Actions Are Reflections

I was supposed to post this blog entry on Thursday. Well, I started it Thursday but I had to leave for a soccer match (which we won 4-1, by the way), and then I was simply too tired to continue. I was able to find the paper with all the notes I took while reading Freud’s and T.S Eliot’s arguments and thesis on Hamlet:

1. Inhibitory … to be limited?
2. Neurasthenia … hmm psychoanalysis I guess
3. Lull
4. Bafflement … Baffle … anger management?
5. Levity … Levitate? Fly? Hahaha

- Energy paralyzed by excessive intellectual activities (Hamlet)
- Sexual aversion (Oedipus complex) … Jocasta-Gertrude (III, iv)
- Creation … Macbeth related… Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…
- Revenge (difficulty of assassinating monarch) Claudius? … Action/Thought
- The Spanish Tragedy … Thomas Kyd related to Hamlet, similar drama… Shakespeare revises this tragedy through Hamlet
- Disgust occasioned by mother (Gertrude)
- Hamlet is repressed
- Hamlet as a work of art
- The play is the primary problem
- Hamlet’s dreams?
- Shakespeare’s son named Hamlet

That’s it. Last week I fell in the curiosity of examining Freud’s analysis of Hamlet as character, and now I contrast it with T.S Elliot’s argument of Hamlet as the play, being the “primary problem.” Personally, I think that, even though Hamlet pilfers the play’s protagonist and the whole scenery, the play itself cannot be descended to a second plane. The play imposes the conditions in which the characters develop, taking for example Hamlet: his actions are direct and indirect results of his father’s death. Now, due to the fact I had already talked about Freud’s ideas on Hamlet in a previous blog, I will try to focus in a different aspect.

In my cellphone, saved as a memo note, I have the following lines from Macbeth:

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
(V, v, 19-28)

I remember last year we compared this soliloquy to Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene. Back then, I just did the writing assignment, in which I said, in simple terms, something like ‘this soliloquy relates to Dawkins’ theory taking into account the fact Macbeth never had children. Therefore, with the death of Lady Macbeth, his genes won’t be able to continue in the gene pool.’ Almost a year later, I fall again into this soliloquy. But in this case, T.S Eliot is enhancing the comparison: “the words of Macbeth on hearing of his wife's death strike us as if, given the sequence of events, these words were automatically released by the last event in the series. The artistic "inevitability" lies in this complete adequacy of the external to the emotion; and this is precisely what is deficient in Hamlet” (Eliot, Hamlet And His Problems). Macbeth’s words of lament not only reflect the same impotence of Hamlet as his father dies, but also illustrate Shakespeare’s consistent drama where the protagonist’s actions are reflections of a loved one’s death.

Too bad Death isn’t listed in the “Characters In The Play” page. Death acts as the protagonist in both tragedies, and is the one who creates the whole drama. That sounds too much like la Celestina, who played with the characters in the play to create the drama of the tragicomedy. Therefore, life is meaningless for both Macbeth and Hamlet. Those words just echo in my head, ‘It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’ If death is playing with them, why bother living? They are eventually dying. But the huge difference between both is: Hamlet poses questions to death, is curious about it, and contemplates it. Meanwhile, Macbeth simply defies life’s path and pursuits death. Anyways, actions are reflections of death. The appearance of death upon the stage becomes the moment of anagnorisis of both.

Hamlet In 5 Words

Inhibitory: Psychology . to consciously or unconsciously suppress or restrain (psychologically or sociologically unacceptable behavior).

Neurasthenia: Psychiatry . (not in technical use) nervous debility and exhaustion occurring in the absence of objective causes or lesions; nervous exhaustion.

Lull: to give or lead to feel a false sense of safety; cause to be less alert, aware, or watchful.

Baffle: to frustrate or confound; thwart by creating confusion or bewilderment.

Levity: lightness of mind, character, or behavior; lack of appropriate seriousness or earnestness.

Incestuous Desires

Last night I had a dream. Wow, that sounded too much like Martin Luther King, Jr. I have a dream… I had one of those dreams that creep in our sleep from night to night, and then it fades away, and one must write it before it goes to oblivion. So now I’m here, writing words and trying to remember the details of this dream. I fell asleep while reading Hamlet’s Act III scene iv, and let me tell you that Hamlet’s details go beyond what we can touch with our fingers. Anyways, in my dream there were two people: Freud and Sophocles. Freud argued to Sophocles that Hamlet is intimately related to Oedipus, one of Sophocles most significant characters.

