Alex Thorn
English 310
Mr. John A. Gould
RETURN TO THE ATDC WRITINGS SECTION
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The Loneliness of
Perceiving and Deceiving:
Appearance and Acting in
Hamlet, Much
The
loneliness in Richard, Don Pedro and Hamlet is a product of each hero’s
distinct ability to perceive the true motives of and see the reality behind the
characters around them in spite of their, often, deceiving appearances. In each
play, Shakespeare’s characters relentlessly try to maintain an outer semblance
that is often the product of an ulterior motive – a ploy to deceive others or protect themselves from the machinations
of others. Each of Shakespeare’s heroes is able to resist that deception
by seeing through their swindlers’ façades and appearances, allowing Richard,
Don Pedro, and Hamlet to understand their situations more clearly and have the
upper hand. However, each hero’s ability to see past appearances through a
highly tuned perception of reality often leaves him paranoid and, ultimately,
separated from the others in the book – a separation which, in all three
characters, causes a profound sense of loneliness. Hamlet, Don Pedro and Richard all see the world as a stage on which
players play their parts poorly or well. At their best, they become directors
of plays that they themselves stage and, as such, their contrived relationships
to others constantly shift – they are the audience, actor, playwright and
director – leaving each hero lonely and without his place.
Each hero has a
different reaction to the knowledge that they all possess: the world is made up
of appearances and deception and most everything is false. For Hamlet, this
knowledge is devastating. When he meets the ghost spirit of his father, Hamlet
comes to the terrible realization that his entire view of his father’s death and
his uncle’s ascension to the throne of
O most pernicious woman!
O villain, villain, smiling damned villain!
My tables,-meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain; (Ham.1.5.111-114)
Hamlet is disgusted at the ease with which Claudius is able to put on the disguise of a loving stepfather and uncle. However, it is his realization of the falsehood in the appearance of Claudius and the circumstances surrounding his father’s death that give him the inspiration to put on a disguise himself and, eventually, move from being a disgusted member of the audience to an actor. Later, Hamlet, almost instantly, uncovers Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s attempt to spy on him when he tells the two that he “know[s] the good king and queen have sent for [them]” (Ham.2.2.286) – both reaffirming his ability to see through the acting of others and isolating him in the comprehension that even his friends are against him.
Conversely, while
Richard is equally as aware that appearances are often deceiving, he is
delighted by his ability to manipulate it. When Clarence, Richard’s brother, is
led to the
Go tread the path that thou shalt ne’er return.
Simple, plain Clarence!-I do love thee so
That I will shortly send thy soul to heaven
(RichIII.1.1.120-122)
Yet, when Clarence is offstage, Richard joyfully confesses that he will make sure that Clarence never returns.
Don Pedro’s reaction to his awareness that those around him are constantly acting, on the other hand, falls somewhere in between that of Hamlet and Richard. Don Pedro uses his understanding to help others and not himself, creating in him a truly heroic and easily lovable character. Alas, Don Pedro is saddened at the outcome of his awareness of reality and appearance – that his friends, Benedick and Claudio, each end up with great wives and he doesn’t – because it ultimately leaves Don Pedro by himself.
In
understanding that appearances can often be deceiving, the three heroes use
their superior knowledge and perception
to manipulate the other characters in the play – as a director would design a
plot – by then altering their own appearances for their own motives. Hamlet,
certainly, decides early on that he will fool the other characters so he may
hide those ulterior motives – his goal, ultimately, to avenge his father’s
wrongful death.
How strange or odd
soe'er I bear myself,—
As I, perchance, hereafter shall think meet
To put an antic disposition on,— (Ham.1.5.191-193)
In doing so, Hamlet creates in
himself an image of total madness, leaving his counterparts uncertain as to his
intentions or his plots – just as an actor would give the appearance his script
demanded but the audience would remain unaware as to the actual personality of
that actor. When Ophelia encounters Hamlet in after his “to be or not to be”
soliloquy, it becomes apparent to him very quickly that Ophelia is not studying
the scriptures but, rather, is spying on him.
Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where’s your father?
(Ham.3.1.135)
Her attempt to deceive him devastates Hamlet; he despairs over the fact
that she has been corrupted by Polonius in her attempt to deceive him. In fact,
he is so distressed with the distinctions between truth and manifestation that
he equates the falsehood in her appearance with actually being unchaste. In
realizing the impurity in Ophelia’s attempt to deceive him, Hamlet suggests
that the only way to remedy her corrupted self would be to become a nun. He
then goes on to use his discovery of Ophelia’s corruption and subsequent
realization that her father, Polonius, is listening to put on an act of his own
to manipulate Polonius’ interpretation of the conversation between he and
Ophelia. Later, in plotting to scare Claudius, he directs one of the players to
add to the play that will be performed a “speech of some dozen or sixteen lines
which [he] would set down” (Ham.2.2.523) that describes, with great accuracy,
the circumstances surrounding his father’s death, as described to him by the
ghost. Before the performance, Hamlet gives the players in depth instructions
on how to act and appear for his speech to have the most impact on Claudius
(the audience).
For there be of them that will themselves laugh, to set
on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too, though in the meantime some
necessary question of the play be then to be considered: that’s villanous and
shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. (Ham.3.2.35-39)
Hamlet uses his understanding and perception of the value of a strong,
yet false appearance as he instructs the players, as a director would to his
actors, that a truly good player maintains his composure throughout an act so
that no meaning is lost.
