AP Literature - Independent Reading

Setting

"Elsinore" is the English spelling of Helsingør, a town on the eastern coast of Denmark. In Shakespeare's lifetime, Helsingør was an important military location, the stronghold from which the King of Denmark controlled a narrow stretch of sea. A fortress had stood in the town since the middle ages, and between 1574 and 1585 Frederick II of Denmark rebuilt the fortress as a magnificent castle. Will Kemp, a member of Shakespeare's acting company, probably visited the castle at Helsingør to perform for Frederick, who was an enthusiastic patron of theatre, so Shakespeare likely knew where the town was and what its castle was like. The threat of invasion from neighboring countries is essential to the plot of Hamlet, which ends with the Norwegian prince Fortinbras storming the castle. The threat of invasion also contributes to Hamlet's mood of anxious uncertainty. Frederick II's castle was the largest of its kind in Renaissance Europe. The castle made Helsingør famous as a cultural center, and Hamlet's Elsinore is also a cultural center. Just like Frederick, Claudius is visited by travelling actors. Hamlet and his friend Horatio have come to Elsinore from Wittenberg, Europe's leading university. Laertes is visiting from France, and we learn that another Frenchman, Lamord, has recently visited Elsinore. Claudius receives tribute from the ruler of England and exchanges diplomatic messages with the King of Norway. Accordingly, Hamlet's story is not just about the strange customs of an isolated backwater. On the contrary, Hamlet is about the central problems of Renaissance thought: philosophical uncertainty, the anxiety of damnation, and the difficulty of knowing how to act morally. Hamlet is a sophisticated, modern intellectual. He is familiar with the latest ideas from all over Europe. His philosophical doubts express the profound uncertainties which lay at the heart of European culture when Shakespeare was writing. The whole play takes place inside Elsinore's castle, except for Act Five scene one, which takes place just outside, or possibly in the grounds of the castle. This confined setting reflects Hamlet's situation. He feels trapped by his duty to his father and his duty as a member of the Danish royal family, so his story is confined behind the battlements of the Danish royal fortress. Elsinore is a place with many private spaces. Hamlet is often alone when he delivers his soliloquys. Ophelia has a "closet"—a private space—and so does Gertrude. Claudius prays in a private chapel. These private spaces reflect the play's obsession with how people behave when they are not performing for other people. At the same time, the characters' privacy is often disturbed or spied upon. Polonius spies on Hamlet while he talks to Ophelia. Hamlet invades Ophelia's closet and he spies on Claudius while he prays. When Hamlet invades Gertrude's closet, Polonius is spying on them both. All this spying contributes to the play's atmosphere of uncertainty and mistrust.

Symbol - A Palimpsest

A palimpsest is a document on which old writing has been scratched out, often leaving traces, and new writing put in its place; it can also be a document consisting of many layers of writing simply piled one on top of another. Offred describes the Red Center as a palimpsest, but the word actually symbolizes all of Gilead. The old world has been erased and replaced, but only partially, by a new order. Remnants of the pre-Gilead days continue to infuse the new world.

Theme - The Unrelenting Power of Memory

According to Tom, The Glass Menagerie is a memory play—both its style and its content are shaped and inspired by memory. As Tom himself states clearly, the play's lack of realism, its high drama, its overblown and too-perfect symbolism, and even its frequent use of music are all due to its origins in memory. Most fictional works are products of the imagination that must convince their audience that they are something else by being realistic. A play drawn from memory, however, is a product of real experience and hence does not need to drape itself in the conventions of realism in order to seem real. The creator can cloak his or her true story in unlimited layers of melodrama and unlikely metaphor while still remaining confident of its substance and reality. Tom—and Tennessee Williams—take full advantage of this privilege. The story that the play tells is told because of the inflexible grip it has on the narrator's memory. Thus, the fact that the play exists at all is a testament to the power that memory can exert on people's lives and consciousness. Indeed, Williams writes in the Production Notes that "nostalgia . . . is the first condition of the play." The narrator, Tom, is not the only character haunted by his memories. Amanda too lives in constant pursuit of her bygone youth, and old records from her childhood are almost as important to Laura as her glass animals. For these characters, memory is a crippling force that prevents them from finding happiness in the present or the offerings of the future. But it is also the vital force for Tom, prompting him to the act of creation that culminates in the achievement of the play.

