Solomon 1 Adam Solomon
English 421
Dr Lewin
28 April 2011
Hamlet: A parody of tragedy
Shakespeare’s plays always get classified into categories. There are the comedies,
tragedies, problem plays and romances. With many of the plays sectioned into one of these
categories, when the name of the play pops up, people know what type of play it is. Hamlet falls
into the trap and is often talked about as one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies. However, just
because it is a tragedy does not mean there are no comedic elements in the play. In fact, Hamlet
is filled with comedy and, at times, these comedic elements overshadow the drama. Actually, I
believe the comedy begins to take over the tragedy sending the play into the realms of parody. In
Hamlet, the characters become so dramatic and the over analyzing becoming too self aware, that
it is creates more comedy then drama, creating a play that is a parody of tragedy, not a tragic
play.
The idea that Hamlet is more comedy than tragedy is not a new concept. In fact, Edward
Tomarken explains that throughout the centuries theater directors removed Act 5 Scene 1 from
the performances because they believed it was too humorous and did not fit in the play. He
writes, “The humorous element of the graveyard scene in Hamlet was generally disapproved of
in the eighteenth century and is now usually ignored” (26). The fact that the gravediggers were
too comedic took away from the dramatic aspect the rest of the play held. It is no secret that the
gravediggers are funny characters. The dialogue between these diggers, also known as clowns,
Solomon 2 shows their wit. For instance as they are in the graveyard they discuss how their jobs have
remained through the ages and always will.
First clown: There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers and grave
makers. They hold up Adam’s profession .
Second clown: Was he a gentleman?
First clown: ‘A was the first that ever bore arms. (5.1.29-33)
The clowns wit and comedic dialogue is slightly out of place from the rest of the play. Tomarken
backs this up with a quote from eighteenth century poet and critic Bonnell Thornton when he
says, “Though this scene is full of Humour . . . it has not the least Business here. To debase his
sublime Compositions with wretched Farce, commonplace Jokes, and unmeaning Quibbles
seems to have been the Delight of the laurelled, the immortal Shakespeare” (26). For Thornton,
Shakespeare is playing with the text, not creating a real tragedy, but instead by adding the humor
is making a parody of it.
Shakespeare keeps the humor and the riddles coming.
First clown: What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright
or the carpenter?
Second clown: The gallows maker, for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.
(5.1.41-44)
Again, the joke is meant to relate to Hamlet, since he plans on killing his uncle he will more than
likely end up in the gallows. The play is self-aware of the fate of Hamlet, therefore shows how it
is a parody of tragedy. Parodies are aware of the ironies within the stories. However, the scene
in itself is funny but has no relation to the rest of the play. These gravediggers are only scene in
Act 5 Scene 1, never reappearing and mainly are inserted as a break between the drama. As
Solomon 3 Tomarken explains that there was “disapproval of the ‘buffonery’ in the final act of drama” (27).
The gravediggers scene did not work for earlier directors and was actually omitted from many
productions. The fact that the humor in the act is not hidden, as perhaps it is with the characters
of Hamlet and Polonius, can be seen as problematic to the play. The overt humor creates a sense
of satire or parody. The clowns are telling the audience that the gallows are the best built
structure, even though they were the worst to live in.
The graveyard scene also creates problems for the character of Hamlet for the audience.
As the clowns dig they begin to throw up skulls. The act alone is funny. It is not every day that
people throw skulls around. However, I do feel the scene does demand the audience stretch their
beliefs since Also, Hamlet’s actions in the grave are not believable. On seeing the skulls, Hamlet
begins to contemplate life. Hamlet sees a skull and says,
“Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his
quiddities now, his quillities, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks?
