: I’m okay […] don’t worry about it” (iv)

While the hypotext presented aspects of Hamlet’s personality through soliloquies and the at times actual presence of his father the ghost, the proximated form of the hypertext does not allow such supernatural tools. The characterisation of Tony is brought about through the presence of his son Anthony Junior (AJ), Dr.Melfi and by some brief flashbacks. The relationship to Anthony Junior works as a tool for representing Tony’s relationship to his dead father, as crucial in the series as in the play. In episodes 4 and 7 in the first series, Tony worries about how his actions influence his son who is taking to fighting and stealing. In episode 7, we are also given some of the very few visual representations of the Tony’s father figure through flashbacks. Johnny Soprano is presented as what Tony in his therapy sessions presents as ideal; a loving family man and a tough and decisive mafioso. This influences how he relates to his role in society, which is closely linked to his idea of the idealised father, and also to his depression and dilemma of action vs. inaction (see below). As in Hamlet the father-son relationship largely dictates the characterisation of the protagonist as well as the plot, which revolves around the conflict of reality imposing itself between the ideal and the protagonist.

As mentioned earlier, Hamlet’s soliloquies are proximated as therapy sessions in the hypertext. These sessions are vehicles of characterisation in The Sopranos much like the soliloquies were in Hamlet. It is here Tony ponders many of the dilemmas and issues presented below and it is through the sessions the audience is brought into the characterisation of the protagonist; Tony and Hamlet both grapple with the same question; “Am I a good person?” Both behave badly towards their fellow characters, often with questionable justification. Hamlet has to deal with this question himself and does so, e.g. in the soliloquy at the end of act 2 (v). In Tony’s case, this task is given to the audience. In other words, where the hypotext provided both the process of characterisation and the conclusion, the hypertext only provides the process through the therapy sessions. This is one of the central functions of the series, for where the play settles the virtue of the protagonist, the series engages the audience in deciding whether the deplorable acts of Tony are justified by his intentions. In this way, the appropriation comments on what can be seen as a closed discussion of motivation and an assertive characterisation in the play. However, the mode of characterisation can also be seen as another privilege of genre as a series of six seasons can accommodate greater uncertainty of characterisation than a five act play.

Themes

Both the play and the series are structured around the personalities of the two protagonists and these are the basis for the themes and conflicts discussed. Since both hypo- and hypertext fundamentally deals with the personal issues of the protagonists, an analysis of these as central aspects of appropriation would fit logically alongside that of the protagonist.

Both characters struggle with depression brought on by dilemmas of action vs. inaction and how to relate to the world as individuals. At the start of the series Tony admits to being depressed just like Hamlet more or less directly does at the start of the play (vi). Indeed, later episodes, such as episode 11 of the first season, are episodes in which a thematical appropriation of Hamlet is apparent. In the episode, he knows some of his friends are working with the FBI and is unsure who to trust. His wife confronts his mother with regard to her effect on his mental state, and the following passages ensue:
(The following monologue ensues, interspersed with protestations and exclamations by Carmela)

“Carmela: You are bigger than life, you are his mother, and I don’t think for one second that you don’t know what you’re doing to him. […] I know [Junior] stops by a lot.”

“Livia: He is my husband’s brother. He can’t check up on me once in a while? That’s not of anybody’s business. I know what you’re hinting at. Wait until you are abandoned. Johnny was a saint. Junior couldn’t carry Johnny’s socks. Do you think I would blacken my Johnny’s memory by getting mixed up with his brother? At least with Junior I’ve got some purpose in life. Somebody listens to me and doesn’t treat me like an old shoe” (vii) 

The reference to Hamlet is obvious. Later, Dr. Melfi diagnoses Tony’s feelings as one of impending doom, and not long after he says he’ll “take a gun and blow my brains out”(viii) in a vein reminiscent both of Hamlet’s suicidal ponderings in the “too too solid flesh” and “to be” soliloquies (ix). Hamlet’s depression is brought on by the lack of standards represented by his father, his perception of corruption within the world and all the other characters and by the union of his uncle and mother. For Tony, these causes are replicated in relation to his crew, Junior and his mother. Like Hamlet and Horatio, Tony only feels he can trust Dr. Melfi and that everyone else fails to live up to the standards he has inherited from his father. It is worth noting that he holds his mother responsible for his father’s death:

