‘The critical element in this tragic structure is the notion that God is neither absent nor obviously present. If God is dead, or if God is clearly known, the tragedy (Goldman says) cannot exist. The special irony of the tragic hero’s position is that the difficulty of trying to live out what God wants is compounded by the difficulty of knowing what God wants, or even whether He exists.’ Philip Edwards, Tragic Balance in Hamlet
Hamlet is no knight of faith for he has communed with the dark side. Hamlet has in mind the evidence for action — the Ghost may be an unreliable witness — but Hamlet’s wavering resolve is too too human. Hamlet and the courtiers of Elsinore are victims of the Ghost of Death. We all are God’s victims condemned to death on a cold lonely planet — born sick, commanded to be sound. ‘Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect’ (Matthew 5:48). The quest to conquer the Meaning of Life is charged as an impossible mission. The consoling measure of success is confined to our preserving of sanity:
‘The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all.’ Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death
Kierkegaard holds that we have an absolute duty to God. But the fault lies with God for imposing the duty, a duty to be. Or not to be. Hamlet can hardly be guilty of an absolute duty to the Ghost. Our first instinct, a Kierkegaardian leap of faith from a safe distance, calls on Hamlet to carry out the charge of revenge, but who are we to rise above the mass and impose a duty of violence? Let the devil do his damndest; let the Ghost wreak his own revenge. ‘There can be no question about the extent of Hamlet’s failure’ writes Philip Edwards. But despite Hamlet’s feigned madness, despite Hamlet’s havoc of his love for Ophelia and Gertrude, despite Hamlet’s waivering resolve, Hamlet wins by retaining his wits and reserving the last vestiges of humanity.
‘What should such fellows as I do, crawling between earth and heaven?’ (III i 128-129)
Hamlet fronts the Queen with highly human words he should have unleashed on the Ghost: ‘Dost thou come here to whine? To outface me with leaping in her grave? ... I’ll rant as well as thou’ (V i 258-259 & 264).
The lonely abandoned human is the victim of mighty opposites of Heaven and Hell and our only defence is the safeguarding of our fault-infested humanity. We lucky few. For Hamlet, ‘He was a man, take him for all in all’ (I ii 186). Kierkegaard is wrong — the highest passion in a human is not faith, but the determination of the human animal to rise above our humdrum inheritance as victims, and treasure our vulnerable free will, for all in all. esias, A Tale of Two Visions (part I)