Why does he suffer this mad knave not to knock him about the sconce
with a dirty shovel and will not tell him of his action of battery?” (5.1.100-103)
The idea that Hamlet is questioning the life of a suspected lawyer, asking what happened to
everything he had now that he is dead, is over the top, but easily forgiven. However, the comedy
comes in as soon as Hamlet calls the clown “mad”. Hamlet has shown more insane thoughts than
the gravedigger has, jumping back and forth from wanting to kill his uncle and not. To say that
Hamlet acts mad is far from a new idea. Samuel Johnson also says, “The pretended madness of
Hamlet causes much mirth” (Draudt). Hamlet’s madness is humorous. The audience would
understand that the noble Hamlet has less in his head then the skulls the gravediggers are tossing
around. As well, Hamlet does not appear to be a strong character. Harold Walley agrees stating,
Solomon 4 “Hamlet comes off feebly as a hero, especially an Elizabethan hero, in a procedure which is
hardly dignified. Such a plot might do well enough in a comedy or a crude melodrama, but for
serious tragedy it is incongruous” (788). Hamlet’s actions and the comedy in the dialogue make
the tragedy of Hamlet less believable and more of a parody. By Shakespeare throwing in the
ideas that Hamlet is not aware that the clowns are the sanest of any character creates parody
because the play (or perhaps the playwright) is aware of the absurdity that the scene plays into
the entire drama.
In fact, Shakespeare pokes fun at his main character as well as the entire British audience.
Hamlet had just returned from England and when he asks the first clown why he was sent away
the clown replies, “Why, because ‘a was mad. ‘A shall / recover his wits there, or if ‘a do not,
‘tis no great / matter there” (5.1.150-152). The gravedigger tells Hamlet that he was crazy, while
at the same time telling the audience that they are all crazy too. A comedic line but one that I feel
takes the play out of drama and into parody because it is aware of not only itself, but of the
audience. By using a joke about itself, Hamlet can no longer been seen as simply a tragedy
because tragedies cannot be aware of their own existence.
The scene becomes even more overdramatic, or unbelievable as a drama, when Hamlet
picks up a skull and begins his famous monologue. Once again, Shakespeare is asking the
audience for their suspension of disbelief, which would be a decent request if the play was a
comedy. However, with the knowledge that the play is a tragedy, it is not popular to create a
scene of an extreme unusual circumstance, such as Hamlet picking up a skull, which just
happens to be the jester, Yorick, who Hamlet knew as a child. I find a person picking up a skull
humorous on its own, but the coincidence that the skull from someone Hamlet knew sends the
Solomon 5 play into the realm of “camp.” The scene becomes too farfetched for the audience to believe and
takes away the realistic aspect, which would allow the play to be a tragedy.
The comedy of Hamlet does not only take place in the last act, but seen throughout the
play. The last act is where the humor bottlenecks and comes to an overwhelming conclusion that
the play is more parody then tragedy. Though, from the early stages while the humor is seen, the
extent to which it affects the entire play is unclear. It appears that most of the humor is meant to
be used to explain the characters of the play but not to explain that the play is a parody.
For example, in Act 1 Scene 5 Hamlet first meets the ghost of his father. The ghost tells
Hamlet, “Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder” (1.5.26). The ghost is instructing Hamlet
to kill his uncle Claudius, the culprit the ghost is blaming for the murder. The first questionable
action from Hamlet (also the first ridiculous one) is that he believes the ghost. Hamlet tells his
friend Horatio and explains, “It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you” (1.5.144). Hamlet is
quick to believe a ghost (a being that automatically brings discretion) and, as well, the fact that
he calls the ghost honest is both ironic and funny. It is ironic because Hamlet has no reason to
believe the ghost is being truthful yet does so, and it is funny because he believes it. While this
act does not quite lift Hamlet into parody yet, it does call into question the main character and his
decision making skills, allowing the audience to understand it is acceptable to find him
humorous.
Hamlet is not alone in creating comedy in the play. Polonius, the father of Hamlet’s once
girlfriend Ophelia, is in himself a character of humor. In fact, much of Hamlet’s wit comes from
the insults and sarcasms that he throws Polonius’s way. For example, when Hamlet meets
Polonius in Act 2 Scene 2 they exchange in conversation.
Polonius: Do you know me, my lord?
