Doubting Thomas in Hamlet: Choosing Reductionism or the Rabbit Hole?
Sometimes a scholar says something about a Shakespeare play that is not meant as a final answer, but one of many possible insights. Then someone takes it the wrong way, and like a bad game of telephone, others are repeating it, also taking it the wrong way. Oops.
[Image: Peter Paul Rubens, ca. 1613-1615. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, via Wikipedia.]
Example:
Let’s say some reader of Hamlet centuries ago observed that Horatio in the first scene is treated like a doubting Thomas (Thomas being the one who, according to the Gospel of John, was absent when the risen Jesus supposedly appeared to the disciples; he would not believe until he saw it himself, and put his hands in the wounds, he said).
The early reader observes, “Look how Shakespeare has used the doubt of a skeptical Horatio regarding the ghost to help convince perhaps an otherwise skeptical audience that this play will assume ghosts or supernatural specters are real!”
This doesn’t mean that the doubting Thomas allusion’s richness is limited to helping the audience suspend their disbelief. The reader long ago may have simply noticed that as one of many possible functions of the allusion.
Later, someone else comes along and claims, Oh yes, that doubting Thomas allusion regarding Horatio’s disbelief in ghosts is merely— is nothing but— a tool to help the audience suspend their disbelief in ghosts. How clever. But that’s all it is. Let’s move along to more interesting things, shall we?
At some point, perhaps we get instructors who refer students to this claim, somewhere in writing, and now you have an authoritative scholar, and a bunch of students, acting like reductionists, assuming the doubting Thomas allusion is nothing but. Merely.
Done here. Nothing more to see. Move along, please.
Well, dearly beloved, brothers and sisters in Shakespeare studies: We are gathered here today to cast out this foul demon of reductionism, and to recall the boundless spirit of the heart of the mystery of an allusion, which is not so easy to pluck.
HORATIO AS DOUBTING THOMAS:
In the first scene of the play, Marcellus comments that “Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy, / And will not let belief take hold of him” (1.1.32) regarding the apparition. Horatio has been invited to attend the watch that night so that “He may approve our eyes and speak to it” (1.1.38).
Horatio the skeptic responds, “Tush, tush, 'twill not appear” (1.1.39).
The sentinel Bernardo (perhaps named after St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who once preached a crusade) [1] tells Horatio he should again let them assail his ears with their story so that he might come to believe (1.1.41-42).
But some people just do not come to belief by having their ears assailed, or a verbal or physical crusade launched against them. They need to see or hear or experience things for themselves, and perhaps witness the failure of their own false assumptions. [2]
Later, when the ghost does appear, Horatio quickly amends his disbelief without fuss. He comments, “Before my God, I might not this believe / Without the sensible and true avouch / Of mine own eyes” (1.1.71-73).
Much like Thomas.
Many readers and scholars have noticed this and referred to the skeptical Horatio is a “doubting Thomas.” [3]
AVOIDING REDUCTIONISM, CHOOSING THE RABBIT HOLE OF RICH ALLUSION
This doubting Thomas allusion warrants scrutiny, not only for Horatio’s similarity to the skeptical Thomas, but also for their contrasts: Horatio never knew the dead king as well as Hamlet did, nor as well as Thomas knew Jesus. There may, therefore, be more of an implied violation of a hoped-for gratitude in Thomas, who has received the gifts of Jesus’ teachings and example, and who may be laboring not only in grief, but also to come up to the level of the gifts he received from Jesus as friend and disciple.
In that way, Jesus may be figuratively present in Thomas by way of the seeds of his gifts, not yet fully blossomed in Thomas, in a way that the dead king is not nearly as present in Horatio.
Horatio simply doesn’t believe in ghosts, and his turning from skepticism toward belief is instantaneous; so yes, one function of this is that it helps the play suspend disbelief in ghosts, though for others, a similar turning from skepticism may require an extended labor of regret after considerable resistance.
There has sometimes been debate in the history of Christianity regarding whether things like resurrection were meant to be taken literally or figuratively: Did Jesus rise in a supernaturally resuscitated corpse? Or did the teacher and spiritual leader Jesus live on in those who took his teachings to heart, inside of them, like the bread the gospels claim was shared at a last supper? Was the locus of the resurrected body a risen corpse one might look for in tombs? [The gospels seem to deny this.] Or was the risen body of Christ somehow related to the body of the early church?