"How will this grieve you, When you shall come to clearer knowledge, that You thus have publish'd me! Gentle my lord, You scarce can right me thoroughly then to say You did mistake. (2.1.11)"

After Leontes accuses his wife of infidelity, Hermione predicts the grief that Leontes will suffer when he eventually realizes his mistake. By then, she suggests, it will be too late to make things right with his wife.

Motif - Similarities Between Reactionary And Feminist Ideologies

Although The Handmaid's Tale offers a specifically feminist critique of the reactionary attitudes toward women that hold sway in Gilead, Atwood occasionally draws similarities between the architects of Gilead and radical feminists such as Offred's mother. Both groups claim to protect women from sexual violence, and both show themselves willing to restrict free speech in order to accomplish this goal. Offred recalls a scene in which her mother and other feminists burn porn magazines. Like the founders of Gilead, these feminists ban some expressions of sexuality. Gilead also uses the feminist rhetoric of female solidarity and "sisterhood" to its own advantage. These points of similarity imply the existence of a dark side of feminist rhetoric. Despite Atwood's gentle criticism of the feminist left, her real target is the religious right.

Theme - The Difficulty of Accepting Reality

Among the most prominent and urgent themes of The Glass Menagerie is the difficulty the characters have in accepting and relating to reality. Each member of the Wingfield family is unable to overcome this difficulty, and each, as a result, withdraws into a private world of illusion where he or she finds the comfort and meaning that the real world does not seem to offer. Of the three Wingfields, reality has by far the weakest grasp on Laura. The private world in which she lives is populated by glass animals—objects that, like Laura's inner life, are incredibly fanciful and dangerously delicate. Unlike his sister, Tom is capable of functioning in the real world, as we see in his holding down a job and talking to strangers. But, in the end, he has no more motivation than Laura does to pursue professional success, romantic relationships, or even ordinary friendships, and he prefers to retreat into the fantasies provided by literature and movies and the stupor provided by drunkenness. Amanda's relationship to reality is the most complicated in the play. Unlike her children, she is partial to real-world values and longs for social and financial success. Yet her attachment to these values is exactly what prevents her from perceiving a number of truths about her life. She cannot accept that she is or should be anything other than the pampered belle she was brought up to be, that Laura is peculiar, that Tom is not a budding businessman, and that she herself might be in some ways responsible for the sorrows and flaws of her children. Amanda's retreat into illusion is in many ways more pathetic than her children's, because it is not a willful imaginative construction but a wistful distortion of reality. Although the Wingfields are distinguished and bound together by the weak relationships they maintain with reality, the illusions to which they succumb are not merely familial quirks. The outside world is just as susceptible to illusion as the Wingfields. The young people at the Paradise Dance Hall waltz under the short-lived illusion created by a glass ball—another version of Laura's glass animals. Tom opines to Jim that the other viewers at the movies he attends are substituting on-screen adventure for real-life adventure, finding fulfillment in illusion rather than real life. Even Jim, who represents the "world of reality," is banking his future on public speaking and the television and radio industries—all of which are means for the creation of illusions and the persuasion of others that these illusions are true. The Glass Menagerie identifies the conquest of reality by illusion as a huge and growing aspect of the human condition in its time.

Symbol - Laura's Glass Menagerie

As the title of the play informs us, the glass menagerie, or collection of animals, is the play's central symbol. Laura's collection of glass animal figurines represents a number of facets of her personality. Like the figurines, Laura is delicate, fanciful, and somehow old-fashioned. Glass is transparent, but, when light is shined upon it correctly, it refracts an entire rainbow of colors. Similarly, Laura, though quiet and bland around strangers, is a source of strange, multifaceted delight to those who choose to look at her in the right light. The menagerie also represents the imaginative world to which Laura devotes herself—a world that is colorful and enticing but based on fragile illusions.

