Dull for the Hype

Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, was not an interesting work to say the least. All and all, I did not enjoy it. I think much of my dislike for the play comes from my not liking the extremely fine line drawn between the drama and comedy. Although serious stories do need their moments of comic relief, I feel like Shakespeare pushed that line too much, and tried to get his audience to laugh at things that really are not funny at all. Most of the time, I actually felt slightly angered by the things he was trying to get his reader to laugh about. It took away greatly from the story as it made these serious situations almost stupid. The entire work seemed like some kind of joke as Shakespeare couldn’t manage to keep a “straight face” for any of it.

Although many of the instances where comic relief is used failed, the one time I did enjoy it was with the gravediggers. I suppose much of my delight from this section had to do with the fact that the more educated gravedigger seemed to almost be making fun of the story of the royals. As Shakespeare made me see the Danish royalty as a bit of a joke, not to be taken seriously even in their darkest moments, when the gravedigger speaks so rudely to Hamlet, it seemed to be the only relief from the court. The entire court, from Claudius to Hamlet actually reminded me a bit of girls in high school who invest ridiculous amounts of energy into hating people who have wronged them as well as a few stupid situations that are not a big deal to begin with, but get inflated by the energy put into them. It seems for much of Hamlet it is all spoken drama without much resolution, for better or worse. The short encounter with the gravedigger was almost like he was slapping Hamlet in the face and getting the reader out of the drama filled court and back to reality. All the things that were so important for the entire play were suddenly no matter, a wonderful vacation as all the important issues surging through the play are hardly ever resolved.

In the end, I guess this is all really coming back to Hamlet’s inability to act. The play is all talk and no movement for so long, I became bored. And it is not just Hamlet who refuses to act. Very little is done by any other character besides Laraties, and even this enraged character is not given the chance to do anything until the end. Of course much rash action occurs within the last act, but, really? Was it necessary to have the other 200 pages? Hardly anything happens throughout the play though many of the characters make their world seem like such an important and exciting situation, when, in reality, nothing happens! It is true that a murder has taken place, and there is meant to be a long period of proving and figuring out the mystery, but not only is this section dull: a resolution takes far too long to be found for the amount of time spent tediously searching for it.

Simply stated, I was unimpressed by the other themes surrounding Hamlet, because my boredom stopped me from paying attention much to how exciting it could have been. If Shakespeare had presented the story in a slightly different fashion, adding at least some action from characters like Hamlet, I feel I would have enjoyed the play much more, but unfortunately this is not the case.