Solomon 6 Hamlet: Excellent well. You are a fishmonger. (2.2.173-174)
Hamlet deals a good insult to Polonius, who is somewhat of a nobleman, as an assistant to the
king. By joking with Polonius, Hamlet is not playing a tragic character, at least not at this point
in the play. If anything he is more of a jester, more like the clowns in Act 5, being smarter (or
more sneaky) then the characters that surround him. Another example of Hamlet’s wit comes
when he says to Polonius, “For yourself, sir, shall / grow as old as I am, if like a crab you could
go backward” (2.2.203-204). Hamlet is making fun of Polonius for being old. However, at this
early part in the play, by being funny, Hamlet is actually getting the audience on his side.
Polonius is not a character that an audience member is supposed to sympathize with. After all,
Polonius is pompous and out for his own good, playing different roles towards different
characters. Polonius even says to Laertes, “To thine own self be true / And it must follow, as
night the day / Thou canst not then be false to any man” (1.3.78-80). Polonius explains that a
person should be true to themselves but he is not true to other people, therefore it is difficult for
an audience to feel sympathy for Polonius. Because Hamlet calls Polonius out on his untruthful
ways, Hamlet is gaining support by the audience which makes them bond with him. He is slowly
building himself into a tragic character.
But as with the other aspects of the play that parody itself, Hamlet does the same. As he
tries to figure out a way to figure out for sure if Claudius is the murderer of his father he says,
“Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave / That I, the son of a dear father murdered /
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell” (2.2.583-585). Hamlet is calling himself out, not
only for acting idiotic but for not being brave enough to confront his uncle about the murder of
his father. Since Hamlet is knowingly admitting that he is not being a brave man (an idea shared
by the audience) means that the play is becoming aware of itself and therefore bringing it into the
Solomon 7 realm of parody. The comedic element in Hamlet’s dialogue is that he is calling himself out on
his behavior, instead of allowing the audience to do it first.
In addition, Hamlet goes as far to tell off people for doing the same thing he has done. He
says, “It offends me to the / soul to hear a robustious periwig pated fellow / tear a passion to
tatters . . . I / would have such a fellow whipped for o’erdoing” (3.2.8-13). Hamlet is saying that
he does not like when an actor overdoes a passion, as it takes it too far. Of course, this is
comedic parody because Hamlet has done the same thing he talks about. One example is from
his famous speech when he says, “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 take arms against a sea of
troubles” (3.1.57-60). The speech is much longer than these four lines but Hamlet spends the
speech basically thinking on whether he should seek revenge or not. He is not only being
indecisive, an action that can be humorous (if not annoying) but overdramatizing his situation.
By doing so, Hamlet is taking his character out of a dramatic element and putting it into parody
because the play now becomes aware of itself, pointing out its own flaws.
To add to the ridiculous element of Hamlet’s actions, is what he decides to do in order to
find out if Claudius is responsible for his father’s death. Hamlet says, “The play’s the thing /
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King” (2.2.605-606). Hamlet is going to stage a play,
which will be what confronts Claudius and allows Hamlet to see if Claudius is guilty. To a
modern audience, Hamlet’s plan of action seems irrational and unbelievable. The play turns to
parody because the idea of setting up a play just to find out if someone has committed a crime
does not seem to be trustworthy evidence. It is ridiculous to think that Claudius would admit to a
crime simply because he is watching a play. But, what is more important is the play Hamlet
writes is the same play Hamlet that the audience is watching. The play Hamlet is being
Solomon 8 performed within the play Hamlet. Shakespeare is creating a strange paradox, circling his own
creation. And not only does the play within the play foreshadow what is going to happen in
Hamlet, but it becomes self-aware. Shakespeare is poking fun at his own play Hamlet. If he
wasn’t, then he would more likely not have included the play within the play because he is
giving away the ending to the real play. The fact that I have been circling myself in this
paragraph trying to explain the play of Hamlet in the play Hamlet shows how Shakespeare is
creating a parody of his own work.
