Hamlet: Symbols

Here is a quick overview of three critical symbols in Hamlet. I will pay particular attention to metals/stones because they are the symbols most connected with ethics and law.

HEAVEN: This symbol of transcendence gets referenced more than fifty times in the play. Here are some representative quotations.

• “It shows a will most incorrect to heaven…” – Claudius to Hamlet
• “And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord, / With almost all the holy vows of heaven.” – Ophelia speaking to her father about Hamlet’s love
• “Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell…” – Hamlet on the ghost
• “Heaven will direct it.” – Horatio about the ghost
• “[L]eave her to heaven…” – the ghost to Hamlet about Gertrude
• “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” – Hamlet on the ghost
• “[M]y offence is rank it smells to heaven.” – Claudius on his sin
• “Confess yourself to heaven.” – Hamlet to Gertrude

Ethics are crucial to the play, and these characters know that the stakes for obedience or disobedience are high. When you sin against heaven, your sin can not be more significant. When heaven renders a judgment, its verdict is final. If heaven prevents your admission, you can only expect damnation.

STARS: We traditionally connect these heavenly signs with hierarchy, an essential concept in the play. Part of Hamlet’s ethical dilemma is how to adjudicate Claudius’s guilt. Who should punish him? It’s interesting that in this play, the stars are mainly connected with romantic love as much as with political rulers.

• ‘Doubt thou the stars are fire; / Doubt that the sun doth move; / Doubt truth to be a liar; / But never doubt I love.” – Hamlet’s poem to Ophelia
• “Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star…” – Polonius on his reaction to Ophelia’s affection for Hamlet
• “That, as the star moves not but in his sphere, / I could not but by her.” – Claudius on his devotion to Gertrude
• “What is he whose grief / Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow / Conjures the wandering stars…” – Hamlet on his grief at Ophelia’s death

The other conspicuous passage about stars comes from Horatio. He references Julius Caesar and says that the same astronomical disorder that attended Rome is attending Denmark. His observation, of course, signals an assassination. So we have a clue that Claudius may have got the crown undeservedly. The play’s other “star” references concern love, indicating that turmoil results from the collapse of institutional hierarchy. Family is inextricable from the state in this play. The biblical view is that no institution is superior to any other; they are all ontologically equal though economically distinct. Claudius connects his ambition and crown with his queen. His first speech makes this clear. When Hamlet considers how to respond to his father’s murder, he thinks of family, not the state.

STONES/METALS: In general, the play’s images of stones and metals have to do with life and death and purity and impurity: the domains of the law.

• “His form and cause conjoin’d, preaching to stones, / Would make them capable.” – Hamlet on the ghost’s power
• “He is dead and gone; / At his head a grass-green turf, / At his heels a stone.” – Ophelia on Polonius
• “Who, dipping all his faults in their affection, / Would, like the spring that turneth wood to stone, / Convert his gyves to graces…” – Claudius remarking on Hamlet’s popularity
• “O’er whom his very madness, like some ore / Among a mineral of metals base, / Shows itself pure…” – Gertrude on Hamlet’s contriteness for killing Polonius

The ghost advises Hamlet to disregard biblical law. Hamlet gets treated as though his murder of Polonius was manslaughter. Claudius surreptitiously plans for England to handle Hamlet’s judgment when it appears on the surface that Hamlet is an exile. There’s no trial for Hamlet when he returns. The one witness to his crime testifies that Hamlet has a “pure” core despite his base actions. The irony is that Claudius himself performs the wood-to-stone transformation when he fails to punish Hamlet’s crime.