Symbol - Time

At the beginning of Act 4, Time, a winged figure with an hourglass, appears on stage. Time is an allegory. (An allegory is a kind of extended metaphor that's weaved throughout a poem or play in which objects, persons, and actions stand for another meaning. In this case, Time stands for, well, time.) Because Time announces that the play has fast-forwarded sixteen years into the future and tells us that the setting has changed from Sicily to Bohemia, where Perdita has grown up, Time is also acting the part of a Chorus (kind of like a narrator). During his speech, Time apologizes to the audience for all of this: "Impute it not a crime / To me or my swift passage, that I slide / O'er sixteen years and leave the growth untried / Of that wide gap" (4.1.1). Translation: "Don't be mad that the play has skipped ahead sixteen years." Why is Time apologizing? Well, flash forwards and major setting changes were a big no-no on the English stage in Shakespeare's day because they disregarded the "classical unities" (of time, place, and action), a set of literary rules that said all plays should have the following features: 1) the action should take place within a 24 hour time span; 2) the action should take place in one geographical place/setting; 3) the play should have one main plot and no sub-plots. The Winter's Tale pretty clearly breaks all of these rules (as did many other Shakespeare plays).

Theme - The Impossibility of True Escape

At the beginning of Scene Four, Tom regales Laura with an account of a magic show in which the magician managed to escape from a nailed-up coffin. Clearly, Tom views his life with his family and at the warehouse as a kind of coffin—cramped, suffocating, and morbid—in which he is unfairly confined. The promise of escape, represented by Tom's missing father, the Merchant Marine Service, and the fire escape outside the apartment, haunts Tom from the beginning of the play, and in the end, he does choose to free himself from the confinement of his life. The play takes an ambiguous attitude toward the moral implications and even the effectiveness of Tom's escape. As an able-bodied young man, he is locked into his life not by exterior factors but by emotional ones—by his loyalty to and possibly even love for Laura and Amanda. Escape for Tom means the suppression and denial of these emotions in himself, and it means doing great harm to his mother and sister. The magician is able to emerge from his coffin without upsetting a single nail, but the human nails that bind Tom to his home will certainly be upset by his departure. One cannot say for certain that leaving home even means true escape for Tom. As far as he might wander from home, something still "pursue[s]" him. Like a jailbreak, Tom's escape leads him not to freedom but to the life of a fugitive.

"But the wonderfullest trick of all was the coffin trick. We nailed him into a coffin and he got out of the coffin without removing one nail. . . . There is a trick that would come in handy for me—get me out of this two-by-four situation! . . . You know it don't take much intelligence to get yourself into a nailed-up coffin, Laura. But who in hell ever got himself out of one without removing one nail?"

At the beginning of Scene Four, Tom, returning home from the movies, tells Laura about a magic show in which the magician performs the coffin trick. Tom, who dreams of adventure and literary greatness but is tied down to a mindless job and a demanding family, sees the coffin as a symbol of his own life situation. He has been contemplating an escape from his private coffin since the beginning of the play, and at the end, he finally goes through with it, walking out on his family after he is fired from his job. But Tom's escape is not nearly as impressive as the magician's. Indeed, it consists of no fancier a trick than walking down the stairs of the fire escape. Nor is Tom's escape as seamless as the magician's. The magician gets out of the coffin without disturbing one nail, but Tom's departure is certain to have a major impact on the lives of Amanda and Laura. At the beginning of Scene One, Tom admits that he is "the opposite of a stage magician." The illusion of escape that the magician promotes is, in the end, out of Tom's reach.

Theme - Women's Bodies as Political Instruments

Because Gilead was formed in response to the crisis caused by dramatically decreased birthrates, the state's entire structure, with its religious trappings and rigid political hierarchy, is built around a single goal: control of reproduction. The state tackles the problem head-on by assuming complete control of women's bodies through their political subjugation. Women cannot vote, hold property or jobs, read, or do anything else that might allow them to become subversive or independent and thereby undermine their husbands or the state. Despite all of Gilead's pro-women rhetoric, such subjugation creates a society in which women are treated as subhuman. They are reduced to their fertility, treated as nothing more than a set of ovaries and a womb. In one of the novel's key scenes, Offred lies in the bath and reflects that, before Gilead, she considered her body an instrument of her desires; now, she is just a mound of flesh surrounding a womb that must be filled in order to make her useful. Gilead seeks to deprive women of their individuality in order to make them docile carriers of the next generation.