Either way, the disbelief of Thomas seems a rejection or denial of a gift, and of the implied labor of gratitude and transformation that Lewis Hyde notes often follows, which brings the recipient up to the level of the gift or giver. [4]
But as I said previously, Horatio is not privy to any similar relationship to the dead king. His skepticism seems merely about belief in ghosts, not the rejection of the gifts of discipleship still blossoming within him, as in the case of Thomas.
THE SKEPTICISM OF THOMAS AS A LENS?
Sometimes a healthy skepticism is appropriate. The scripture that was so dear to so many in Shakespeare's England counseled Christian souls to test things, not to be gullible. It also said, "Behold, I send you as sheep in the midst of the wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and innocent as doves" (Mt 10:16 Geneva). For this kind of faith, healthy skepticism was necessary. And we know Claudius is, figuratively, on team Wolf.
So in this sense, this allusion of the doubting or skeptical Thomas is a lens through which we can view other characters and groups in the play:
- Should Denmark believe Claudius, and take his word on faith, that the King Hamlet was bitten by a serpent while he slept?
- Should Ophelia believe “almost all the holy vows of heaven” made to her by Hamlet, which may have been a wedding proposal?
- Or should she believe her father and brother who distrust Hamlet, although Polonius later repents of this distrust, apologizing twice for misjudging Hamlet?
OR IS THE ALLUSION MORE ABOUT HAMLET?
Thomas was away when certain things unfolded among the disciples after the death of Jesus, so he was not a witness to a new consensus about the risen Jesus.
Hamlet was away studying at Wittenberg when certain things unfolded in Denmark after the death of the king, so he was not a witness to a new consensus about Claudius as king and the remarriage of his mother.
In that sense, Hamlet was like the absent Thomas.
In the case of Thomas, the community of early disciples had blossomed into a new awareness of the continued presence of their teacher and friend among them, in them, like Hyde’s “labor of gratitude” that makes the recipients of a gift become more like the gift or giver. Thomas was outside that new, positive awakening.
The community of Denmark is a dark parody of the Christian community to which Thomas returns: Claudius has killed his brother to steal the throne and his brother’s wife. Denmark is a corrupt community, corrupted by Claudius and his lies.
So as is the case with many other biblical allusions in Hamlet, the doubting Thomas allusion is darkly ironic.
The ghost of the dead king is no risen Jesus who preached love, bid his disciples peace and not to fear, and admonished them to love their enemies. Instead, the ghost wants Prince Hamlet to avenge his murder, something that sounds very much at odds with Christian teachings.
Many of these insights are new to me regarding Thomas being away, and Hamlet being away, from their community, and then returning.
REVISITING THOMAS & "TO BE OR NOT"
This topic is also a revisitation for me, as I've written about Horatio as a doubting Thomas in the past. I've also linked Horatio to Hamlet's "Let be" in 5.2 and his famous "To be or not to be" in 3.1: Marcellus says in 1.1 that Horatio "will not let belief take hold of him," and in that phrase, we get the fragment, "will not let be-," associating his initial disbelief in ghosts with a refusal to "Let be."
But in addition to that, we might view Hamlet's question, "To be or not to be" as a threshold question. When Thomas moves from disbelief to belief, and when Horatio makes a similar move, they are moving from one way of being to another. Hamlet's question is one that he asks on the threshold. He has learned new insights about Denmark, his uncle and his mother. He has found that much of what Claudius says is a lie to cover up for the murder of his brother. What should Hamlet do? Should he openly oppose the corruption of Claudius, or should he play along with it like an ambitious and opportunistic Machiavellian, or like a coward, until Claudius dies one day and Hamlet take the throne? There are problems with both choices, so unlike Horatio and Thomas, who cross the threshold from disbelief to belief without hesitation, Hamlet's choices are more complicated and dangerous for him.
IS THAT ALL?
Of course, there may be yet other meanings suggested by the doubting Thomas allusion. Allusions, metaphors, symbols are not easily reduced to “nothing but” one meaning, or a handful of them. Other readers will notice more if they are open to what the play and its allusions offer.
