Shakespeare's Hamlet and Macbeth
Overview of the Genre and Two of the Playwright's Popular Tragedies
The Shakespearean tragedy focuses on romantic upheaval, misfortunes and downfall of the celebrated English playwright's major male characters.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) is believed to have written 37 plays during his illustrious career, although of course debate still rages over whether he may actually have produced more or less than this number. Of these plays, ten can be classed as tragedies: Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Timon of Athens, and Titus Andronicus.
So what do these plays have in common? Anyone who has perhaps studied Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth at school could argue that these are very different from one another and share little common ground. However, broadly speaking, a Shakespearean tragedy follows the life, misfortunes, and ultimate downfall of an individual, often somebody in a position of power or respectability: in other words, someone who has a long way to fall.
The Flaw of the Tragic Hero
Usually the tragedy follows the fate of just one individual, although Shakespeare’s romantic tragedies break this pattern by including two protagonists, both of equal importance. We see this structure in the doomed love affairs of Romeo and Juliet and Antony and Cleopatra. With these two exceptions though, the tragic hero is a single person, always male, and often with some flaw in their character that ultimately brings about their death.
So if this flaw is present within their characters, and their downfall is self-inflicted, why should the audience care? Shakespeare circumvents this problem by creating tragic heroes who are remarkable individuals, each possessing skills, qualities or charisma that lift them above mere ordinary mortals.
Macbeth
Take Macbeth, for example. Most of us know the story of the man who murders his king in order that he may replace him on the throne. His fatal flaw is his ambition: once his hopes are encouraged by the three manipulative witches, he begins to see himself as the rightful King of Scotland and will stop at nothing in order to achieve this.
However, his fate would mean much less to us if we had not seen Macbeth before his meeting with the witches – at the start of the play he is a brave and loyal warrior on his way back from great success in battle. That a man with such love and regard for his king should be driven to murder him is what gives the play its extraordinary power: if Macbeth was bad from the start, we simply would not sympathise with his descent into madness.
Hamlet
Hamlet also starts the play which bears his name in a position of power and dignity: Prince of Denmark. This play follows Hamlet’s attempts to avenge the death of his father, whose ghost claims that he has been murdered by his own brother. Hamlet is a man of formidable intelligence and great devotion to his family, but his tragic flaw is his indecision and irresolution: he is unable simply to act on his impulses.
Most of us are familiar with the soliloquies from this play, and it is these more than anything that reveal his constant procrastination. The most famous of these illustrates his indecision in a speech that is perhaps the most quoted literary passage of all time: To be or not to be, that is the question;/Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer/The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,/Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,/And by opposing, end them. (Act 3, Scene 1)
Ultimately Hamlet does avenge his father’s ghost, but not before he has also brought about his own death and inflicted great cruelty on others through his continual delaying of the actions he knows he must take.