Antagonist

Claudius is the primary antagonist in Hamlet. He thwarts Hamlet by killing his father. And when he usurps the Danish throne, Claudius denies Hamlet the future that rightfully belongs to him. Claudius additionally frustrates Hamlet by marrying his mother, Gertrude. Hamlet and Gertrude previously enjoyed a loving relationship, but her remarriage fatally compromises their bond. Not only must Gertrude divide her loyalties, but Hamlet must also grapple with his disgust at what he considers a traitorous, near-incestuous marriage. Yet despite Hamlet's frustration with his mother, his chief enemy remains Claudius, who is driven by desire for love and power. Claudius reveals as much during his confession in Act Three, when he admits that he can't truly repent because he retains possession of the goods that he acquired through sin—that is, Gertrude's hand and the Danish throne. Unable to repent, Claudius seeks to rid himself of Hamlet instead. In Act Four he sends Hamlet to England with a sealed letter instructing the English king to execute the bearer. When this plan goes awry, Claudius hatches another plot involving Laertes slaying Hamlet with a poisoned-tipped sword. The second plan succeeds, but also results in Claudius's own death. As much as Claudius stands in Hamlet's way, Hamlet also functions as his own antagonist. Hamlet is a student of philosophy, and has learned to master the fine art of careful thinking. Yet Hamlet's mastery of logic and philosophical speculation has also resulted in a deep indecisiveness that makes it difficult for him to take the steps necessary to avenge his father's murder. Throughout the play Hamlet remains paralyzed, incapable of breaking free from his own thoughts. For instance, he struggles to determine how he is supposed to feel about his father's death, and whether or not he can morally justify killing Claudius. He also longs for clear answers to several questions. He wants to know what really happened to his father, and whether or not he can trust Ophelia. He also wants to know what will happen to him when he dies, and whether Claudius will go to Heaven or Hell. Finally, he wants to know why he is so unhappy. Because Hamlet can't answer any of these questions with certainty, he finds it impossible to decide how to act. In the end, Hamlet's indecision defeats him, and he goes to his death still uncertain about everything.

Foreshadowing - Claudius's Death

Claudius's death is partially foreshadowed by the Ghost. The Ghost is recognized by Barnardo as a "portentous figure" (I.i.), and Horatio agrees that it "bodes some strange eruption" (I.i.), but none of the characters who witness the Ghost in the opening scene is certain about what its appearance means. Hamlet, by contrast, jumps to the conclusion that the Ghost's appearance indicates "foul play" (I.ii.) before he has even seen it, which may indicate the Ghost's accusation that Claudius murdered Hamlet's father is all in Hamlet's head. Whether or not the Ghost's story is a hallucination of Hamlet's, Hamlet himself doubts whether the ghost is "an honest ghost" (I.iv). It could also be said that the Ghost does not foreshadow Claudius's murder so much as cause it, so the exact relationship between the Ghost's appearance and Claudius's death is hard to pin down: the ghost's appearance is part foreshadowing, part cause, and part red herring. In Hamlet, even messages from beyond the grave are hard to interpret and harder still to trust.

Theme - The Complexity Of Action

Directly related to the theme of certainty is the theme of action. How is it possible to take reasonable, effective, purposeful action? In Hamlet, the question of how to act is affected not only by rational considerations, such as the need for certainty, but also by emotional, ethical, and psychological factors. Hamlet himself appears to distrust the idea that it's even possible to act in a controlled, purposeful way. When he does act, he prefers to do it blindly, recklessly, and violently. The other characters obviously think much less about "action" in the abstract than Hamlet does, and are therefore less troubled about the possibility of acting effectively. They simply act as they feel is appropriate. But in some sense they prove that Hamlet is right, because all of their actions miscarry. Claudius possesses himself of queen and crown through bold action, but his conscience torments him, and he is beset by threats to his authority (and, of course, he dies). Laertes resolves that nothing will distract him from acting out his revenge, but he is easily influenced and manipulated into serving Claudius's ends, and his poisoned rapier is turned back upon himself.