While they talked, there was a particular sentence that kept coming to my mind: “Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed, / Pinch wanton on your cheek, call you his mouse, / and let him, for a pair of reechy kisses / Or paddling in your neck with his damned fingers, / Make you to ravel all this matter out / That I essentially am not in madness, / But mad in craft” (III, iv, 204-210). And then, they kept talking, and talking. I could hear Freud telling Sophocles that Hamlet harbors an unconscious desire to sexually enjoy his mother. As well, that all men unconsciously desire their mothers in such way, and hence, are subject to beheld the so-called Oedipus complex. Oedipus? Oh, that explains why Sophocles is in my dream. Maybe its coherent to see Freud, due to the fact Mr. Tangen once mentioned something about Freud’s psychoanalysis being somewhat related to Hamlet, I thought. I don’t know if Freud is right, but anyways, that argument is quite astonishing. Afterwards, he came back to his main argument, saying Hamlet and Oedipus are intimately related, but while Oedipus actually performs this sexual fantasy, Hamlet deceives the unconscious desire to do so. As a result, Hamlet is seen to repress his desires and conclude that he is no better than his uncle Claudius.

Suddenly, Freud was gone and another person, unknown to me, appeared. Who is that? I thought, but instantly he introduced himself to Sophocles, ‘Mr. Sophocles, what an honor to meet you, I am Ernest Jones.’ I thought about that name… Ernest Jones, Ernest Jones, no, no idea. Anyways, he started talking with Sophocles about the same thing: Hamlet and Oedipus. In this case, he based his argument on Hamlet’s repugnance of Gertrude’s incestuous relationship with Claudius, while at the same time, fearing his death. Wow, incestuous. That one must be an important word. Thus far, I’ve seen it like ten times mentioned by Hamlet. Incestuous. And then he disappeared again, and then Sophocles. Now it was just my mind in the dream, I guess I’m dreaming no more, I thought…

Now, I didn’t know if I was still dreaming, but my mind was rushing through thoughts and ideas. I thought about Hamlet’s inexplicable procrastination as a direct outcome of that “Oedipus complex.” He is continually postponing his act of revenge (we saw he was unable to kill Claudius in the previous scene), due to his complicated psychodynamic situation in which he finds himself: the uncertainty of thought against action, the impossibility of it, the ‘to be or not to be.’

Meta

For the last three years I have been blogging and I have never been able to write about something in specific. Wait, is this passive? Loquacious? Let’s start again. I have blogged for the last three years, and I haven’t been able to write about this:

My favorite word, or at least prefix of a word, is meta. Metafiction, metacognition, metaphysical, metalogic, metafilm, metatheatre, and metaphor. Metaphor. What is a metaphor? According to definition, a figure of speech in which an expression is used to refer to something that it does not literally denote in order to suggest a similarity. You as readers must be saying, ‘do you want to give me a language lesson?’ Not quite. Maybe if you let me develop my thought, we might arrive to the end of this blog peacefully. Shall I start? ‘Well, you should’ve started one-hundred words ago.’ Dude, if you keep interrupting I’ll never start, ok?

To the other readers, who are in fact interested in my writing, I’m sorry for this delay. Now, I shall continue. My favorite prefix is meta, and if I take into consideration metaphor, metatheatre, and the context referent to Act III scene ii of Hamlet, I might arrive to something. Let’s see. Once again, Shakespeare brings upon us the play within the play. Just as we experienced in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a play within the actual play we are reading appears, and apparently, reflects much of the thematic present in the actual play. Metatheatre. So, it’s a play within a play, about a play. Oh my god, for a moment I thought I was writing a blog about Slaughterhouse-Five! Anyways, as soon as we read “The play’s the thing, wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king” (II, ii, 633-34), many different variables come to place. But that’s Act II, and in this act, Act III, we are able to observe how the antagonists (Claudius and Hamlet) coincide in the questioning of the truth.

Besides the consequences brought upon this play within the play, the Hamlet we observe here is quite different than the Hamlet from the previous scene. Before he was unable to control his reactions, and was shown previously by his effortless manipulations of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. But Hamlet’s introspective, and somewhat bipolar personality, is contrasted with Horatio’s calm perception: “Give me that man / That is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him / In my heart’s core, ay, in my heart of heart, / As I do thee” (III, ii, 76-79). After this, we as readers put into question Hamlet’s state of mind. We might infer that he is not insane, given the effortlessness with which he changes between wild, erratic behavior, and focused, sane behavior. While taking with Horatio before the play, he shows indexes of excitement, but as soon as Claudius and Gertrude enter the scene, he begins acting insane. By this, we might deduce he is only pretending to be.

But back to my favorite prefix, the presence of this play is an example of metatheatre. But well, that’s explicit. However, the significance of the play is much deeper. It attacks the “conscience of the king,” which directly alludes to Hamlet’s thematic of thoughts versus action, and also, resembles metaphorically what could’ve been the tragedy before the tragedy: the death of King Hamlet. This metaphor, therefore, taking the form of a play within the play, resembles the play itself, and helps us decipher Hamlet’s personality, which in the end, goes beyond the words in his soliloquies.

