INDEX: Good Friday echoes in Hamlet

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Since at least 2022, I've done a post around the time of Good Friday, sharing what seem to be either direct allusions, or at least echoes of the Good Friday gospel stories (the Passion of Christ) in Shakespeare's Hamlet. 

The index link below is to blog posts about allusions in Hamlet to the Good Friday stories (which Shakespeare and others in England would have been required to hear via mandatory church attendance. The index covers related posts on this subject from 2022-2026.

The 2022 post [1] collected a few general allusions or plot echoes. For people interested in a list of detailed, short references in the text of the play, this is a good place to start. 
- A post in December of 2023 related to these by way of Ophelia's "willow" [2]; 
- Good Friday posts in 2024 [3] and in 2025 [4] continued this, each with new insights. 

INDEX: Good Friday echoes in Hamlet - April 03, 2026.
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2026/04/index-good-friday-echoes-in-hamlet.html

A new insight this year is that Shakespeare structures the play so that at its center, Hamlet himself is associated with Good Friday, as a sinner and crucifier. He must play this role before he becomes a Christ figure himself: 

Hamlet kills Polonius in his mother's closet: When Gertrude quickly asks Hamlet what he has done (likely in part a rhetorical question), Hamlet says "I know not." This compares Gertrude to God (after Cain kills his brother Abel) asking, "What have you done?" And Hamlet replies, "I know not," like the crucifiers of whom Jesus speaks from the cross when he says, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do" [5] 

In this way, Hamlet is a sinner, a Cain like Claudius [6] and crucifier who must remove the plank from his own eye before he can remove the mote of dust from the eyes of others [7 - previous post, and act/sc/vs horatio quote from 1.1], and before he can become something of a Christ figure himself later in the play.

This is in harmony with the baptism rite of the Book of Common Prayer in Shakespeare's time: It did not say that all the baptizes instantly become Christ figures, but rather, that it is their vocation to die to the sinful self, to die to the old Adam within, and to strive to become more like Jesus in this life. Shakespeare has his Prince Hamlet follow this pattern, first as sinner and crucifier, but later as Christ figure himself. 

NOTES AND
INDEX OF GOOD FRIDAY RELATED POSTS:

[1] Good Friday, 2022 - Fried, Paul Adrian, "Good Friday/Christ’s Passion Allusions in Hamlet," April 15, 2022
[2] Fried, Paul Adrian, "Part 27: Ophelia's Willow, Psalm 137, & Religious Refugees" - December 12, 2023.
This was part of a series on Ophelia, but relates importantly to Good Friday: 
Gertrude tells of Ophelia dying because of an event by a willow tree: Psalm 137 includes lines, "On the willows there we hung up our lives," about the Hebrews in exile, but traditionally associated with Good Friday, because Jesus was hung up on a cross. (This is a traditional Christian typological reading of Psalm 137.)
Part 27: Ophelia's Willow, Psalm 137, & Religious Refugees - December 12, 2023

[3] Good Friday, 2024: Fried, Paul Adrian, "Part 38: Christ figures in Hamlet: Ophelia, Gertrude, Hamlet (Good Friday 2024 post)" - March 29, 2024. 
This post explores how not only Hamlet is a Christ figure, but Ophelia and Gertrude can also be viewed as self-sacrificing, and therefore Christ-figures.
(Some might say that Polonius also sacrifices himself to risk spying on Hamlet and Gertrude, so he is a kind of ironic or satirical Christ figure, but other posts explore that theme regarding his missing body, like the missing body of Jesus at the tomb on Easter morning: "Where have they taken him?".) 
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2024/03/christ-figures-in-hamlet-ophelia.html

[4] Good Friday, 2025: Fried, Paul Adrian, "Cain and Jesus in Gertrude's Closet, Hamlet 3.4 (Good Friday post)" - April 18, 2025. 
This part does not include the insight that Hamlet seems to have to be a Cain figure and a crucifier before he can later undergo some change and be a Christ-figure himself, but it does identify Gertrude's line that resembles what God asks of Cain ("What have you done?"), and it also identifies Hamlet's response as corresponding to the words of Jesus from the cross, "Forgive them, they know not what they do." 
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2025/04/cain-and-jesus-in-gertrudes-closet.html

[5] See  (also footnote 3 above): Fried, Paul Adrian, "Part 38: Christ figures in Hamlet: Ophelia, Gertrude, Hamlet (Good Friday 2024 post)" - March 29, 2024. 
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2024/03/christ-figures-in-hamlet-ophelia.html

[6] Hamlet 3.3.40-43: Claudius compares his murder of his brother to Cain's murder of brother Abel: 
O, my offense is rank, it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon ’t,
A brother’s murder. 

[7] See Fried, Paul Adrian, "HORATIO G
ETS “MOTE/PLANK” EQUATION BACKWARDS IN HAMLET 1.1" - June 26, 2017.
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/01/horatio-gets-moteplank-equation.html



IMAGES:
Left: Kenneth Branagh as Hamlet looks at Yorick’s skull. Promotional image, fair use, via https://nosweatshakespeare.com/hamlet-skull-scene/

Right: David Tennant as Hamlet: Credit: Photo: ALASTAIR MUIR, fair use via https://www.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01514/david-tennant_1514611c.jpg?imwidth=960



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 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.
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My current project is a book tentatively titled Hamlet’s Bible, about biblical allusions and plot echoes in Hamlet.

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