Tone

Early in the play, Hamlet's mood is dark and depressed, but when he's given the task of avenging his father's ghost, his desire to find out the truth gives him a sense of urgency and purpose. As the play progresses, and he fails to find a satisfactory way to correct the problem, he becomes increasingly frustrated, lashing out more impulsively, ruthlessly, and recklessly, until the final catastrophe. Thus we could say that the tone of the play, meaning the author's attitude toward the events, seems like its going to be optimistic in the beginning of the play (when it seems like justice could be achieved), but bleaker as the play moves on, and it seems like achieving justice or redemption in a situation like this is impossible. Hamlet makes passionate and intelligent attempts to understand himself and his situation, only to end up confused, disappointed or disgusted by what he encounters. The world of the play is both more terrible and more mysterious than its characters are capable of grasping. Initially Hamlet considers himself above the other characters, and his nimble wordplay, often at the expense of less verbally adept characters, gives the early scenes a playful tone, even as Hamlet is grieving his father. However, once Hamlet erroneously kills Polonius instead of Claudius, and learns that Claudius has ordered his execution, Hamlet realizes even he is not exempt from the malevolent forces of fate. The tone turns dark and brooding as Hamlet comes to terms with his own dark nature and resigns himself to committing more murders, in his killing of Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and finally Laertes and Claudius. The many secrets in Hamlet create an atmosphere of mystery and conspiracy. Claudius is tortured by the guilty secret of his brother's murder. Polonius sends Reynaldo to spy on his son Laertes, and spies on Hamlet himself. The Ghost hints that Gertrude and Claudius may have been having an affair. The songs Ophelia sings in her madness seem to reveal that her relationship with Hamlet is sexual. Hamlet demands that Horatio, Marcellus and later Gertrude promise to keep secret that he is only pretending to be mad. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern try to hide from Hamlet that they were summoned to Elsinore. That we never learn the truth about most of these secrets encourages us to share in Hamlet's frustration: like him, we suspect that terrible things are being kept from us. As the audience, we, too, are never certain to what degree Hamlet is acting insane as a strategy, and to what degree he has actually succumbed to mental illness. All these secrets and misunderstandings lead to a tone of distrust and insecurity, where the audience is constantly wondering what, if anything, to believe. Hamlet dwells obsessively on sickness and decay, which keeps death at the forefront of the audience's minds and sets a tone of disgust and despair. We encounter not one but two decaying bodies: Yorick's skull (IV.i.) is the most famous prop in theatrical history, and after gruesomely dragging Polonius's body offstage, Hamlet tells Claudius that "within this month you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby" (IV.iii.). Several characters suggest that Hamlet is mentally ill, and he himself admits that his "wit's diseased" (III.ii). Even when the play's characters are not talking about literal illness and decomposition, they tend to fall back on imagery of sickness and decay. Marcellus declares that "something is rotten in the state of Denmark" (I.iv.). Claudius says that his murder "is rank: it smells to heaven" (III.iii.) and Gertrude sees "black and grievèd spots" on her soul (III.iv.). Hamlet's fixation on sickness and decay creates a sense that the entire world of the play is corrupt and doomed. For a tragedy, Hamlet has an unusual number of comic scenes and characters, and the play's black humor adds complexity and ambiguity to its tone. For much of the play Hamlet makes fun of Polonius, and we are encouraged to laugh with him at the old man, but when Hamlet murders Polonius we are horrified that Hamlet continues to make fun: "This councillor/Is now most still, most secret and most grave, / Who was in life a foolish, prating knave" (III.iv.). We are also encouraged to laugh at Hamlet in his worst moments. When he leaps into Ophelia's grave, Hamlet declares his love for Ophelia in terms which we can only find silly: "Forty thousand brothers / Could not with all their quantity of love / Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her? [...] eat a crocodile?" (V.i.). The humor here is uncomfortable, because Hamlet's behavior is cruelly inappropriate. This painful humor reinforces the play's despairing tone, but it also creates complexity, because it distances us from Hamlet's suffering and asks us to question how seriously we should take him.