As the play within Hamlet is performed, Claudius leaves after seeing the death scene that
Hamlet has written. On seeing the exit, Hamlet believes that Claudius is responsible for his
father’s death. He will therefore kill his uncle and exact revenge. However, when Claudius
leaves he goes to pray and ask forgiveness. He says, “But oh, what form of prayer / Can serve
my turn.? ‘Forgive me my foul murder’? / That cannot be since I am still possessed” (3.3.52-54).
Claudius begins to pray for forgiveness but never fully recounts his actions. For a Shakespeare
tragedy, Claudius is a perfect character as he seems to be battling within himself about whether
or not he is worthy, or even wants forgiveness. With Claudius, Shakespeare is bringing Hamlet
back into tragic drama.
But the play does not remain there as Hamlet enters ready to kill Claudius. He says,
“Now might I do it pat, now ‘a is a-praying / And now I’ll do’t. And so ‘a goes / to heaven”
(3.3.73-75). The tragedy seems to be following a good route until suddenly Hamlet changes his
mind. He decides not to kill his uncle, even though for three and a half acts he had been trying to
plan a way for revenge. Instead Hamlet changes his mind saying, “A villain kills my father, and
for that / I, his sole son, do this same villain send / To heaven / Why, this is hire and salary, not
revenge” (3.3.76-79). Hamlet’s reasoning for not killing his uncle is because he will send
Solomon 9 Claudius to heaven because he is in the act of repentance. Revenge is only good for Hamlet if his
uncle goes to hell for what he has done. I find this reasoning to be rather weak and I think that it
is another way Shakespeare is creating parody. Ann Thompson mentions the idea when she
writes, “It is well known that references to an earlier Elizabethan Hamlet play seem to dismiss it
as a cliché or a parody of revenge tragedy” (101). The ridiculous reasoning for not killing his
uncle when he had the perfect chance is just a reason to keep the play going on longer. Hamlet is
simply becoming a wishy-washy character, never being decisive and just dragging out his actions
of revenge. Shakespeare is playing with the audience because by Hamlet not killing Claudius it is
creating a false sense of relief. The audience thinks Hamlet is going to murder his uncle and just
as he’s about to, he backs off. He had the perfect chance and he blew it. Instead he decides to
wait longer, even though he has been obsessed with killing his uncle. Shakespeare is creating
parody by pretending to write a dramatic character, but then pulling the carpet out from
underneath.
Throughout Hamlet, Shakespeare shows certain elements which create the sense that the
play is a tragedy. The protagonist is tortured by the murder of his father, the remarriage of his
mother to the murderer and the notion that he must enact revenge. All these elements are what
audiences pay attention to which make the overwhelming notion that Hamlet is a tragedy.
However, the underlying comedic elements, which are hidden from a passive audience, actually
remove Hamlet from the tragedy category and put in comedy one. The humor, irony, and selfawareness the play shows create a parody. If the play is pointing out aspects about itself which a
viewer might be thinking about then it can no longer be seen as a realistic play. If the play points
out the ridiculous, over the top aspects, it can no longer be seen as a realistic play. Hamlet is on
Solomon 10 of Shakespeare’s most popular plays, but it is not necessarily a tragedy for there are too many
unbelievable events that are simply funny, even when they are not meant to be.
Solomon 11 Works Cited
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark. The Necessary Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Ed.
David Bevington. New York: Pearson, 2005. 456-604. Print.
Walley, Harold R. “Shakespeare's Conception of Hamlet”. Publications of Modern Language
Association. 48.3 (Sep. 1933). 777-798. < http://www.jstor.org/stable/458341>
Tomarken, Edward. “The Comedy of the Graveyard Scene in Hamlet”. Eighteenth Century Life.
8.3 (May 1983). 26-34.
Thompson, Ann. “Infinite Jest: The Comedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”. Shakespeare and
Comedy. Ed. Peter Holland. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003. 93-104.
Draudt, Manfred. "The comedy of Hamlet." Atlantis, revista de la Asociación Española de
Estudios Anglo-Norteamericanos 24.1 (2002). Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 27
Apr. 2011. <http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?&id=GALE%7CA118288553&v=
2.1&u=shep63558&it=r&p=LitRG&sw=w>.