I’m done, you see? I had the idea, dude. ‘Yeah, whatever, and it took you almost six-hundred words to develop it.’

Between Thought And Action

It’s quite amusing how you sympathize so much with life and death, to the extent I don’t really know which one you prefer.

Well, off course, there are moral corollaries that imply each phenomenon. Is it righteous to endure life, those ‘slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,’ rather than actively seek to end that suffering? To me, death is like sleeping. When you die, you conclude that agony and woe that life means. By dying, we are no longer uncertain, and we end ‘The heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to,’ and therefore, suicide is a desirable action for men.

But apparently, you are not only concerned with the choice of living or dying. You mention the action of suicide to being ‘a consummation devoutly to be wished,’ what do you mean by this?

Afterlife. We die, then what happens? Just as we sleep, what happens when we sleep? We dream. As we dream in death, daunting images appear in our perception, and these ‘must give us pause’. Then, if death can be a bed of roses, and life be a path of misery, why should man bear melancholy ‘when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin?’ Essentially, nobody would choose to live, however, people fear death, and while this remains constant, they will prefer to live rather than confronting a hypothetical more miserable fate that might be afterlife. This fear of afterlife leads mankind to a state of moral sensitivity, and ‘thus conscience does make cowards of us all, and thus the naïve hue of resolution, is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.’ Hence, in the end, we live life with fear of the misery we might confront, that fear that our thoughts build upon our head. And we live in an ambivalent dilemma between thought and action. But anyways, I find it frustrating, still, not to know what to do, ‘to be or not to be.’

Well, I really hope you’re able to find the answer to that question.

Oh, thank you! But really, when I do, everybody will. I’m not only thinking for myself.

Hamlet To The Powers Of Ten

I kept being told that today was a historic day due to the fact it is October 10, 2010, or 10.10.10. A cousin of mine told me that in 1977, Charles and Ray Eames made a nine-minute film called Powers of Ten, which enhances the viewer to distance from a couple’s lakeside picnic 10⁴⁰ meters, until the Earth is just invisible in the majesty of the universe. Afterwards, it’s the opposite, the audience is brought back to the couple’s lakeside picnic, and then taken 10¯¹⁶ meters, beyond the subatomic particles that build upon every human cell. And now that I sit upon my computer, a priori writing a blog entry about two different interpretations of Hamlet’s soliloquies, I think about this video. I think, and I think again and I realize that coincidence cannot be just the word that describes my case, but instead, I argue that the video might be relevant to what I am about to write.

“When you go to a play, you don’t sit there to see the play, you sit there to see how the play is adapted. Everyone knows Hamlet, but still, people pay to see how Hamlet is brought to the stage, or to the screen.”

As I watched the video, I thought about these two different adaptations of Hamlet. To make my point, Kenneth Brannagh’s interpretation of Hamlet’s first soliloquy is just as travelling in negative powers of ten (10¯¹⁶). Meanwhile, David Tennant’s is just the opposite, like travelling far away from the lakeside picnic in powers of ten (10⁴⁰). Brannagh recreates the details of a very accurate imitation of 1600s Denmark, just as Shakespeare would’ve done it. He goes deep into the skin the body, until reaching the subatomic particles that build it. He takes into consideration the details, and achieves a quite accurate representation of what could’ve been Shakespeare’s dream-adaptation. As a result, Brannagh is just simply adapting Hamlet himself, rather than interpreting him. Yes, we all know Hamlet, from the play we can infer he is melancholic and introspective. Therefore, if the movie portrays him just exactly, how are we going to know those details that aren’t written in the lines of the play? How are we supposed to answer those enigmas left by each of Hamlet’s soliloquies? There are things that words can’t tell, and that’s where the interpretations might come to be very profound.

O that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d
His canon ’gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God! (I, ii, 129-132)

Suicide? Death? Unconformity?

But if we take the other direction, and we travel backwards, in powers of ten, we might get a better vibe of Hamlet’s thoughts. In the case of David Tennant’s interpretation (yes, an interpretation), portrays a rebellious Hamlet, displaying anger, disappointment, melancholy, and defiance. The audience is able to feel his sensations more directly as Hamlet makes eye contact with the audience, destroys the camera, and shows more evident expressions of his feelings, in contrast of Brannagh’s passive Hamlet. Now, how does this relate to The Powers of Ten? Well, just as we travel further from the Earth, and observe at what we call the ‘big picture’ we are able to give importance to what we cannot see, instead of giving importance to what’s explicit from the text, or in this case, image. We stand back, distance ourselves from the play, and as a result, are able to interpret those themes written in between the lines.