“Tony: my mother wore him down to a little nub, he was a squeaking little gerbil when he died.
Dr. Melfi: Quite a formidable maternal presence.”(x)

In an interesting analogy of plot, Tony’s preoccupation with his mother’s destructive powers is justified when she and Junior hire two assassins to kill him. In a proximated imitation of Hamlet’s account at the start of act 5, scene 2, the two assassins die in the attempt to kill the protagonist in a vehicle, just like Hamlet brings about the death of his erstwhile friends turned implicit assassins Rosencrantz and Guildenstern on a boat (xi). The scene nicely encapsulates the causes of Tony’s depression, and like the corresponding scene in Hamlet together with the closet scene (3.4) which is later mirrored in The Sopranos (xii), brings about a resolve and a new understanding of the causes for his depression. This is of course another reference to Hamlet’s resolve in act 4.

One might expect revenge to be a theme appropriated into a gangster series and it is, but three examples will show how, as in the play, revenge is tied with overarching dilemmas. First, in episode 9 of the first season, Tony considers having the coach of his daughter’s soccer team killed for molesting one of her teammates. He sees it as his responsibility to avenge “foul deeds”, implicitly because that is what his father would have done, but Melfi confronts him more or less directly citing Hamlet; “Why do you think you, Anthony Soprano, always have to set things right?”. As a telling twist, Hamlet informs our understanding of Tony’s conundrum as Hamlet more explicitly attributes this mission to his father, him being “born to set it right” (xiii). From episode 11, season 1 and onwards Tony struggles with issues of loyalty. Several times revenge becomes a response to members of his crew betraying him for the FBI or rival gangs. Especially the case with his close friend Salvatore Bonpensiero, whose fate is sealed on a boat, is not only analogous in plot to Hamlet but also in theme. Sal’s demise at the end of the second season is preceded by 16 episodes of mental stress and pondering for Tony which at times leads to suicidal thoughts and paranoia (xiv). When Sal proves to have betrayed Tony, Tony fails in his mission of running a crew after his father’s idealised standards. In both cases revenge acts as a motif for Tony’s idea of his role as an individual in a larger society and it also explores the dilemma of action vs. inaction. Finally, as a more direct form of appropriation, the motif of avenging a father is imitated in the opening episode of season 4 where Tony’s nephew Christopher, whom he sees as a potential heir to the position of boss, avenges his father’s murder by killing a policeman Tony identifies as his murderer. Throughout the episode, Tony functions like the ghost did for Hamlet, spurring him on.

As hinted earlier, the theme of individuality and conformity, or how the individual should relate to the world around him is present in both hypo- and hypertext. Tony is, as a mafia boss, fundamentally opposed to established society although he feels obliged to uphold some of its morals. In episode 10, season 1, the tries to enter established society for the sake of himself and his family (see AJ above), but he finds this lifestyle repulsive and hypocritical and decides to act in society from his alternative approach of organised crime. The episode debates breaking with one’s destiny, which for Tony is following his father’s example and acting as a boss, or to “suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” as Hamlet similarly pondered in the “to be” soliloquy. Like Hamlet, Tony decides to “let be” (xv), that is to adhere to his father’s command even though this will leave him outside and opposed to the established order.

Conclusion

I have analysed some of the ways in which The Sopranos is an appropriation of Hamlet. The most prominent are the proximated setting, the many aspects and relationships of the protagonist and many of the central themes to both texts. It seems that a certain open-mindedness is needed for such an analysis as few aspects of the hypotext have unambiguous or even consistent counterparts in the hypertext. It is also debatable whether what is appropriated stems from the play or from the universality of character traits, conflicts and themes represented in it. That being said, the play and the series share too much to ignore the possibility of the latter being an appropriation of the former. The director, David Chase, has made no allusions to the play, but that in itself does not effect this theory. Perhaps it’s fitting to conclude the essay the way the series was concluded in 2007, with The Sopranos’ take on “the rest is silence” (xiv); the sudden cut to black.

