That lazy bastard

Try imagining reading Hamlet in different periods of history since it has been written. The central dilemma with Hamlet is should he revenge his father's murder by doing something that is morally repugnant to him? Society's attitudes towards revenge and family and violence fluctuate - in periods when revenge was morally acceptable, audiences may have viewed Hamlet's dilemma as procrastination, shirking what he should simply get on with, perhaps the same is true for audiences who had seen wars, killed men in wars. An audience today might sympathise more with Hamlet struggling with his conscience than an audience who due to the mores of the time believed that you should exact Biblical revenge (an eye for an eye) on those who hurt the ones you love. And every person has slightly different feelings towards violence, revenge, the affection they have for their father, the way they make decisions. Decisiveness itself is a quality that ebbs and flows in importance. I can imagine audiences in the Eighties for example, feeling that what was important was not whether he killed his uncle or not, but that he should just come to a decision and act on it - do it, or don't do it. A person who believes in heaven and hell might feel more strongly about saving his father from torment or that God is the person who should exact justice, making the dilemma more tight than one who doesn't believe in ghosts at all and simply concludes that Hamlet was mad from grief and delusional. That's a start, really. The quotations are raising two issues :- 1. Do we all put ourselves in the position of Hamlet when watching the play in a way that we do not with other plays? Is Hamlet more a universal character that the audience identifies with, even if they would go about things another way? Do audiences do the same with MacBeth, or Othello, or Romeo - if not, why not? 2. Has Hamlet had different nuances in different generations. Consider for example society's attitudes towards war - fairly keen on it in the early decades of the 20th century, grimly determined in WWII, outright disapproval by the time we came to Vietnam. Do audiences at those times have a different view as to whether or not killing his uncle is something that Hamlet should or shouldn't do?

Also, do we empathise more with Hamlet than other Shakespearean tragic heroes because (a) he isn't a victim of his own character flaws (Macbeth has it coming because of greed, Othello because of jealousy), Hamlet is just placed in a dreadful position and (b) there isn't an obvious way out - hey Macbeth, just be happy with Thane of Cawdor, don't kill the king, hey Othello, why not talk to your wife, hey Romeo, why not just run away with Juliet instead of a stupid death-fakery scheme. How is Hamlet supposed to get out of his situation? He either kills his Uncle, which he believes to be wrong and knows it will devastate his mother, or he doesn't and condemns his father to an afterlife of misery. He can't get out of his situation, and in trying to think of a way out, he ends up with everyone he cares about dying.

Thank you so much for the advice, Emily, it came in very useful throughout. Would you like to see the final draft when it's finished? Sorry it's taken me so long to respond, but I didn't want to say anything until I'd gotten a grip on the thing and fully digested your words. Thanks again, Chris.