The Hamlet/Piglet connection
Is it just me or does substituting the word ham for pig seem to be of some significance?
In reality, Act II, along with today's discussion in class, opened my eyes to the idea of Hamlet being the "troubled" child or some sort of "black sheep" in the family. I would now base what I see as the theme in this play to be based around the fact that Hamlet is that troubled child, and how he faces challenges. Especially considering the mess which his family is in right now, Hamlet seems to be a great illustration of the child ready to escape everything they grew up in and create a better world for themselves and others.
Also what I finally figured out while reading today (although it isn't solely based on Hamlet) is why every play shows upper class people as the main characters. It always seemed to me as though famous writers must have so much money that they see none of the woes that us working class people see. However, it makes sense for one to write from an upper class point of view because they aren't controlled by money or money worries. This allows a writer to explore people in a state of humanity rather than what their money defines them as. This is still a working concept, though, so any feedback would be much appreciated.
haha
Hmmm, I had never thought of that. It is kinda funny, but I agree with one of the other posts that said that the correlation was not on purpose. I think it is just one of those ironic things that come up ever so often. It is quite interesting though.
The runt of the family
Hmm. I hadn't made the connection at all with Hamlet and piglet. In a way, it makes sense, I'm just not totally convinced it was on purpose. He is troubled, but that's understandable because his dad died. As far as the upper class idea, it's abstract, but I don't think it's fit for the times. Shakespeare wrote about upper class because nobody wrote about the lower class. It just wasn't done.
Renee
More name games
Shakespeare's own son, who died young, was named Hamnet. So... my gut says that he didn't name his kid or his character after a deli sandwich. I do wonder, though, if he thought about his son when writing the play.
Erin Kay Schulz
the son of the bard
Of course, we can't know at all what Shakespeare was thinking when he wrote the play with any certainty, but it is something worth considering. Perhaps it's not so much "was X on his mind?" while he wrote the play, but "what in the play seems to indicate he was thinking about X?" Part of the problem in answering this is that there is so little historical evidence of Shakespeare. There are but a few examples of his handwriting, all signatures spelled variously. Not one scrap of a play or poem in his hand. There are baptism (I think) and death records, but that's about it. All else is pretty much speculation.
So, one can provide various psychological theories to the play to see what might be there, but that tends to confuse the playwright with the play. Yet another question could be "does it matter to the audience, player or reader that Shakespeare was or wasn't taking his son into account during the writing of the play?" Still, what is the person we think of as Shakespeare isn't the persona Shakespeare we attribute the plays to, but instead is the Eighth Earl of Oxford or some such person? Bradley
Bradley
Playwright
I can't see the fact that Hamlet used a play to expose his Uncle's guilt as being a random thought. It seems like the kind of thing that would make this play more personal to Shakespeare than any other play. Hamlet buries himself in books and words, uses plays to expose people, and is named almost identical to the firstborn son who would most likely have carried on the Shakespeare name. If Shakespeare really is the playwright we think him to be, I think Hamlet might be the best play in dissecting the character of Shakespeare, the man.
Ryan K Bishop
not Shakespeare's purpose
That much we can know for sure. Bradley
Bradley
Hamlet? Dallas? Real Housewives?
The reason we are likely to see the "upper classes" in something like Hamlet is that for a tragedy to fit with Aristotle, the person who falls from grace must be of high standing. That was initially taken to mean nobility, of which Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, fits. But much of today's entertainment is about those with money, whether it's "The Good Life" or whatever it was called with Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton, "Pimp my Ride/Crib/Toilet Paper Role" or whatever. Bradley
Bradley
Makes sense
Yeah that makes sense. I see a lot of the money in the music scene in the fact that good bands are generally the ones who start with money in order to buy fancy good sounding equipment and getting stuff recorded. I just had that hope that money isn't all that drives our media world.
Ryan K Bishop