Hamlet: Act 5 Commentary

I am investigating how Shakespeare represents the law and ethics in Hamlet. Here are eight observations from Act 5.

1. The act opens with a legal dilemma: where should Ophelia be buried? This question represents the overlap of religious and common law. That is, the Bible won’t directly answer the question about where to bury Ophelia. You can answer the theological question about what happens to someone who commits suicide. The decision about Ophelia’s burial begins with the premise that you’ve figured out her eternal destination. The gravediggers call that into question.
2. Before Hamlet waxes rhapsodic about Yorick’s skull, he entertains the idea that one of the discovered skulls is that of a lawyer: “[W]hy may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddities now, his quillets; his cases, his tenures, and his tricks?” Hamlet doesn’t think much of the lawyer’s professional skills. They do him no good now.
3. Hamlet is responsible for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s death. Even as he talks about “a divinity that shapes our ends” and circumstances that are “heaven ordinant,” he claims his former friends “are not near [his] conscience.” The implication is that they are collateral damage in his war with Claudius (that seems to be the implication of the phrase “mighty opposites “). Hamlet is undoubtedly less anxious than in previous acts, but he’s hardly more ethical.
4. As the play comes to an end, Hamlet keeps his own counsel. He doesn’t listen to Horatio’s advice to avoid the fencing match (“we defy augury,” he tells his friend), nor does he see the ghost again. At the ghost’s advice, Hamlet plays the prophet in Act 3, especially to his mother. Since then, he has only made political hints (he blames Claudius for “popp[ing] in between th’election and my hopes “), not priestly or prophetic ones.
5. Hamlet gives a non-apologetic apology to Laertes before their fencing match. He denies responsibility since he was mad. “Who does it, then?” he asks. “[Hamlet’s] madness.” The bigger question is, what is he apologizing for: Polonius’s death, Ophelia’s death, or his histrionics at Ophelia’s funeral? All three? This weird apology argues that Hamlet if he has changed, has not seen the light.
6. The final flurry of deaths occasions more comments on justice. Laertes finds Claudius’s death fitting: “He is justly served; / It is poison tempered by himself.” Laertes himself wants forgiveness for Hamlet’s murder. In exchange, he offers Hamlet forgiveness for killing Polonius and himself. Hamlet’s response is the right one: “Heaven make thee free of it.” This is what Hamlet’s earlier confession gets wrong. He doesn’t mention God at all in adjudicating who he had wronged in his killing of Polonius.
7. Hamlet overtly plays the prophet in his final speech: “But I do prophesy th’election lights / On Fortinbras.” I think the connection between Hamlet and the role of a prophet demands more investigation.
8. In his summary to Fortinbras, Horatio sums up the play’s view of justice and the law: “Let me speak to th’yet unknowing world…of accidental judgments.” The Norton Critical Edition glosses that final phrase as “retributions in apparent accidents.” That is, justice gets meted out in a manner that exceeds human intention. The entire play has been about intentional retribution: the ghost asked Hamlet to uphold the law to avenge his murder. Hamlet failed to do, at least consciously. Horatio says that justice has been executed but was administered accidentally or providentially. Hamlet hinted several times in this final act to God’s providence. The play ends by asking us to consider the precise relationship between divine and human justice.