Blog Post #16: Hamlet Act V

Caution: Music runs on a playlist, pause as soon as song is over.
Try to hear my voice
You can leave, now it's your choice

Maybe if I fall asleep, I won't breathe right
Maybe if I leave tonight, I won't come back

I said it before, I won't say it again
Love is a game to you, it's not pretend
Maybe if I fall asleep, I won't breathe right

Can nobody hear me?
I got a lot that's on my mind
I cannot breathe
Can you hear it, too?

You kiss and you kiss
And you love and you love
You got a history list and the rest is above
And if you're warm, then you can't relate to me
From the floor to the floor
And the sky to the sky
You've got to love and adore and the rest is awry
And if you're warm, then you can't relate to me

I said it before, I won't say it again
Love is a game to you, it's not pretend
Maybe if I fall asleep, I won't breathe right, right, right

Can nobody hear me?
I got a lot that's on my mind
I cannot breathe
Can you hear it, too?

Leave your shoes at the door, baby
I am all you adore, lately
Come with me and we will run away

Can nobody hear me?
I got a lot that's on my mind
I cannot breathe
Can you hear it, too?
Can nobody hear me?
I got a lot that's on my mind
I cannot breathe
Can you hear it, too?

Horatio here with our final blog. Yes I know I haven't been online for a bit since Act III, but a great deal has happened since then. The madness of Hamlet has spread across the castle to Claudius, Ophelia, Laertes, and even Gertrude. Hamlet's depression usually doesn't bother me as I was friends with the Old King when he was alive, but now Hamlet walks these halls wishing  "O, that this too solid flesh would melt Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!(1.2.5) has made me even feel that when he enters the room, the atmosphere becomes 'heavy' one could say. And now we have reached the end of the journey and now this song I hear called Hear Me By: Imagine Dragons. The song was all about depression and loneliness as the singer, despite this being a break up song speaks of what Hamlet has gone through ever since the old king passed and others have tried to help him get out of his slump as the Queen explains to Hamlet he should stop grieving "Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off, and let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity." (1.2.2). Death, she argues, is "common." But, when you think about it, losing a father isn't common. Sure, everyone's parents die—but your particular parents only die once. .“I've got a lot that’s on my mind” When worried or stressed (as the singer is, emotionally ) some people feel as if the world is against them and no one is there to help and the side effects of such stress include trouble breathing and elevated heartbeat. When no one listens you tend to go off the deep end, yet there are a few that will listen such as a mother or a father. Hamlet explained the situation to his mother to show that the ghost of Old Hamlet revealed of his true passing and sees the spirit once again, Yet the Queen doesn't see it. "Alas, how is't with you, that you do bend your eye on vacancy and with the incorporeal air do hold discourse? For that your eyes your spirits wildly peep...Your bedded hair, like life in excrements, starts up, and stands on end...Whereon do you look?" (3.4.18). Apparently Hamlet is the only one who can see and hear the Ghost when it appears in Gertrude's bedroom. So, what's changed? One possible explanation is that the Ghost chooses to appear only to Hamlet. Another possibility is that Hamlet's the only one who can see the Ghost here because it's a figment of his imagination, which would mean that Hamlet has broken down and has lost his mind. Afterwards, he accidentally killed Polonius, and was sentenced to be moved to England, Ophelia finally snapped. The sight of losing the two people she cared about has drove her over the deep end. Claudius describes Ophelia as being "divided from herself." (4.5.5). In other words, she's lost her mind.  Her ex-boyfriend has murdered her father or maybe it's more complex than that. Maybe she's actually just cracked under the patriarchal pressures of the court. Throughout the play, Ophelia is ordered around by her brother and her father and has no control over her social or love life. Madness might just be the only way she has of fighting back.

The lead singer of Imagine Dragons, Dan Reynolds, has suffered from a lot of depression and anxiety throughout his life. The phrase "Can nobody hear me?" is based around his emotions at a low point in his life, when he feels as if no one is listening to him, or as if no one can see/hear him. As if he's alone and trying to get someone to hear him, to listen to his problems, just like how we find Hamlet in Act III expressing his melancholic personality by making grim comparisons. “To be or not to be…” (3.1.56). Hamlet poses the problem of whether to commit suicide in this logical question that is, to live or not to live. In this way, this speech connects to the theme of suicide and death, the difficulty of knowing the truth in a spiritually ambiguous universe, and the connection between thought and action.  “[t]he slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” (3.1.58). He compares death to sleep and thinks of the end to suffering, pain, and uncertainty it might bring, “[his] heartache, and the thousand natural shocks / that flesh is heir to.” (3.1.62-63). He decides that suicide is a desirable course of action, then he decides that the uncertainty of the afterlife, which is intimately related to the theme of the difficulty of attaining truth in a spiritually ambiguous world,  prevents  humanity from committing suicide to end the pain of life. He outlines a long list of the miseries of experience, ranging from lovesickness to hard work to political oppression. He answers himself again, saying no one would choose to live, except that “the dread of something after death”(3.1.78) makes people submit to the suffering of their lives rather than go to another state of existence which might be even more miserable. It's like a relationship, you have moments when there are arguments, breakups, or even getting back together, but the song shows that the boyfriend doesn't want to live a relationship that's "a game to [her]" and decides that if the relationship can't work the "Maybe if [he] leave(s) tonight, [he] won't come back". 

Love is a strange thing, it's hard to explain and common knowledge can't explain why it happens and what is actually love or just lust. The spirit was definitely angry at Gertrude's betrayal after giving her his love to “that incestuous, that adulterate beast—O wicked wit and gifts—won to his shameful lust the will of my most seeming-virtuous queen...From me, whose love was of that dignity that it went hand in hand even with the vow I made to her in marriage, and to decline upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor to those of mine!" (1.4.43-52) but was the ghost saying Gertrude cheated on him when they were married, or does the ghost merely see her remarriage as a betrayal? Hamlet and Ophelia's love for each other confuses me, though love in Denmark is but a mere rumor in the upper-class. Despite Ophelia being a grown woman, she is still warned of the dangers of going along with these temptations by her brother and father. "Fear it, Ophelia… And keep you in the rear of your affection, out of the shot and danger of desire...If she unmask her beauty to the moon: virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes...Be wary then; best safety lies in fear: Youth to itself rebels, though none else near."(1.3.3).Laertes insists that Ophelia should fear premarital sex because a "deflowered" woman is seen as damaged goods that no man will want to marry. That is why Hear Me, in my opinion, is a song of depression, loneliness, and possibly romance issues with a loved one, and to me this song applies to the constant theme seen throughout the play of Hamlet.