Viktor Sklovsky would say that allusions should defamiliarize us by their fresh associations, and this offers us new opportunities to consider the play in light of its allusions, as well as to reinterpret the alluded-to text in light of the play.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[1] Previous posts on the sentinel Bernardo (and in some cases, also Francisco):
How Geographical Memory May Have Encouraged the Naming of Two Characters in Hamlet
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2017/07/how-geographical-memory-may-have.html
CORRUPTED REFORMERS: WHY SOMEONE NAMED AFTER BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX MIGHT BE FIRST TO SPEAK IN SHAKESPEARE’S HAMLET
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/01/corrupted-reformers-why-someone-named.html
SCOURGE AND MINISTER: BERNARD AND FRANCIS
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2018/03/scourge-minister-bernard-francis.html
BERNARDO TALES: LAERTES & HAMLET RECONCILE, as do BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX & PETER ABELARD
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2017/12/bernardo-abelard-hamlet-laertes-reconcile.html
WHAT DO FRANCISCO & BERNARDO HAVE TO DO WITH SHAKESPEARE & THE BIBLE?
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2017/12/what-do-francisco-bernardo-have-to-do.html
[2] Modern scholarship about Thomas notes possible disagreements between the community of John and that of Thomas in the early Christian communities, so John’s gospel paints Thomas as initially more skeptical than the rest, absent when Jesus first appeared to them, and therefore absent for the commission of Jesus and the breathing of his spirit upon them. See Elaine Pagels’ 2003 book, Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas.
[3] For just two examples, see Simon Blackmore’s 1917 book, The Riddles of Hamlet and the Newest Answers (135), and William Hamlin’s 2005 book, Tragedy and Scepticism in Shakespeare’s England, 130-131 (Palgrave).
[4] See Lewis Hyde, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property, and its chapter, “The Labor of Gratitude.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thanks for reading!
My current project is a book tentatively titled “Hamlet’s Bible,” about biblical allusions and plot echoes in Hamlet.
Below is a link to a list of some of my top posts (“greatest hits”), including a description of my book project (last item on the list):
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/12/top-20-hamlet-bible-posts.html
I post every week, so please visit as often as you like and subscribe if you wish.
[Image: Peter Paul Rubens, ca. 1613-1615. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, via Wikipedia.]
Example:
Let’s say some reader of Hamlet centuries ago observed that Horatio in the first scene is treated like a doubting Thomas (Thomas being the one who, according to the Gospel of John, was absent when the risen Jesus supposedly appeared to the disciples; he would not believe until he saw it himself, and put his hands in the wounds, he said).
The early reader observes, “Look how Shakespeare has used the doubt of a skeptical Horatio regarding the ghost to help convince perhaps an otherwise skeptical audience that this play will assume ghosts or supernatural specters are real!”
This doesn’t mean that the doubting Thomas allusion’s richness is limited to helping the audience suspend their disbelief. The reader long ago may have simply noticed that as one of many possible functions of the allusion.
Later, someone else comes along and claims, Oh yes, that doubting Thomas allusion regarding Horatio’s disbelief in ghosts is merely— is nothing but— a tool to help the audience suspend their disbelief in ghosts. How clever. But that’s all it is. Let’s move along to more interesting things, shall we?
At some point, perhaps we get instructors who refer students to this claim, somewhere in writing, and now you have an authoritative scholar, and a bunch of students, acting like reductionists, assuming the doubting Thomas allusion is nothing but. Merely.
Done here. Nothing more to see. Move along, please.
Well, dearly beloved, brothers and sisters in Shakespeare studies: We are gathered here today to cast out this foul demon of reductionism, and to recall the boundless spirit of the heart of the mystery of an allusion, which is not so easy to pluck.
HORATIO AS DOUBTING THOMAS:
In the first scene of the play, Marcellus comments that “Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy, / And will not let belief take hold of him” (1.1.32) regarding the apparition. Horatio has been invited to attend the watch that night so that “He may approve our eyes and speak to it” (1.1.38).
Horatio the skeptic responds, “Tush, tush, 'twill not appear” (1.1.39).