Because of Richard’s
solo ascent to the throne and his greedy manner, Richard does much less
directing than he does acting. However, Richard’s preternatural ability to
manipulate his own appearance allows him to control his own image and how that
image is interpreted by the characters around him (his audience). Richard is so
convincing, in fact, that he is able to change his appearance with no notice
and utterly astonish his audience.
I think there’s ne’er a man in Christendom
Can lesser hide his love or hate than he;
For by his face straight shall you know his heart.
(RichIII.3.4.51-53)
Yet, when Richard returns, his disposition has completely changed to
one of enraged fury at Hastings and Queen Elizabeth, claiming that they had
“conspired [his] death with devilish plots of damned Witchcraft.”
(RichIII.3.4.59-60) Richard’s appearance changes so quickly as to persuade the
audience and those characters present in the room with
However, Don Pedro
uses his keen understanding and perception of the gullibility of the other
characters to his friends’ advantages, rather than his own. Don Pedro is able
to “assume [Claudio’s] part in some disguise, and tell fair Hero [he is] Claudio…
then, after, to her father will [he] break; and… she shall be [Claudio’s]”
(Ado.1.1.276-282) by his ability to alter his appearance to attain a certain
goal. Later, Don Pedro achieves the same outcome in his successful attempt to
trick Benedick and Beatrice, the woman who rejected his proposal for marriage,
into falling in love. Yet, his success is bittersweet, for he is always acting
on the behalf of his friends and never for himself.
Ultimately, each
character’s relentless attempts at maintaining or creating a false appearance
of themselves through acting – spawned either by necessity or desire – causes
Hamlet, Richard and Don Pedro to be lonely and out of place. Because Hamlet is
disgusted, yet infatuated with his understanding of the falsehood of appearance,
he is plagued by contemplation and constantly acting without ever really taking
action. His inability to take action on his appearances and plots,
coupled with his superior understanding and knowledge of their falsehood,
leaves Hamlet truly out of place and, ultimately, lonely.
Conversely, Richard uses his acting as a
means to be proactive – manipulating and deceiving to eliminate those in
the way of or threatening his power. Yet, in the end, Richard is left atop a
throne without even his confidant at his side – in part because he is so caught
up in persuasion and deception that he cannot tell the truth, not even to
himself, leaving him alone and in despair. However, it is not until the end of
the play, once his fate has been sealed by the premonitions in his dreams, that
Richard is able to tell the truth. Essentially, Richard has made himself a
stranger to himself, as evident in his reflexive soliloquy in which his
persuasive, false, appearance-based voice comes in direct conflict with his
newfound truth.
Alack, I love myself. Wherefore? for any good
That I myself have done unto myself?
O, no! alas, I rather hate myself
For hateful deeds committed by myself!
(RighIII.5.3.191-194)
Richard poignantly understands his hate for himself when he comes to
the realization that he had committed “hateful deeds” and, therefore, would “rather
hate [himself]” than love himself.
The tragedy of Don
Pedro and, ultimately, the cause of his loneliness come in his feeling of the
necessity to direct other characters together for the benefit of his friends.
However, the outcome of his hard work is that, unlike those for whom he plots,
he is still left alone with only the satisfaction of having, once again, proved
to be the benevolent and magnanimous matchmaker that he is. Even his own
friends don’t fully appreciate his effort and sacrifice in setting them up, for
he could have had Hero for himself (because Leonato had instructed her to
accept his proposal).
Prince, thou art sad; get thee a wife, get thee a wife
(Ado.5.4.126)
Yet, despite his success in being a good friend, his sadness and
loneliness are apparent to Benedick. There is also a sense of irony when
Benedick responds to his sad appearance, for it was Don Pedro who got
Benedick a wife, yet he got no wife for himself, and it was Beatrice who
rejected Don Pedro’s proposal. The same way we, as an audience, are turned off
to Richard for using his acting to be a consummate liar, we are endeared to Don
Pedro for attempting to hide his sadness as a matter of discretion and to be a
consummate gentleman.
But, of the three
heroes, Hamlet is the most isolated as he must be both Heaven’s “scourge and
minister.” (Ado.3.4.196) He has tragically realized that he must be as good a
player as the bad ones around him, by out maneuvering their maneuverings. At
the same the same time, he is charged with the impossible task of killing a
king and creating disorder so that he may restore order. Whilst he is charged
with avenging his father’s death and out deceiving Claudius, Hamlet is commanded
to ensure the safety of those for whom no vengeance is necessary (most notably,
his mother). The tragedy of Hamlet’s character is that, because he recognizes
that “time is out of joint” (Ado.1.5.210) and that he was “born to set it
right” (id. at 211), he must act in the manner of the times at hand (with
deception, trickery, murder: the times of Claudius as king) in order to get
time back to where it was during his father’s tenure. And, what truly isolates
Hamlet and is the cause of his loneliness is that, in his dire attempt to
correct the times, he becomes “soil'd i' the working” (Ham.2.1.46) and he knows
it.
The only way Hamlet is able to correct the
wrongdoings that Claudius committed is to act with good intentions, but through
evil means. Don Pedro acts with both good intentions and through just means,
while Richard’s motives and means are all the spawn of his wicked greed. However,
each of Shakespeare’s heroes realizes that their directions cannot,
ultimately, control what happens, no matter how many indirections they
try.
[1]Notice the theatrical language that Shakespeare uses to emphasize Richard’s acting.
Had you not come upon your cue,
my lord,
William Lord Hastings had pronounc’d your part,-
(RichIII.3.4.26-27) (emphasis added)