Endnotes:
(i) Julie Sanders: Adaptation and Appropriation, London, 2006
(ii)William Shakespeare: Hamlet, ed. by Philip Edwards, 2nd edn, Cambridge, 2003: 3.1.65
(iii)Sanders 2006: 99
(iv)David Chase: The Sopranos Complete Series 1-6 Box Set, [1999-2007] (DVD), season 1, episode 6, 42:33. (Henceforth referenced as s #, ep. #, ##:##)
(v)Shakespeare 2003: 2.2.501-558
(vi)S 1, ep. 1, 28:00
(vii)S 1, ep. 11, 17:00-19:00
(viii)S 1, ep. 11, 11:08, S1, ep.12, 17:50
(ix)Shakespeare 2003: 1.2.129-159, 3.1.56-89
(x)S1, ep. 1, 30:53-33:22. This scene is a very good representation of Tony’s state of mind and perception of reality.
(xi)S 1, ep. 12, 27:40-28:40, Shakespeare 2003: 5.2.1-62
(xii)S 1, ep. 13, 52:00
(xiii)S 1, ep. 9, 41:26, Shakespeare 2003: 1.5.189-190
(xiv) This is especially apparent in s 1, ep. 12
(xv)Shakespeare 2003: 3.1.56-89, 5.2.196. For this analysis to work, one must assume that Hamlet in his soliloquy equates following his father’s command and killing Claudius with ”suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” and suicide/remaining passive with “by opposing end them”. Lines 83-87 might suggest that suicide and remaining passive is the same thing. One might easily imagine Tony Soprano considering a life outside the mafia a slow suicide. His definitive break with established society echoes Hamlet’s conclusion when he answers “I’ll live” (S 1, ep. 10, 50:06)
(xvi)Shakespeare 2003: 5.2.337

Sources:

Literature:
Julie Sanders, Julie: Adaptation and Appropriation, London, 2006
Shakespeare, William: Hamlet, ed. by Philip Edwards, 2nd edn, Cambridge, 2003

Television series:
Chase, David: The Sopranos Complete Series 1-6 Box Set, [1999-2007] (DVD)

Tom Stoppard - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

"Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" is probably Tom Stoppard's most famous and popular play. Drawing on Shakespeare and Beckett, the play is a study in theatrical wit and appropriation. The play has been made into a film featuring Gary Oldman and Tim Roth number of audiobooks which all follow the play more or less closely.

The setting and basic plot follows that in "Hamlet" closely. The two main characters, minor characters of the original play, are summoned to the Danish court to find out why Hamlet is acting strangely. At times they interact with characters we recognise from Hamlet, but they mostly interact with each other and other minor characters while the events we know from Hamlet are played out in the background. Occasionally meeting with Hamlet they gather that most of the members of the Danish court are mad, are sent to England with Hamlet and meet their anticipated ends.

Cover

The play is a commentary interpolating the plotline focusing on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern into that of the original Hamlet play. Occasional snippets of the original tragedy serve as cues for the two characters to comment on the haughtyness and oppressive deterministic qualities of both the court and the original play. Rosencrantz' line "They'll have us hanging about till we're dead" (p.85) is quite exemplary; they find themselves to be mere tools to both the court and the playwright, devalued in their allotted passivity and obscurity. In addition, their dialogue directly targets the audience's notions of determinism, as indeed does the title of the play. A frequent use of idiomatic foreshadow (like "he murdered us" (p.48), "over your dead body" (p.71) and "we're finished" (p.96)) and numerous discussions concerning death works a constant reminders of the audience's premade assumptions. Such a response to assumptions in a play that is to some extent in opposition to the source text causes bewilderment, so much so that in the end the audience will be suprised to find the main characters being hanged.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern themselves are comic characters in a mode reminiscent of Beckett's "Waiting for Godot". Both Estragon and Vladimir and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern form pairs with complementary personal characteristics, so much so that each character on his own would seem incomplete (see p.95). One might see the play as a product of two appropriations: the characters from "Waiting for Godot" in the plot, setting and context of "Hamlet". Also, the qualities of each character in one absurd play mirror those of one in another. The characters and their language is, as was the case with "Gertrude and Claudius", approximated to fit a modern audience. They neither speak nor behave in the archaic sense one may expect in a play based on Renaissance drama. The effect of this is that the approximated characters become more appealing and their actions and postulations more acceptable to a modern audience. Thus, a constant renewal of drama and literature is possible. (I similar process was the basis for the Katerina character of Dimitri Shostakovich' "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District". For more on effects similar to those pf approximation, see end paragraph of the above mentioned post).