The sentinel Bernardo (perhaps named after St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who once preached a crusade) [1] tells Horatio he should again let them assail his ears with their story so that he might come to believe (1.1.41-42).
But some people just do not come to belief by having their ears assailed, or a verbal or physical crusade launched against them. They need to see or hear or experience things for themselves, and perhaps witness the failure of their own false assumptions. [2]
Later, when the ghost does appear, Horatio quickly amends his disbelief without fuss. He comments, “Before my God, I might not this believe / Without the sensible and true avouch / Of mine own eyes” (1.1.71-73).
Much like Thomas.
Many readers and scholars have noticed this and referred to the skeptical Horatio is a “doubting Thomas.” [3]
AVOIDING REDUCTIONISM, CHOOSING THE RABBIT HOLE OF RICH ALLUSION
This doubting Thomas allusion warrants scrutiny, not only for Horatio’s similarity to the skeptical Thomas, but also for their contrasts: Horatio never knew the dead king as well as Hamlet did, nor as well as Thomas knew Jesus. There may, therefore, be more of an implied violation of a hoped-for gratitude in Thomas, who has received the gifts of Jesus’ teachings and example, and who may be laboring not only in grief, but also to come up to the level of the gifts he received from Jesus as friend and disciple.
In that way, Jesus may be figuratively present in Thomas by way of the seeds of his gifts, not yet fully blossomed in Thomas, in a way that the dead king is not nearly as present in Horatio.
Horatio simply doesn’t believe in ghosts, and his turning from skepticism toward belief is instantaneous; so yes, one function of this is that it helps the play suspend disbelief in ghosts, though for others, a similar turning from skepticism may require an extended labor of regret after considerable resistance.
There has sometimes been debate in the history of Christianity regarding whether things like resurrection were meant to be taken literally or figuratively: Did Jesus rise in a supernaturally resuscitated corpse? Or did the teacher and spiritual leader Jesus live on in those who took his teachings to heart, inside of them, like the bread the gospels claim was shared at a last supper? Was the locus of the resurrected body a risen corpse one might look for in tombs? [The gospels seem to deny this.] Or was the risen body of Christ somehow related to the body of the early church?
Either way, the disbelief of Thomas seems a rejection or denial of a gift, and of the implied labor of gratitude and transformation that Lewis Hyde notes often follows, which brings the recipient up to the level of the gift or giver. [4]
But as I said previously, Horatio is not privy to any similar relationship to the dead king. His skepticism seems merely about belief in ghosts, not the rejection of the gifts of discipleship still blossoming within him, as in the case of Thomas.
THE SKEPTICISM OF THOMAS AS A LENS?
Sometimes a healthy skepticism is appropriate. The scripture that was so dear to so many in Shakespeare's England counseled Christian souls to test things, not to be gullible. It also said, "Behold, I send you as sheep in the midst of the wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and innocent as doves" (Mt 10:16 Geneva). For this kind of faith, healthy skepticism was necessary. And we know Claudius is, figuratively, on team Wolf.
So in this sense, this allusion of the doubting or skeptical Thomas is a lens through which we can view other characters and groups in the play:
- Should Denmark believe Claudius, and take his word on faith, that the King Hamlet was bitten by a serpent while he slept?
- Should Ophelia believe “almost all the holy vows of heaven” made to her by Hamlet, which may have been a wedding proposal?
- Or should she believe her father and brother who distrust Hamlet, although Polonius later repents of this distrust, apologizing twice for misjudging Hamlet?
OR IS THE ALLUSION MORE ABOUT HAMLET?
Thomas was away when certain things unfolded among the disciples after the death of Jesus, so he was not a witness to a new consensus about the risen Jesus.
Hamlet was away studying at Wittenberg when certain things unfolded in Denmark after the death of the king, so he was not a witness to a new consensus about Claudius as king and the remarriage of his mother.
In that sense, Hamlet was like the absent Thomas.
In the case of Thomas, the community of early disciples had blossomed into a new awareness of the continued presence of their teacher and friend among them, in them, like Hyde’s “labor of gratitude” that makes the recipients of a gift become more like the gift or giver. Thomas was outside that new, positive awakening.
