Hamlet: The Grave Digger Scene
The Light from the Grave“He sobb’d and he sighted, and a gurgle he gave
Then he plunged himself into the billowy wave
And an echo from the suicide grave
Oh! Willow, tit willow, tit willow.”
I talk to thee mortals, who doth not know what death is... when I commeth... I encompass the novels of the poor and the palaces of the Kings. I spare no mortal! –high or low, rich or poor.
Death is tragic, painful, somber, grotesque. But who ever knew that death could even be laughed at. In William Shakespeare tragedy Hamlet; grave diggers scene is one place where seriousness, intermingles with the comic element...and the end product? One of the greatest works of literature is born.
The occasional admission of comic ingredient in a tragedy to make it light, humorous is one of the most interesting forms of tragedy. This intrusion of the comic into the tragic mode is called comic relief. Though Aristotle in his Poetics does not make allowance for the dilution series action, English drama fortunately is replete with instances to show how comedy and tragedy occurred frequently in mystery, miracle and morality plays. In early Elizabethan tragedy, the same tradition was continued making Sir Philip Sidney define his confusion in his Apology for Poetry. Pre-Shakespearian dramatist like Marlowe, in his DR. Faustus and The Jew of Malta alternates the tragic with the comic.
The incongnous mixture, in the Jew of Malta, becomes so insistent as to take away the tragic impact of the play together – it becomes, in the words of Elliot, “A monstrous force, rather than either a comedy or a tragedy.”
But the apotheosis of this tendency of using the comic in tragedy and its final canonization become popular in Shakespeare. The comic relief is a regular feature in Shakespeare.
The part played by fool in Kinglear, porter in Macbeth is the same as the apart played by the grave diggers in Hamlet. The amalgamates of comic sequences introduces low tragedy into a high tragic situation. In there cases, the function of the comic scene is not only to provide relief and lesson the tragic-illusion, but also to intensify the tragic. Just like chicken soup intensifies your appetite before taking in chicken Biryani.
The grave digger scene is divided into two parts; in the first part, Hamlet contemplates the morality of man as he watches the human skull being tossed from their sleepy graves by the grave diggers. The grave digger are med to foreshadow that more deaths will occurs in his tragic play, and the audience is made to wonder for whom the next grave will be readied.
The entry of Hamlet, marks the second part of the scene. He comes out of his pretended madness when he faces the reality of the death of Ophelia. It is heart rendering for all of us to observe Ophelia’ burial and realize that Hamlet has lost her forever. Pre-occupied with his vengeance he knows that he has allowed her to slip from his grasp into the river. This is the river of death, dear readers from where one can only sink deeper and deeper and never come out. Hamlet feels alone, having lost his father, mother and true love. When Hamlet cannot take the pain any longer, he jumps into her grave, grave beside Leartes. This totally human response for Hamlet demonstrates that no amount of philosophizing can reduce his heart ache and that no amount of rengience can fill the void left by the death of a loved one.
The grave diggers was a place between the rapidly rising actions of the last few tragic scenes and the suploning final tragedy. It also allows the audience to see Hamlet again in his normal disposition. Possessing a fine slues of humor, he is capable of appreciating the wit of the grave diggers even in the midst of perils and pitfalls, even in the midst of his loneliness, his troubles. Possessing a depth of sentiments and emotions. Hamlet frees himself from the pretense and openly expresses his grief by entering Ophelia’s grave – he does not realize that he will soon be entering his own grave.
In Kinglear, the fool serves precisely the purpose of providing relief with words of ironic significance, constantly reminding tears of his own foolishness. The fool actually exists on the margins of tragedy and comedy. He even helps fear to plunge into the tragedy of madness. In Macbeth, the function of the porter scene is equally ambiguous. The porters, drunken messiment relieves the horror of Duncais murder and at the same time confines Macbeth castle to hell. Like the porter and the fool, the grave diggers introduce symbolic dimension in the play, making in realize the philosophers of death.
The grave diggers are thus, professed clowns of the play and they provide a unique kind of humor in the play. The humor provided by the grave diggers serve to lighten the tragic stress of Ophelia’s death but their humor is not out of peace. In keeping with the sombre spirit of the play, the jest about graves and corpses, bones, and skulls. As they discourse on death. They comment on growing in the most light hearted manner.