The characters' humourous dialogue conveys a peculiar commentary on the genre and the seriousness of characters in the original play. Several of their discussions are parodical, such as one of their discussions on death on pp. 62-63. Mirroring the "to be or not to be" speech they discuss life after death and find they "have no control" and should not think about it. "You'd only get depressed". There is a child-like quality to the two friends, their innocence, wonder and ineptitude are qualities fundamental to the dialogue and plot progress of the play. However, the seemingly innocent humour can convey both criticism and an uncanny feeling in relation to the grim subjects under discussion.

Tom Stoppard

"Hamlet" being such a canonical text, appropriation becomes an easier task than it would otherwise have been. As the audience can be expected to know the plot and several of the lines, the appropriating playwright may use any number of tools to comment the source text. In "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead", Stoppard transfers focus from Hamlet, Gertrude and Claudius to the two marginalised friends. This is done by allocating all the incidents in the original play that did not include them offstage or in the extremity of the play (e.g. pp.28-29, p.43) or by having them comment on the intrusiveness of the original play directly (e.g. pp.65-67). It could also be done through introducing new stage directions into the original text, i.e. by making the characters act in a way not warranted by the source text (e.g. pp.26,28,84) or by reworking the text altogether. As in Updike, numerous references to the source text are given in rewritten lines from the play such as in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's verdict on Hamlet on p.108. In addition to this, by omitting sequences of the play and source text which the audience would surely be expecting (most notably the "to be" speech, the visitations of the ghost and the final showdown), the source plot is either represented as irrelevant for Stoppard's purposes or open to ridicule or critique.

"the characters from

   "Waiting for Godot" in

   the plot, setting and

   context of "Hamlet"

 Through devices such as those above the playwright brings marginalised characters to the front, questioning the priorities within the source text, pointing out missed potential, expands the scope of the source text and by extension gives the original play a modern touch. It is, however, important to note that in order to work as an effective qritique, an appropriation will to some extent have to depend on the object of its critique. The more effective the appropriative commentary would like to be, the more dependent it would be on the source text, thus somewhat undermining its own critique. To exemplify with "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead", one might consider at least the plot, setting, themes amd genre of "Hamlet" fundamental to the appropriation's effect as a commentary. Could the critical relationship between between what Gérard Genette called the hypertext and the hypotext be dependent on the hypertext's proximity to adaptation (or indeed even the adaptation's proximity to the hypotext)?

I might have to address this issue in a separate blogpost...

All technicalities aside, however, I personally found the play to be very appealing. After a long row of tedious plays ripe with platitudes and infantile theatrical humour I needed a breath of fresh wit. The combitation of the appeal of the characters and the nature of their discussions aided me in my effort to remedy my sense of the fatality of drama, the fatality which ironically is omnipresent in the play.

Gary Oldman's excellent interpretation of Rosencrantz in the film might also have made a contribution...

Sources: Stoppard, Tom: "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead", London, 2000
Løfaldli, Eli: ""Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" Lecture", Trondheim, Spring 2010
Pictures: http://www.culturefeast.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/stoppard.jpg,  http://bbashful66.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/03.jpg,
http://www.faber.co.uk/site-media/onix-images/thumbs/5037_jpg_280x450_q85.jpg, last visited 9.3.2010

Notes on John Updike's "Gertrude and Claudius"

Like the Star Wars films, John Updike's "Gertrude and Claudius" continues with the beginning. The novel imagines the life at the Danish court before the action in Shakespeare's "Hamlet", focusing especially on Gertrude. Indeed, Gertrude is fast becoming the most interesting and most written about character in the play (see my earlier article on Gertrude and maternal sexuality). Although the title implicates Claudius, as indeed the cover illustration would suggest, all the three sections of the novel concern themselves mainly with the Queen. Claudius enters the story rather late in the first section, after all the other main characters have been introduced.