The community of Denmark is a dark parody of the Christian community to which Thomas returns: Claudius has killed his brother to steal the throne and his brother’s wife. Denmark is a corrupt community, corrupted by Claudius and his lies.
So as is the case with many other biblical allusions in Hamlet, the doubting Thomas allusion is darkly ironic.
The ghost of the dead king is no risen Jesus who preached love, bid his disciples peace and not to fear, and admonished them to love their enemies. Instead, the ghost wants Prince Hamlet to avenge his murder, something that sounds very much at odds with Christian teachings.
Many of these insights are new to me regarding Thomas being away, and Hamlet being away, from their community, and then returning.
REVISITING THOMAS & "TO BE OR NOT"
This topic is also a revisitation for me, as I've written about Horatio as a doubting Thomas in the past. I've also linked Horatio to Hamlet's "Let be" in 5.2 and his famous "To be or not to be" in 3.1: Marcellus says in 1.1 that Horatio "will not let belief take hold of him," and in that phrase, we get the fragment, "will not let be-," associating his initial disbelief in ghosts with a refusal to "Let be."
But in addition to that, we might view Hamlet's question, "To be or not to be" as a threshold question. When Thomas moves from disbelief to belief, and when Horatio makes a similar move, they are moving from one way of being to another. Hamlet's question is one that he asks on the threshold. He has learned new insights about Denmark, his uncle and his mother. He has found that much of what Claudius says is a lie to cover up for the murder of his brother. What should Hamlet do? Should he openly oppose the corruption of Claudius, or should he play along with it like an ambitious and opportunistic Machiavellian, or like a coward, until Claudius dies one day and Hamlet take the throne? There are problems with both choices, so unlike Horatio and Thomas, who cross the threshold from disbelief to belief without hesitation, Hamlet's choices are more complicated and dangerous for him.
IS THAT ALL?
Of course, there may be yet other meanings suggested by the doubting Thomas allusion. Allusions, metaphors, symbols are not easily reduced to “nothing but” one meaning, or a handful of them. Other readers will notice more if they are open to what the play and its allusions offer.
Viktor Sklovsky would say that allusions should defamiliarize us by their fresh associations, and this offers us new opportunities to consider the play in light of its allusions, as well as to reinterpret the alluded-to text in light of the play.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[1] Previous posts on the sentinel Bernardo (and in some cases, also Francisco):
How Geographical Memory May Have Encouraged the Naming of Two Characters in Hamlet
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2017/07/how-geographical-memory-may-have.html
CORRUPTED REFORMERS: WHY SOMEONE NAMED AFTER BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX MIGHT BE FIRST TO SPEAK IN SHAKESPEARE’S HAMLET
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/01/corrupted-reformers-why-someone-named.html
SCOURGE AND MINISTER: BERNARD AND FRANCIS
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2018/03/scourge-minister-bernard-francis.html
BERNARDO TALES: LAERTES & HAMLET RECONCILE, as do BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX & PETER ABELARD
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2017/12/bernardo-abelard-hamlet-laertes-reconcile.html
WHAT DO FRANCISCO & BERNARDO HAVE TO DO WITH SHAKESPEARE & THE BIBLE?
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2017/12/what-do-francisco-bernardo-have-to-do.html
[2] Modern scholarship about Thomas notes possible disagreements between the community of John and that of Thomas in the early Christian communities, so John’s gospel paints Thomas as initially more skeptical than the rest, absent when Jesus first appeared to them, and therefore absent for the commission of Jesus and the breathing of his spirit upon them. See Elaine Pagels’ 2003 book, Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas.
[3] For just two examples, see Simon Blackmore’s 1917 book, The Riddles of Hamlet and the Newest Answers (135), and William Hamlin’s 2005 book, Tragedy and Scepticism in Shakespeare’s England, 130-131 (Palgrave).
[4] See Lewis Hyde, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property, and its chapter, “The Labor of Gratitude.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thanks for reading!
My current project is a book tentatively titled “Hamlet’s Bible,” about biblical allusions and plot echoes in Hamlet.
Below is a link to a list of some of my top posts (“greatest hits”), including a description of my book project (last item on the list):
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/12/top-20-hamlet-bible-posts.html
I post every week, so please visit as often as you like and subscribe if you wish.
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