Oh, and by the way, the line that I was assigned a couple of weeks ago appeared in the second soliloquy: “The play’s the thing, / Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king” (II.ii).

Thoughts Waiting To Be Read

He opens his black laptop computer while lying on the sofa, thinking about what to write. What to write… Thinking of words to type, ideas to develop, and thoughts to contextualize in the Word document that glanced at him blankly through the computer screen.

“September 30, 2010,” he told the Word document, “Title.” He couldn’t think of anything else to tell the blank document gazing at him.

Meanwhile, his mind was walking through a dark street, nothing could be seen. As ideas started to enlighten his mind, the road started to shine different things in the sidewalk: lonely pedestrians walking, alienated people, and his mind just stared at them.

“Alienation!” he shouted to the Word document.

But he thought to himself, ‘I cannot only talk about alienation and that’s it. It would be boring to read, even to myself.’ So he kept staring at the Word document, and the only thing he could do was start writing about nothing. He started writing, “He opens his black laptop computer while lying on the sofa, thinking about what to write. What to write…”

He continued telling the Word document:

As the reader, or viewer, of Krapp’s Last Tape experiences the re-telling of his life through a series of memories captures in various tapes, he is able to perceive that, throughout the course of his life, Krapp has steadily distanced himself from the companionship and love that other people cherish. He tells us that at the age of twenty-nine he lived with a woman named Bianca, “at that time I think I was still living on and off with Bianca in Kedar Street. Well out of that, Jesus yes! Hopeless business. Not much about her, apart from a tribute to her eyes” (Krapp’s Last Tape). This hopeless situation that entangles Krapp throughout his life leads him to become isolated from his surrounding to the point he feel completely alienated from every detail of his life. Therefore, in this scenery we see of himself being old, with his tape, is the only way he can feel back the warmth of love and companionship in his life.

He stopped writing. He thought about the part where Krapp had mentioned about the death of his mother. Meanwhile his mind, in that street where he saw lonely pedestrians and alienated people, some hopeless ones started to appear. Hope. Hopeless.

In the moment his mother died, Krapp began to feel completely alone. Hence, hopeless: “I noticed a scratch on her thigh and asked her how she came by it. Picking gooseberries, she said. I said again I thought it was hopeless and no good going on, and she agreed, without opening her eyes” (Krapp’s Last Tape). This isolation he started to feel in the world after the death of his mother leads him to plant himself completely hopeless in life. His isolation is self inflicted. He buries himself under his own oblivion. And in the end, his only way of alleviate this alienation is by listening to his last tape.

Wow. He wrote a lot in the last thirty minutes. The Word document had passed from being an empty face, to being a face full of expressions. Those letters, signifying something, would wait to be read, as those in Krapp’s tape. His mind would continue walking in that street, where the lonely pedestrians, alienated people, and hopeless character stroll in the side walk. Meanwhile, the words are nothing until the moment they enter someone’s mind and recreate that street.

“Save,” he told the Word document, “this is enough for today.”

The Exquisiteness Of The How

Many times, when I read a book, watch a painting, a film, or a play, I tend to dwell into the thinking about the what, or the why. I try to explain what is happening, why is happening. But I completely forget about the how. How is it happening? For example, just before I started writing this blog entry I was reading Rayuela by Julio Cortazar. In the novel (or anti novel as it is commonly classified), Morelli talks about words that describe, that entangle the character into the situation and not the other way around. According to Morelli, through the usage of these words, the essence of the situation becomes more important than the situation itself. It doesn’t matter what is happening, where it’s happening, or what is going to happen next. All that matters, for him, is how it’s happening. Then, how is Krapp’s Last Tape happening?

Krapp's Last Tape is set in Krapp's den a room that reflects, to a large degree, Krapp himself. It is bare, save for a small table; this lack of ornament emphasizes Krapp's emotional sterility and loneliness. As he is without any human interaction, his room is without anything that suggests comfort or humanity. In this screen shot, a wide shot, we can observe the contrast of the light and the dark in this empty room, and how the shadow of Krapp conveys these two. A shadow represents dark in the presence of light, therefore, this duality of light and dark embraced in the shadow might signify the loneliness of Krapp, and his isolation in the world. Like a shadow, where there is an isolation of darkness in the presence of light. Also, by being filmed in a central angle always frontal towards Krapp, the figure of him is unanimously central. And the tedious environment where he is displayed, the audience can clearly infer the situation that he embraces.

That’s the how. It’s beautiful. It’s endless. When you try to explain what’s happening in a specific scene or context, at some point, there won’t be more to say. But description can have infinite focuses. In this entry, I only attempted to describe a fraction of all the techniques and details that these work embodies. Right now, for example, I don’t know how to finish my thoughts. I always put to much thinking in my last sentence. I guess I will have to leave like this.