Cover

The main aspect of the novel, or rather its main contribution to the literary realm, is its characterisations. In the play, most of the characters are only as deep as their alotted space in the play and the restrictions of drama will allow. In the novel, however, each character is given a history and a multi-faceted personality presented through their actions, thoughts and utterences and not least through what is said about them by other characters. Claudius, for one, is seen by most of the characters as a shifty, though resourceful character. He is represented mainly in comprarison with his brother, Old Hamlet. He is characterised, through a combination of fear and respect, by the other characters and also by Updike more directly as the traditional fairy tale hero king, much like in the play. The mediating character here is Gertrude. Although the role of narrator shifts through the novel, the space given her, her intimate relations to both brothers and her position as the only fully developed female character in a court of men modifies the view granted in the play. Also, by voicing the largely silent and appendant female character of Gertrude, Updike can introduce new perspectives and depths of character into the story. Her position and reflections on personality provides an aspect to the characters which Shakespeare in his male dominated environment was unable to provide.

It is also worth noting how Claudius is the only character in the novel whose basic ambitions remain ambivalent to the reader. Whereas the agendas of most of the characters both in the play and in the novel are fairly easy to grasp, we never really know if Claudius really wants the throne, Gertrude or both. We are also never really sure how he sees his fellow characters; is Gertrude the love of his life or just a tool for usurping the throne? The shiftiness of his character is emphasised towards the end where he on one page sees his fate linked to Polonius and on the next more drastically feels the need to remove him. Interestingly, the only other character that comes close to this is Hamlet, who in the novel (which does not offer as mych insight into his mind as the play does) appear haughty and somehow beyond reach for his surroundings.

The nomenclative measures Updike takes is another testimony to his skill. The characters change names through the three sections of the novel; Gerutha to Geruthe to Gertrude, Feng to Fengon to Claudius, Horwendil to Horvendile to Hamlet, Amleth to Hamblet to Hamlet and Corambus to Corambis to Polonius. In the last section, the change of names is partially explained through Fengon and Corambis entering new roles at the court and therefore adopting latin names. However, the changing names are a reference by Updike to earlier versions of Hamlet in which the characters wore different names, the first section to Saxo Grammaticus' "Historica Danica" from around 1200 and the second to Belleforest's "Histories Tragiques" from 1576. (In the First Quarto, some of these names still linger. On the First Quarto see earlier post.)

In the same vein, several textual references are made to Shakespeare's play. Not only the names, but several references to situations and lines from the play figure in direct or rewritten form in the novel. The sensitive relation to Norway, the reason why Hamlet idolises his father and why the crown is so intimately associated with Gertrude are amongst the issues that are built on the play. In addition several lines from the play are repeated in the novel, not necessarily by their original speakers. The last sentence in the novel, for instance, "All would be well" refers both to Hamlet's line "All is not well"(Act I,ii) and Claudius' line "All may be well" (Act III.iii). Elsewhere, Gertrude says "Elsinore has been a dungeon to me" (p.94) which of course reflects Hamlet's "Denmark's a prison", spoken to Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern in Act II,ii. Finally,one of my favourite quotes, indeed the one referred to in the sub-title of this blog, is reshaped on the novel's 38th page. "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will" (Act V,ii) becomes "There's a shape in things, fiddle and fuss however we will around the edges."

John Updike (2000), portrait in The New Yorker

Furthermore, Updike seems to have studied his European history. His contextual references are telling and manifold, referring to the Holy Roman Empire, Frankish battles against the Moors in Spain, Crusades, Genoa's struggles with Pisa over Corsica and Sardinia as well as a number of local references to Danish Kings. For someone with more time on their hands the temporal setting in the novel could probably be quite accurately pegged based on these references. Perhaps this is a fitting topic for a future post...

It is worth noticing how Updike not only seems to respond to different versions of Hamlet in his novel, but also to critical approaches to the play. In empowering Gertrude he responds to both Feminist and Psychoanalytic criticism and in incorporating lower social strata as well as contextual signifiers he reflects the attitudes of Marxist and Historical criticism. This testifies to a rigid and extensive pre-productive study process on Updikes part, and one which is surely reflected in the positive reception of this acclaimed novel.

Finally, on a more personal note, having read a number of texts which build on and expand aspects of the original play (such as Tom Stoppard's "Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are dead", Matt Haig's "The Dead Fathers' Club" and this novel), I have experienced one of the fascinating properties of literature. Literature seems to me to be but wordly shadows of some eternal stories waiting to be manifested though never fully copied through these shadows. While Shakespeare is widely acclaimed for having written "universal" plays, I find him to be no more than another link in the chain of representations, albeit perhaps a particularly guilded or golden one. Shakespeare, it must be remembered, was only in a limited sense an originator relying on a number of cultural aspects of what I called, rather pompously, an eternal story. I find it not only impossible, but also undesirable to even attempt to make a full, comprehensive and exact copy of this eternal story. However, each attempt to recreate a morsel of it, such as those mentioned above, has an receptively emotional and culturally multiplying value. To put it more bluntly, each new piece of literature or indeed any cultural expression adds to the amount of joy not only of the play but of the general cultural expression of this eternal story. Also, continuing the trend of "bluntness", each new addition creates a basis for new additions, heading like branches on a tree in new directions widening our perception of the eternal story in ways we did not think possible.

