Suicide, Survival, Adaptivity, & Resistance: Notes on Asimov on Hamlet, Part 4

In the second volume of his 1970 book on Shakespeare, Isaac Asimov has some interesting comments about Hamlet and his thoughts on suicide (considerations others have raised as well), and in particular about his "To be or not to be" speech, often assumed (perhaps incorrectly) to be about suicide.

THE EVERLASTING FIXED HIS CANON 'GASINST SELF-SLAUGHTER
Before considering Asimov's remarks, let's consider Hamlet's references to suicide in the play:

We know that in the second scene of Act One, Hamlet endures the show Claudius puts on justifying his hasty marriage to Gertrude, and when alone, he begins:

Oh, that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! (1.2.313-316)

Hamlet is saying: If only God had not made laws that not only prohibited killing others, but also prohibited suicide! At least at this moment of the play, he wishes he could kill himself. Yet he also wants to be faithful to his Christian understanding that prohibits suicide; this faithfulness to Christian law wins out. 

Why would Hamlet wish to kill himself? Most of us reading the play today are not princes or royalty, and are not in line of possible succession or election to a throne, so we might think: So what? His father died, his mother somewhat quickly married Hamlet's father's brother, and Hamlet will have to wait to be king. Very few people get to be king, and Hamlet recently was a student in Wittenberg. So what if he has to wait a bit longer to be king? Why get in a huff about it?

But people in Shakespeare's original audiences would not have thought of it this way. Hamlet was probably being groomed to be king, and being sent to Wittenberg may have been part of his being groomed to be a good Christian king. The play indicates that Hamlet was a popular prince, so for his father to die suddenly, and for his mother to remarry and his uncle to be elected (quickly, perhaps while Hamlet was still away, elected in fear of a Norwegian military threat), this is all a sudden disappointment of what were probably Hamlet's hopes and expectations.

And Hamlet is particularly ashamed that his mother married so quickly, and scandalously, to his uncle, her brother-in-law, the sort of marriage that Henry VIII claimed was biblically incestuous and sinful enough to be a good excuse for a divorce, so that he could marry Anne Boleyn, his mistress. Original audiences may sympathize with him for his sense of scandal, but then again, perhaps Hamlet really wanted the throne, too? What are his spoken and unspoken motivations? Asimov believes Hamlet's desire to be king may be underplayed, but was probably, at least in Asimov's mind, a major factor.

In the last scene of the play, Hamlet says to Horatio that Claudius had "Popped in between th'election and my hopes...." Hamlet doesn't dwell upon this, and may be toying with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern when he tells them his problem is, "Sir, I lack advancement" (3.2.2210).

We tend not to view Hamlet as a prince who is working hard behind the scenes to kill his uncle so that he can usurp the throne or take back a throne that is rightfully his, but rather, as a prince who learns from a ghost of his father's murder, strives to test what the ghost says to see if it's trustworthy, and then strives (badly at first) to kill his father's murderer. And yet Hamlet's disappointed hopes do get mentioned before the end, as they should.

In other words, we don't view Hamlet as a Bollingbroke figure, as in Shakespeare's Richard II: Bollingbroke suffers indignities and losses caused by King Richard II, but later becomes a usurper, deposing a rightful king, and soon is at least indirectly responsible for Richard's death. We don't view Hamlet as primarily ambitious and scheming with others to retake the throne. In sharp contrast, Hamlet wishes to work alone, to protect not only himself, but perhaps to protect others around him as well.

But his mother's hasty marriage to his uncle, in the face of his hopes for the throne, seems a scandalous and shameful thing, even more shameful in Shakespeare's time, when the scandals of the marriages of Henry VIII were still fresh in memory, and when a daughter of Henry VIII had reigned for many years and only recently died. Henry's first marriage was to the widow of his older brother, and that "incestuous marriage" caused England a great deal of trouble, and marked a key turning point in the English Reformation.

So in Act One, scene 2, Hamlet considers suicide as a way to end the agony of scandal and shame and lost hopes, but more than this, Hamlet prefers being faithful to Christian law and doing his duty as the son of a king, and obeying his mother and uncle.

DOES THE GHOST'S MESSAGE GIVE HAMLET MORE REASON TO LIVE?
If Hamlet is contemplating suicide at all at the start of the play - due in part to his sorrow at the loss of his father, his disappointed hopes for the throne, and the scandal and shame of his mother's hasty marriage to his uncle so as to preempt his chances at being king - then is Hamlet a static character in this way, continuing to be on the edge of suicide throughout the play? Or is he a dynamic character, changed by the news from the Ghost that his uncle had killed his father?

I would tend to argue that Hamlet is changed, and has more reason to live, a greater mission in life, though it is certainly a difficult one: "The time is out of joint. Oh, cursèd spite, / That ever I was born to set it right!" (1.5.885-886).

