“Supernatural Messages and Mental States: Studying the Ghost and Hamlet’s Sanity” by Ashleymarie Sey DeBondt (me)
“Thou com’st in such a questionable shape… horridly to shake our disposition with thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls? Say, why this? Wherefore? What should we do?” Possibly one of the lesser known quotes from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, yet one incredibly saturated with ghostly appeal. One of Shakespeare’s motifs often over looked is the presence of ghosts. Within his most popular plays Macbeth, Julius Caesar, and now Hamlet, the most important topic which has been debated is that of the ghost. M. D. Faber, of the University of Victoria in British Columbia, deals with this very issue in her article obviously titled “Shakespeare’s Ghosts.” Specifically, Faber focuses the issue of whether the ghost is real or a figment of Hamlet’s imagination. Faber notes that ghosts and Elizabethan perspective of the paranormal is vastly different to that of the present day skeptic.
“Some puzzling aspects of the Ghost’s nature and... at some possibilities of what the Ghost may mean and how it functions in the play” has to do with the understanding of Elizabethan beliefs and frames of mind of what ghosts really are (Atchley 5). At the beginning of the play, “the famous passage… Hamlet speculates upon the nature of the ‘spirit’ he has seen”. In Shakespeare’s time ghosts and spirits were a) real, apart of nature, b) fantastic, created from the mind, or c) diabolic, created by the devil (Faber 131). Faber notes the information about cultural specific beliefs of ghosts is critical for understanding not only the plot of the story, but the character Hamlet, himself. Without understanding whether or not the ghost is real, a figment of one’s imagination, or a projection conjured by the devil, we cannot understand Hamlet’s persona being an honest character in to take the facts of the play to be true of other characters involved, or someone who is just insane. Shakespeare “expects his audience to perceive the Ghost for what it is, a diabolical manifestation on a mission to trick Hamlet into forfeiting his soul; the play’s devastating/destructive conclusion ‘supports this interpretation” (Atchley 12).
In Act 1, it is noted that not only does Hamlet see the ghost, but so do other characters in the scene. Horatio and a few other characters also inform Hamlet they have been visited by a ghostly apparition a few times before it visits them all again when Hamlet arrives. This exclusively leads us to believe this cannot be a figment of one person’s imagination. Audibly, the account of the ghostly apparition is only heard by Hamlet while the others cannot, but this fact still does not support the evidence that the ghost is real. Just because one cannot hear something does not mean that it is not real. Deaf people can see real people. Cannot people be deaf to the dead but see them, while others can see and hear them speak? Of course. There is no evidence to suggest otherwise. While the guards and Horatio all try adamantly try to persuade Hamlet into not following the Ghost, Hamlet disobeys. This foreshadows Hamlet’s obvious doom. In such a distraught state of losing his father, and his mother, whom he is possibly too possessive over, marrying his uncle in such a short amount of time, Hamlet is walking on thin ice as far as his mental state is.
“In historical context, Hamlet’s Ghost, a spirit, is perceived as distinct from a soul, and Protestants ‘might very well suspect the spirit of having evil intentions’” (Sanchez 71).
Whether one speaks of text or context, however, Shakespeare seems to be interested in presenting a Ghost who conveys information and withholds information, a Ghost who educates and confuses, a Ghost who evokes terror and humor, a Ghost who signification is both textual and contextual (79).
Faber’s article investigates these further noting Shakespeare also perceived his works in a sort of ‘stage’ reality; the fact that his Ghost had to be able to come and go. She notes, unlike the rest of the ghosts in his other plays, they “‘appear and reappear’ as in ‘dreams and… supernatural fantasies.’” Hamlet’s ghost is the only one which “comes and goes… The ghosts of Caesar and Banquo, as well as the ghost of Hamlet’s father in III.vi appear momentarily to the protagonists and then vanish from their sight” (132). He argues that Hamlet’s Ghost is not a figment of his imagination, but that he is the only real ghost in any of his works. The playwright’s intention for spirits in his plays “which are beheld by characters other than the protagonist to be regarded as real” and with this in mind, gives us understanding to certain scenes, especially displayed in Hamlet on whether a spirit is real, and yet still leaves us wondering(Faber 131). Shakespeare’s explicit ambiguity of the ghost and if it is real or apart of Hamlet’s mind remains questionable not at the beginning of play, but towards the end.
Noting through the audience of Shakespeare’s time, we are to perceive the Ghost is as a real entity and not a figment of the mind. The next inquiry would be what are the motives of the Ghost once he has succeeded in influencing Hamlet to commit revenge? And why does Hamlet wait until later in the play to kill his uncle. Besides the fact that, there would be no play without this specific element, one can say it functions for two main reasons (Atchley 14):
First, to prevent Hamlet’s convincing of Gertrude to repent; the Ghost’s appearing only to Hamlet ‘intensifies Hamlet’s apparent madness such that Gertrude attributes Hamlet’s accusations to his insanity. Secondly, by appearing in the wife’s bed chamber, wearing a nightgown, the Ghost reactivates the domestic values that Hamlet keenly feels he has lost and evokes cherished familial memories in Hamlet (17).
This can further imply that the Ghost is real. If the Ghost is real, and is a demon, then it has evil intentions. Demons have evil intentions without real motivation. In Hilaire Kallendorf’s article “Intertextual Madness in Hamlet: The Ghost’s Fragmented Performativity,” he goes further saying the Ghost is a demonic spirit who ignites and fuels the fire of Hamlet’s insanity later on in the play. “Hamlet’s madness, commonly perceived as a factor of ‘the Ghost’s message” is represented in terms of demonic possession” (77). The ghost centers on two aspects of Elizabethan thought, the first being a real entity and the second being a demon. Evidence of this evil is when the ‘Ghost appears in the closet scene, Gertrude describes Hamlet’s visual appearance “using the language of the exorcists to describe demoniacs” (77-78).
“We may conclude that the ghost of Hamlet’s father as we see it in the play’s first act is Shakespeare’s only ‘real’ ghost, for it is the only ghost in Shakespeare that behaves precisely as a real ghost would.” Yet, the entity in the third Act has to be “a product of Hamlet’s conscience… it tells us, in a word that Hamlet’s conscience is just like anyone else’s: charged with anxiety and containing the parental image” (Faber 132). Thus, with knowledge of the Elizabethan thought of the supernatural, we can proper examine and comprehend what the ghost is, and Hamlet’s mental state.
Works Cited
Atchley, Clinton P. E. “Reconsidering the Ghost in Hamlet: Cohesion or Coercion?” The Philological Review 28.2 (2002): 5-20.
Faber, M. D. (2002). “Shakespeare’s Ghosts.” American Notes & Queries, 9(6). <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=7672652&site=ehost-live>. (5 Dec. 2006).
Kallendorf, Hilaire. “Intertextual Madness in Hamlet: The Ghost’s Fragmented Performativity.” Renaissance and Reformation 22.4. (1998): 69-87.
Sanchez, Reuben. “Thou com’st in such a questionable shape: Interpreting the Textual and Contextual Ghost in Hamlet.” Hamlet Studies 18.1. (1996): 65-84.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. England: Penguin, 1998.