This is

for me

part of the allure of literature.

Sources: Updike, Johnn: Gertrude and Claudius, New York, 2001, http://images.indiebound.com/979/006/9780449006979.jpg, http://www.newyorker.com/images/2009/02/09/p465/090209_r18201b_p465.jpg, last visited 25.2.2010

Janet Adelman's ""Man and Wife Is One Flesh": Hamlet and the Confrontation with the Maternal Body" Revisited

Janet Adelman, in her psychoanalytic approach to Hamlet, studies the role of Gertrude, Hamlet's mother, in the play. However, she starts by explaining how Hamlet fails to identify with his idealised dead father. Contrasting himself to Old Hamlet and doing the same with Claudius, his stepfather, makes him by extension associate himself with Claudius. Psychoanalysts take great delight in uncovering layers, some would say constructing layers, within literature and Adelman sees this conflict as a mere superficial layer. She moves on to examine the idea of the contaminated female body in Hamlet.

She uses the soliloquy in act 1 scene 2 (1.2.129-159) as a symbolic manifest, dividing the father figure into a positive sun god, Old Hamlet and a negative, incestuous satyr, Claudius. Then, likening Gertrude to an unweeded garden, the queen or rather her sexuality becomes the grounds for comparison for Hamlet, Adelman claims. The soliloquy is the textual evidence for Adelman's theory that the conflict in the play is more about the mother's remarriage as a vehicle of her sexuality than the loss of a father. The idealised father and Hamlet then become products of Gertrude's sexuality and the play proceeds with Hamlet's efforts to desexualise his mother, thus freeing himself and his father from her corruption. It is also worth noticing how her sexuality becomes synonymous with death; it lead to the death of Old Hamlet, Hamlet himself is its product with the terminal implication of origin and Old Hamlet's death also kills Hamlet's identity and leaves him in the power of his mother. Death becomes the sexualised Gertrude's legacy to her son.

However, the idealised father also played a role in relation to this sexuality. Adelman's response to this is to point out how Hamlet deflects the guilt of the father figure on Claudius while attributing most of the positive aspects to Old Hamlet. Later in her article, she also points out how Old Hamlet supposedly was able to control her sexuality (referring to the same soliloquy), making life livable for Hamlet. Therefore, the presence of the sexualised mother threatens the ideal of the idealised father being in control. Furthermore, it threatens to eliminate the oppositions between past and present, Old Hamlet and Claudius (both being subject to her sexuality) and the virginal image of Old Hamlet's wife and the "unweeded garden" of Claudius' wife. Finally, Hamlet's obsessing over Gertrude's appetite liken him to Claudius, the negative father image.

The central theme of the play, then, becomes the contamination of the female sexuality. Hamlet sees his mother's sexuality as a force which threatens his concepts of the world and causes its corruption. Adelman refers to what she calls "the deep fantasy of the play" (p.268) in which man is corrupted through contact with the corrupting female (seeing the act of intercourse as an origin of corruption) and in which the blame for the murder of the idealised father pass from Claudius to Gertrude. Her display of love becomes synonymous with murder, so much so that Claudius' political ambitions are subjugated to it and Hamlet in the closet scene (3.4) labels Gertrude the active murderer:

QUEEN GERTRUDE: O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!
HAMLET: A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother, As kill a king, and marry with his brother.
QUEEN GERTRUDE: As kill a king!
HAMLET: Ay, lady, 'twas my word.

Hamlet initially fears the male under the power of a female and therefore withdraws into his antic disposition, an introvert mode of existence where he, the male and (ideally) the image of the idealised father, is in control and able to effectively impact the world around him without being affected.