NOBLER TO SUFFER?
By the time we get to Hamlet's "To be or not to be" speech, we're already thinking of Hamlet as a character who had considered suicide but chose against it because he's a man on a mission. But now he muses:

To be, or not to be- that is the question: 
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them.
(3.1.1710-1714)

Many assume that Hamlet is speaking immediately about suicide when he says, "take up arms against a sea of trouble, / And by opposing end them." But perhaps this is too metaphorical, not literal enough: The ghost said Hamlet's uncle Claudius killed him and took the throne. To bring the murderer Claudius to justice could mean taking up arms against a sea of troubles, but it might be a kind of suicide mission.

We may often think of Hamlet too much as that sensitive boy who is missing his dad and thinking of suicide, and not enough as a prince whose father was killed, and who was charged by a ghost with the responsibility of bringing the murderer to justice, probably by killing his uncle, who as King, is beyond the law.

When he asks "Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," he knows one option is to be a person of conscience who knows murder is wrong, but to suffer his outrageous fortune in silence; to pretend he doesn't know; to act like a good nephew and heir apparent, and simply wait for when his time will come to be king - if Claudius doesn't arrange to poison him first, or have him be killed.

Hamlet continues, and again mentions something about a "bare bodkin" - yet some believe he's not talking about taking a sharp blade to the heart:

...to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep--
No more--and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to; 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of disprized love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveler returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of.
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action. (3.1.1714-1742)

Regarding "might his quietus make / With a bare bodkin," John Yamamoto-Wilson has argued that "quietus" does not mean silencing himself: The older definition of "quietus" is to settle accounts, or settle scores. This may have originally meant "When he himself might settle scores with a bare blade," meaning take revenge. The interpretation of "quietus" as suicide may be a misreading that persisted in scholarly tradition (as misreadings sometimes do). See John's YouTube video video on this topic here: https://youtu.be/erp1nJx3jHA

When Hamlet speaks of "enterprises of great pith and moment" he is not talking about mustering up the courage to kill himself and be done with it. He's talking about opposing Claudius.

And he speaks of adapting to the demands of the "undiscovered country" that comes after death: He is uncertain if he should suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune (play it cool, bide his time), or kill his uncle and perhaps risk going to hell for it in the afterlife. This is not about suicide (in my opinion, and that of John Yamamoto-Wilson, and also, it would seem, in Asimov's mind). 

It is in this context that Asimov remarks:

I agree with Asimov and others on this point: Hamlet is not talking about suicide. But he's aware that vengeance against Claudius as his father's murderer, and bringing Claudius to justice, is *like* a suicide mission that may likely result in his own death and perhaps damnation.

SURVIVAL OF THE MOST ADAPTIVE (not "FITTEST")
It is often noted that in popular attempts to quote Darwin, too many claim "survival of the fittest," or the strongest, when Darwin seemed to believe that species which survive tend to be those that can adapt best to changing circumstances.

In that sense, one might note that Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and even the foppish Osric seem quite adaptive: They all wish to serve and flatter the monarchy in order to advance their own interests. As long as that monarch is secure in the throne, their willingness to adapt may serve them and advance their narrow interests, even if the king is unjust, or even criminal in some ways. (Some political administrations certainly seem to demonstrate this.) 

So some readers and audience members might complain that Hamlet should flatter and serve Claudius, even if he learns that Claudius killed his father. Grow up, Hamlet! Kings and people around them have people poisoned and killed, so if you want to survive, you have to give up on biblical rules and morals, and simply adapt if you wish to survive. Be a little more Machiavellian, and you can clean things up once Claudius has died of old age.

Of course, the more faithful one is in serving a corrupt or criminal leader, the more one's survival is at risk if that leader falls from power, so too much adaptation to a bad leader can be a dangerous thing. And once a prince turns a blind eye to a king's crimes, that prince may be more likely to commit crimes of his own. Turning a blind eye may, in fact, make one an accessory to the crime.

WHERE PROPHETIC RESISTANCE CROSSES A LINE AND BECOMES SIN:
The interesting thing about Hamlet is that he has a strong conscience, and would rather bring his father's murderer to justice than simply adapt to the rule of a murderous king, in the hope of one day succeeding him on the throne. He speaks of his "prophetic soul" (with the play alluding in various ways to John the Baptist [also see here] and echoing Jeremiah) and resists conforming to the lies and flattery of the Danish court.

But the more he is committed to the path of the avenger, the more he makes mistakes and hurts others: He insults and offends Ophelia, and having suffered the killing of his own father, he soon becomes a father-killer himself, killing Polonius by accident. 

Thus Hamlet's faithfulness to his mission as an avenger comes into conflict with his faithfulness to the basic tenets of Christianity: Love God, and love neighbor as self; do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. Hamlet finds himself to be a sinner, having committed the sort of sin he rails against in Claudius, and therefore finds himself in need of repentance.

