Hamlet's profound questions on life

I watched Franco Zeffirelli's movie version of Shakespeare's Hamlet with Mel Gibson as Prince Hamlet and Glenn Close as Queen Gertrude. Zeffirelli -- you know, the director of Romeo & Juliet, Jesus of Nazareth, and the Taming of the Shrew (think Elizabeth Taylor).

I’m not a literary critic nor have I been a particular fan of The Bard but that is changing. I’m smitten by the power of some of Shakespeare’s plays, particularly Julius Caeser and now Hamlet -- of their themes of life, ambition and death. Shakespeare frames it this way, "All that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity." (Hamlet, 1. 2) I just wish the language was a little more modern and understandable so that I would not have to think so much about what was being said. One shouldn't have to think when someone says "hi" or "goodbye". Fortunately, the old tongue has been modernized (Hamlet text in pdf format).

The play starts with Hamlet returning to the castle after his father’s death and his uncle’s immediate ascension to the crown and quick marriage to the Queen, thus further solidifying his position as the new king. Things are fishy in Denmark, which is, afterall, a pretty fishy place. Ever encounter a smiling jackal who schemes their own ambitions at your expense? For Hamlet, the world combines to be unjust, and his response is anger, depression, scheming and a touch of madness.

Hamlet speaks with depression and anger at the unweeded garden of this life (see photo).

O that this too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self−slaughter! O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! O fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!

Returning from a university education, which is quite an accomplishment back in those days, Hamlet is a thinker who weighs things out before acting on them. An apparition of his king father appears and asks his son Hamlet to seek revenge. There are those of us who wouldn’t give this otherworldly instruction a second thought. We simply obey. Hamlet can’t help but ponder – to think of the justice of such actions, of the meaning of the instructions and the source itself. Is that really His Father or is it a devil? Maybe his life would have been simpler and not a tragedy if he straight-forwardly carried out his father's wishes, but Hamlet's humanity must wrestle with such things.

He addresses the question that we sometimes think as we turn out the lights and lay in bed at night.

“What the hell am I doing with my life?” To live. To die. What's the difference? Is it best to not rock the boat of an unjust world or should I fight the fight? Are we stubborn in the things that we believe will make a better world, which will surely bring resistance? Or do we bend and not rock the boat so as to make the smoothest course possible? And what’s all this suffering for?

To be, or not to be,−−that is the question:−−
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?−−To die,−−to sleep,−−
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,−−'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die,−−to sleep;−−
To sleep! perchance to dream:−−ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,−−
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns,−−puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

I'm not doing the play much justice in my description of what touched me. It does skirt through about as profound a theme as it gets -- life and death. Shakespeare was on top of his game when he wrote Hamlet.

There are probably answers to each of Hamlet's questions in LDS and the broader world of Christian doctrine, but Hamlet again questions neatly packaged answers.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." (Hamlet, 1. 5)

Certainly, God is all-knowing but there is a huge chasm of what we know and what He knows. And there are things that we think we know that we do not. But even more fundamental than our lack of answers, we are still discovering the very questions to be dreamt of.

References: Shakespeare in Classic and Modern Texts
Wikipedia on Hamlet