Dreaming of men

The main threat, according to Adelman, is Gertrude as she is the only sexualised female in the play. Her role is as a part of Hamlet's psyche (the other) with which he must come to terms. This is done in the closet scene where Hamlet gets Gertrude's seeming assent to stay chaste and honour Old Hamlet's memory. When this is done, Hamlet can focus on his real objective, the revenge. He has remade his mother, "ended" her sexuality and thus brought both his father and himself to prominence, displayed on stage as the Ghost leaving, supposedly for heaven.

Adelman claims that the objective of revenge had been secondary to the objective of reform throughout the play. This is exemplified through the play-within-the-play, which seems more suited to catch the conscience of a queen rather than a king, and also to the fact that the opportunity for revenge in act 3 scene 3 is presented as a minor digression in the play. Also, it seems that Hamlet is unable to act and come to terms with his situation until the point where he resolves his issue with Gertrude. Whether or not she is actually reformed is not clearly stated, but the play is ambiguous enough to at least suggest so.

This psychoanalytic criticism of Hamlet exemplifies in my opinion the best and the worst aspects of psychoanalytic literary criticism. It wonderfully expands the characters and the relations between them. It helps us investigate motivations and inhibitions and discover patterns of behaviour. However, it uses prefabricated theoretical structures and imposes them on the play, sometimes with minimal texual evicence. At times, the textual passages referred to are so open to interpretation that any approach would be able to build a case on them. In this case, the image of the unweeded garden is a minor metaphor of with a number of possible signifieds, and it is an image which is not repeated in any form which cannot be linked to a number of other images. It thus forms a large theoretical structure on an inconsistent and insufficiently broad basis. In this way, the article can be seen as providing much of its own fundament, building theories on theories and drawing conclusions from its own conclusions. There is, for instance, nothing in the text's imagery, characteristics and plot to justify the statement that "the mother's body brings death into the world because her body itself is death" (p.271). This is a product of psychoanalysis rather than a thorough reading of the text. Also, the theory that Hamlet's accusing his mother of active murder is a bit far fetched, as the textual evicence points towards another meaning. The Ghost had told Hamlet that "the serpent that did sting thy father's life Now wears his crown" (1.5.38-39) and to leave his mother alone. Bearing in mind that Claudius has now entered Hamlet's consciousness more urgently as he thinks he is the one dead behind the arras, it is highly unlikely that Hamlet would be unclear as to the mother's role in the murder. The role of the player queen in the play-within-the-play further argues this point. It is more probable that "as kill a king and marry with his brother" is a simple postulation of the royal couple's individual crimes. Here, psychoanalytic criticism builds itself a theory so alluring that it obscures what is actually stated in the text.

Finally, the central theory of the reform of Gertrude could simply be nothing but a generical requirement. Hamlet being a tragedy, Gertrude could not die a "bad" woman. That would lessen the effect of her death. The fact that one could come up with an alternative, valid theory to explain the necessity of her reform in such a simple stroke is a testimony to the artificiality of much of psychoanalytic criticism.

Sources: http://www.savagechickens.com/images/chickenpolonius.jpg and http://www.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/shakespeare/hamlete.jpg, last visited 14.2.2010

Janet Adelman in Shakespeare, William: Hamlet, ed. by Wofford, Susanne L., New York 1994

Fear-inducing, Fascinating Ophelia

This spring I am studying Hamlet. Extensively. This includes not only a thorough analysis of the characters but also various critical approaches to both them and the play. It seems, as anticipated, that the feminists are mainly concerned about Ophelia. Ophelia is Hamlet's girlfriend who is told by her fater Polonius and her brother Laertes to stay away from him and to "Be somewhat scanter of [her] maiden presence; Set [her] entreatments at a higher rate". This drives Hamlet to reject her which in turn drives her mad. Later it is told by Hamlet's mother Gertrude that she has fallen in the water and drowned, whereupon Laertes kills Hamlet.

What is particularly interesting about Ophelia is the way she has been subject to constantly changing interpretations even though there is not really all that much to interpret. These have at times been rather ridiculous, but some give interesting glimpses into human nature and even French fashions. "How is this, Sir Bob?". Well, it comes about as follows...

The play was first performed about 1600. In 1603 a printed version known as the "First Quarto" or the "Bad Quarto" was published, presumably by an actor bootlegging it. (Theories point to the one playing Marcellus since his lines are the ones most true to the other versions). Then, in 1604, the official "Second Quarto" was published, and finally the "Folio" version was published in a "Best of"-publication in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare's death. All three versions differ in various respects, though not so much in respect to Ophelia. What is interesting, though, is two contextual pieces of information.

