Thornton 1

Melissa Thornton
Dr. Holt
AP English Literature3
13 May 2016
Phenomenology and Purpose in Hamlet
To enter into the world of Hamlet and its criticism, we must acknowledge it [is] hardly
possible for two critics to agree upon the same interpretation of the play, [and] one cannot
altogether agree with himself for two successive readings, as evidenced by the plurality of
arguments over Hamlets character and even the events of the play themselves (Trotman 135). To
fully understand Hamlet, we must accept the plays sustained relevance to societywe continue
to return to it, to study it, to allude to it, and to adapt it ad infinitum, but why? In seeking to
unravel the enigma of Hamlet, we can use a phenomenological analysis and examine the
experience of the play itself as a map to its meaning, enabling us to examine how the plays
subjectivity constructs a universal truth for its readers through its intentional gaps, questions, and
focus on identity.
Opening with the line, Whos there? Hamlet immediately situates the audience in an
experience defined by questions, identity, and reader involvement (Shakespeare I.I.1). As we
progress through the first scene, we repeatedly encounter questions: Who is there?, What, has
this thing appeared again tonight?, Is not this something more than fantasy?, Who ist that
can inform me? (I.I.15,23,56,81). Delving deeper into the play, we find that dichotomies
between Hamlets words and actions establish a series of complex riddles in our minds: why
does Hamlet delay his revenge? Is his madness real or feigned? How can we reconcile the
contradictions in his character? Solving the plays riddles requires that we look back on how we

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have experienced the text and the meaning we assigned to it, yet the act of reflection itself
reveals the plays inescapable subjectivity.
Re-examining our experience with the text, we find a lack of any objective knowledge to
answer these questions, so each interpretation of the play becomes inherently individuala
paradox best embodied by discrepancies in Hamlets character. We think that Hamlets acts of
madness are merely his [putting] an antic disposition on due to his conversation with Horatio,
yet his treatment of Ophelia and murders of Polonius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern call into
question whether he acted with purpose or has truly lost all [his] mirth (I.V.179; II.II.258-259).
When it comes to enacting revenge, Hamlet swears that the ghosts commandment [for revenge]
all alone shall live/ Within the book and volume of [his] brain, yet as time passes, Hamlet finds
that the native hue of resolution/ Is sicklied oer with the pale cast of thought and in the end
does not act (I.V.102-104; III.I.85-86). The text itself denies answers to our questions so that in
reading the play, we unknowingly shade in the many outlines suggested by the given situations,
so that these take on a reality of their own to provide the play with continuity yet make any
solutions to the plays riddles contingent on one readers imagination (Iser 51).
Since [w]e make sense of our own personal identities in much the same way as we do of
the identity of characters in stories, the nature of the play as a narrative of Hamlet himself
allows us to examine the enigmatic aspects of the plot as we would our own lives (Dauenhauer).
As open-ended elements of Hamlets character present themselves, readers have the opportunity
to engage their own imaginations, selecting some combination of the texts evidence to construct
an individual portrait of Hamlet. Thus, Hamlets character becomes a window for the reader
Shakespeare provides the audience with a frame, the text itself constitutes the view, and as
readers, we choose where to look and how to interpret what we see. Assembling our own pictures

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of Hamlet, we make order out of the constant flow of perceptual experience just as we do our
own lives, transforming our reading of Hamlet into a reflection of how we construct our own
identities (Seigel 14). By leaving elements of the play up to the readers imagination,
Shakespeare creates an interactive experience that guides us to uncover the plays true purpose,
as the meaning we assign and the image we perceive cannot be detached from our individual
experiences and perspectives.
Only as we come to the conclusion of Hamlet can we realize how our interaction with the
text endows the play with a broader meaning: the subjectivity involved in interpreting the play
entails that each reading becomes an adaptation of the play. We find evidence in Hamlets
relationship with Horatio. Before Hamlet dies, he calls on Horatio, the only one we believe to be
well-acquainted with the plays events,[t]o tell [his] story (V.II.323). As a result, Horatio
becomes the narrator of Hamlet and the play becomes a [perpetual] self-in-formation, living in
the space between what it has been able to become and what it or others think it might be
(Seigel 31). While we know Horatio to have a fairly objective understanding of Hamlets story,
every re-telling of a story inherently becomes a new interpretation, such that the story of Hamlet
never truly ends.
Adaptations of Hamlet re-affirm the versatility of the plays interpretations. Salman
Rushdies Yorick and Jasper Ffordes Something Rotten emphasize the unique relationship
between identity and understanding in the play. Describing the history of Hamlets story, Yoricks
narrator explains that in re-telling the story, he will explicate, annotate,& also hyphenate,
palatinate & permangate the narrative as his ancestors have done for generations (Rushdie 3).
Rushdies adaptation of Hamlet concretizes the impact of the plays gaps and uncertainty on the
audiences experience by re-creating a narrative in which each reading adds more nuance to the

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story. Something Rotten, though using the play to communicate a different argument, manages to
fulfill Shakespeares intentions by re-interpreting the play and reflecting how each
interpretation of an event, setting or character is unique to each of those who read it because they
clothe the authors description with the memory of their own experiences (Fforde 390). Every
time we read the play, we see it differently since our identities are constantly influenced by new
experiences; therefore, to understand Hamlet requires an understanding of oneself.
In unraveling the difficulties of explaining Hamlet, we as readers know that to break
down each interpretation of the play requires unearthing why we manufacture different pictures
from the same descriptionsdespite access to the same faculties of sight and features of the
world, I can never know how the world looks through anothers eyes. Hamlet teaches us that
literature is a mirrorwe get out of it what we see in it, and we see in it who we are. Just as we
constantly seek answers to the questions posed in Hamlet, we try to find objective knowledge in
a fundamentally subjective world; both efforts result in one individuals answer that may deviate
completely from anothers. Any argument that one singular meaning exists for the play or
Hamlets character only highlights the fact that as readers differ in their lives and destinies, so
they differ and will continue to differ in the views of a play which seems to embrace them all
(Gordon 196). Hamlets purposeful ambiguity lends it to being an embodiment of the self, as the
self is an embodied subjectivity, such that the experience itself teaches us to accept that in the
end, all truths are individual.

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Bridges, Robert. The Influence of the Audience on Shakespeares Drama. Readings on the
Character of Hamlet. Comp. Claude C. H. Williamson. Abingdon: Routledge, 1950. 279.
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