“Here us the water-good here stands the man good
If the man go to this water and drown himself
It is, will he will he, he goes, mark you that. But
If the water come to him, he drowns not himself.”
Then the first grave digger says there is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grade markers, because they hold up Adams when Hamlet and Horatio arsine the witty talks are intensified with more humors. Hamlet tells him “Thou liest in it”, the grave digger replies “One that was a woman, sir, but nest horsoul, she is dead.”
The comic relief for Shakespeare is in tune with the tragic temper. A Jacobean audience would promptly appreciate the serious intension of this black comedy. The grave diggers of Shakespeare in way represent the grave that Hamlet life has become. He connects it to the dwellers of Danesque inferno.
The grave digger scene is technically very important for a perfect climax. It gives the King and Leartes tune and scope to change their costume from Act IV Sc VII, critics feel that the stage talking in Act V Sc II, needed certain changes as well, as a result the grave diggers scene becomes highly imperative at this point of time.
The grave diggers scene is one of the most popular events in English literature. A young man in black examining a skull at arms length – gives us the image of Hamlet. Hamlet and Yorick become the single most powerful icon of the actor and his property in all of English Drama rather Western Drama. Shakespeare props in Drama are highly functional as well as symbolic. They maybe perfectly neutral objects but greatly embroiled in action. Like handkerchief embroidered with strawberries. The dagger in Macbeth, blood spreads across the stage in the wasting scene, and like flag which stands for revolutions.
The entering of Hamlet and Horatio responds to grave diggers’ song, as they generally perceive his activity. The grave diggers verses were first pointed in Tottles miscellany.
In Act V Scene I, however have only discussed about dust, but the scene can be understand as pushing the macabone meditation (a single figure of death in tates dialogue with various stations and estates) even further. Hamlet is caught here in an universe of hopelessness. Hamlet thus burst out into a rhyme, perhaps even into song. Hamlet is here perhaps anticipating his own death. Hamlet has not only totally absorbed the point of view of the grave diggers, but his real and physical energies as well.
“Here comes the King” at line 210 moves us abruptly into next unit of action, the grave diggers fade as the stage fills with actors. The open trap with perhaps displayed skulls remain a focus of attentions. However we clearly observe, Yorick’s bones broken apart and spread to make a last resting place for Ophelia. The fool and Death, The fool as Death, Death and Maiden, a fresh corpse and withened old bones. We are now moreover, within a Shakespearian archetypal construct that is not peculiar to Hamlet, the association of fool and Maiden – Viole, Feste, Rosalina Touchstone, leans fool and Cordillia. The symbolism has little to do with traditional folksy a submitting woman wiles of fleeting earthly beauty. It has everything to do with the experience of innocence, vulnerability and fragile joy. Hamlet under moments over Yorick’s skull are physically and imaginatically linked to all that he has lost in Ophelia. His earlier “mad” perusal of Ophelia’s face “as a would draw it” (2.1) might have already indicated the artist experiencing the skull beneath the skin. Yorick, he opened grave indeed becomes, the curiously imploded stage for Hamlet’s supreme act of folly in the antic disposition, his struggle with Leartes for Ophelia’s love. And thus we can see the humble prop, emerges out of a tradition, become in Act V of Hamlet of the great whell of folly, love, and Death upon which so much of Shakespeare turns.
The grave covers every defect extinguishes every resentment from its peaceful bosom springs none but fond regrets and tender recollection who can look down upon the grave of an enemy and not feel a compunctions throb that he should have warsed with the poor handful of dust that lies moldering before him.
posted by Yunita Ramadhana @ 8:25 AM
4 Comments:
This is a quite cogent, articulate view of V,i in Hamlet. Nicely done. I stumbled upon your blog looking for commentary on the gravedigger scene. I hope there is more like it on your site. Very nice.
This is a quite cogent, articulate view of V,i in Hamlet. Nicely done. I stumbled upon your blog looking for commentary on the gravedigger scene. I hope there is more like it on your site. Very nice.
Nice work.But chicken soup and biriyani reference in shakespeare is shocking
Nice work.But chicken soup and biriyani reference in shakespeare is shocking
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