Firstly, at the time there were concerns about the male characters being too unmanly. When Laertes cries over Ophelia's death he has to say "when these are gone, the woman will be out", on other words, his tears are an aspect of femininity which he has to rid himself of. Also, while Ophelia was originally played by boys, Hamlet was the only heroic male of Shakespearean drama who was repeatedly played by actresses (following the middle of the 17th century). Secondly, as Ophelia was portrayed as innocent and naive, Shakespeare could have a little joke on her through Hamlet. In Act 3, Scene 2 we find this dialogue (110-113):

OPHELIA: I think nothing, my lord.
HAMLET: That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.
OPHELIA: What is, my lord?
HAMLET: Nothing.

As it turns out, "nothing" was slang for the female genitalia in Elizabethan time, which just goes to show how the Renaissance had blessed Shakespeare's contemporaries with enhanced powers of observation as well as refined language. This also puts Shakespeare's "Much Ado about Nothing" in rather a new light.

Then came the 18th century with its Neo-Classicism and their emphasis on self-control, respectability, seemliness and decorum. Ophelia became curiously self-controlled for a madwoman. Originally singing rauncy songs and throwing flowers about (deflowering herself, hm-hm-hm), she now wore a white dress, loosely organised hair, strategically placed wildflowers and an attitude of dignified suffering. How on earth they were supposed to imagine her climbing a tree and falling/jumping into the river in a manner consistent with this representation, I do not care to imagine. (By the way, the jury is still out on the question of suicide mentioned above).

In the Victorian 1800's with all its repressed creative madness, Ophelia became a channel for all kinds of weird behavior. Pre-Raphaelite Romantic painters such as J.W. Waterhouse, Arthur Hughes and J.E. Millais discovered that the death of Ophelia not being actually enacted during the play allowed them to impose their own perspective on the scene. Thus, a number of highly sensual, flowery depictions of nymph-like, watery sirens were made, allowing the Victorians to give vent to their repressed sexuality through the appreciation of art and literature.


As if this was not enough, the invention of photography presented new opportunities for weirdness. Ophelia mad, and her version of madness (flowers, wild hair, flowing garments etc.) was becoming the standard way of presenting madness, that is, mad women were expected to derss and act like Ophelia. This was taken a step further with the introduction of photography. Dr. Hugh Welch Diamond, working in mental asylums such as the Surrey Asylum and Bethlehem ("Bedlam"), claimed that being photographed could cure madness. He then dressed up his patients as Ophelia and had them pray as he photographed them. His photos may have inspired the French Jean-Martin Charcot, who in addition to taking pictures of his patients hypnotised them and had them perform roles from Shakespeare.

In 1827, a young Irish actress called Harriet Smithson took Ophelia to new levels during a performance in Paris. She dressed in a black veil in which he stuck some straws. She also made a few hortocultural additions to her hairdo. Following a most unorthodox performance, including a cross made of flowers on stage, her straw-interwoven costume became the inspiration of the Paris fashion milieu. This is why old ladies today wear capes with patterns of coloured straw in them.
Finally, the 20th century arrived with its explicit focus on sexuality (thanks a lot, Freud!). While a large bed was added as a prop in the closet scene of the play, theories of Oedipus complexes and incestous relationships in Hamlet abounded. Ophelia was resexualised and the most extreme, Freudian theories argued that Ophelia had an incestous, Oedipal relationship to Polonius, parallel to that of Hamlet and Gertrude. Other creative critics invented a past for Ophelia, involving child molesting, unfaithful knights raping and killing her friends and Ophelia experiencing several different consecutive forms of mental illness.
The best version, however, and in my opinion the best example with which to conclude this article, is Melissa Murray's play "Ophelia". This was performed in 1979 by the English women's theatre group "Hormone Imbalance". In this play, Ophelia becomes a lesbian, runs off with a serving maid and joins a Danish guerilla commune. You cannot possibly get better drama than that.

Sources: Shakespeare, William: "Hamlet", ed. Wofford, Susanne, New York, 1994
Pictures: http://preraphaelitesisterhood.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/ophelaimillais.jpg and Link, last visited 8.2.2010