Interestingly, he adapts, not so much to the lies and flattery of the court, but at first to his plan of feigning madness, and later on the sea voyage, perhaps to the transcendent demands of "Providence" and his Christian faith, which teaches that one must be made new in Christ to inherit everlasting life.

Christianity is a strange thing: It preaches in the Beatitudes (in Matthew, Shakespeare's Geneva translation), "Blessed are they which hunger and thirst for righteousness: for they shall be filled." (Mt 5:6).  It teaches love of enemies: 

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.

But I say unto you, Love your enemies: bless them that curse you: do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which hurt you, and persecute you,

That ye may be the children of your father that is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to arise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and unjust. (Mt 5:43-45).

This last part about the rain sounds like the song sung by the clown, Feste, in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. It seems a chapter with which Shakespeare was very familiar, even a chapter he was fond of.

In the same chapter of Matthew's gospel, Jesus advises:

If then thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee,
Leave there thine offering before the altar, and go thy way: first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
(Mt 5:23-24)

This, as I've said before, sounds like Hamlet apologizing to Laertes before the duel. Except Hamlet is not apologizing to Claudius for attempting to kill him....

THE LAW OF THE CROSS
Some theologians say that, the more one is like Jesus in one's life, opposing injustice, displaying Christian values, and speaking truth to power, the more likely it is that one will be crucified. (This is, I would claim, related to the often-cited quote by Brazilian Catholic Archbishop Dom Hélder Câmara: "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.").

Hamlet seems to want to be faithful to God in refusing suicide as an option: He wants very much to live, and though at times he is reluctant, he wishes to bring his father's murderer to justice and to set right what is out of joint in Denmark. On his sea voyage, he feels Providence is on his side, that he had his father's ring and could forge a new letter, and that the pirates spared his life and brought him back to Denmark. Though at times he seems confused about whether it's heaven or hell, or both, pushing him to vengeance, Hamlet is, increasingly, willing to do the will of Providence, and this seems to become more clear to him after the sea voyage and graveyard scene.

But prophetic resistance to the injustices of one's time often leads to trouble, and sometimes seems a suicide mission, facing a sea of troubles. In the end, Hamlet chooses not simply to "be," rather than "not to be," but a way of being that submits to the will of heaven as he sees it, submits to being an instrument of heaven in bringing Claudius to justice, but also submits to seeing his own image (as the son of a killed father) in Laertes.

Or at least this is one possible interpretation of the play, and it is, in part, what makes the play so compelling.

Asimov consistently believes that what is compelling Hamlet to action is his desire for the crown of Denmark. He writes, "Suspecting that heroism would require direct action even at the cost of death, he knows also that he wants the crown and must take the route to the crown even at the price of heroism." 

This is perhaps a weakness in Asimov: For Hamlet to risk dying in the process of bringing Claudius to justice, this means inherently that he must be willing to give up the Danish crown in exchange for more transcendent demands such as justice and perhaps his own chance at eternal life, "what dreams may come / When we have shuffled off this mortal coil" and entered "The undiscovered country from whose bourn / No traveler returns."

In that sense, perhaps Hamlet exchanges the Danish crown for a heavenly one, but in the process (as Fortinbras hints at but doesn't really understand), becomes a better prince - in an age when many citizens expected their monarchs to be representatives of heaven on earth.

IF IT HAD BEEN OTHERWISE
It's interesting to note that, if Hamlet had only been committed to faith, he might have disengaged from the life of the court, as corrupt as it was, in favor of perhaps joining a monastery (as one way to reject worldliness and sin, and to embrace a life of holiness). But this is not the path Shakespeare plots out for Hamlet. Hamlet is a prince, living in the world, immersed in the disjointedness and corruption of Denmark, and so instead of retreating from that world, he considers it his duty to bring Claudius to justice. If he retreated from the world into a life of prayer (as some other Shakespearean figures seem inclined to do), he would not be doing his duty as a prince, and we would not have the play that we have.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THIS POST HAS BEEN PART OF A LARGER SERIES, reflecting on an in reaction toIsaac Asimov's treatment of Hamlet in his two-volume work, Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
INDEX: NOTES ON ASIMOV ON HAMLET:
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2024/08/index-asimov-on-hamlet.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
YOU CAN SUPPORT ME on a one-time "tip" basis on Ko-Fi:
https://ko-fi.com/pauladrianfried

IF YOU WOULD PREFER to support me on a REGULAR basis,
you may do so on Ko-Fi, or here on Patreon:
https://patreon.com/PaulAdrianFried
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Disclaimer: If and when I quote or paraphrase bible passages or mention religion in many of my blog posts, I do not intend to promote any religion over another, nor am I attempting to promote religious belief in general; only to explore how the Bible and religion influenced Shakespeare, his plays, and his age.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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 consider FOLLOWING.
To find the FOLLOW button, go to the home page: https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/
see the = drop-down menu with three lines in the upper left.
From there you can click FOLLOW and see options.