Theme - The Nation As A Diseased Body

Everything is connected in Hamlet, including the welfare of the royal family and the health of the state as a whole. The play's early scenes explore the sense of anxiety and dread that surrounds the transfer of power from one ruler to the next. Throughout the play, characters draw explicit connections between the moral legitimacy of a ruler and the health of the nation. Denmark is frequently described as a physical body made ill by the moral corruption of Claudius and Gertrude, and many observers interpret the presence of the ghost as a supernatural omen indicating that "[s]omething is rotten in the state of Denmark" (I.iv.67). The dead King Hamlet is portrayed as a strong, forthright ruler under whose guard the state was in good health, while Claudius, a wicked politician, has corrupted and compromised Denmark to satisfy his own appetites. At the end of the play, the rise to power of the upright Fortinbras suggests that Denmark will be strengthened once again.

Theme - Language as a Tool of Power

Gilead creates an official vocabulary that ignores and warps reality in order to serve the needs of the new society's elite. Having made it illegal for women to hold jobs, Gilead creates a system of titles. Whereas men are defined by their military rank, women are defined solely by their gender roles as Wives, Handmaids, or Marthas. Stripping them of permanent individual names strips them of their individuality, or tries to. Feminists and deformed babies are treated as subhuman, denoted by the terms "Unwomen" and "Unbabies." Black people and Jewish people are defined by biblical terms ("Children of Ham" and "Sons of Jacob," respectively) that set them apart from the rest of society, making their persecution easier. There are prescribed greetings for personal encounters, and to fail to offer the correct greetings is to fall under suspicion of disloyalty. Specially created terms define the rituals of Gilead, such as "Prayvaganzas," "Salvagings," and "Particicutions." Dystopian novels about the dangers of totalitarian society frequently explore the connection between a state's repression of its subjects and its perversion of language ("Newspeak" in George Orwell's 1984 is the most famous example), and The Handmaid's Tale carries on this tradition. Gilead maintains its control over women's bodies by maintaining control over names.

Symbol - Harvard University

Gilead has transformed Harvard's buildings into a detention center run by the Eyes, Gilead's secret police. Bodies of executed dissidents hang from the Wall that runs around the college, and Salvagings (mass executions) take place in Harvard Yard, on the steps of the library. Harvard becomes a symbol of the inverted world that Gilead has created: a place that was founded to pursue knowledge and truth becomes a seat of oppression, torture, and the denial of every principle for which a university is supposed to stand.

Motif - Religious Terms Used For Political Purposes

Gilead is a theocracy—a government in which there is no separation between state and religion—and its official vocabulary incorporates religious terminology and biblical references. Domestic servants are called "Marthas" in reference to a domestic character in the New Testament; the local police are "Guardians of the Faith"; soldiers are "Angels"; and the Commanders are officially "Commanders of the Faithful." All the stores have biblical names: Loaves and Fishes, All Flesh, Milk and Honey. Even the automobiles have biblical names like Behemoth, Whirlwind, and Chariot. Using religious terminology to describe people, ranks, and businesses whitewashes political skullduggery in pious language. It provides an ever-present reminder that the founders of Gilead insist they act on the authority of the Bible itself. Politics and religion sleep in the same bed in Gilead, where the slogan "God is a National Resource" predominates.

Theme - Performance

Hamlet includes many references to performance of all kinds - both theatrical performance and the way people perform in daily life. In his first appearance, Hamlet draws a distinction between outward behavior— "actions that a man might play"— and real feelings: "that within which passeth show" (I.ii.). However, the more time we spend with Hamlet, the harder it becomes to tell what he is really feeling and what he is performing. He announces in Act One, scene five that he is going to pretend to be mad ("put an antic disposition on".) In Act Two, scene one, Ophelia describes Hamlet's mad behavior as a comical performance. However, when Hamlet tells Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that "I have lost all my mirth," he seems genuinely depressed. Generations of readers have argued about whether Hamlet is really mad or just performing madness. It's impossible to know for sure - by the end of the play, even Hamlet himself doesn't seem to know the difference between performance and reality. Hamlet further explores the idea of performance by regularly reminding the audience that we are watching a play. When Polonius says that at university he "did enact Julius Caesar" (III.ii), contemporary audiences would have thought of Shakespeare's own Julius Caesar, which was written around the same time as Hamlet. The actor who played Polonius may have played Julius Caesar as well. The device of the play within the play gives Hamlet further opportunities to comment on the nature of theater. By constantly reminding the audience that what we're watching is a performance, Hamlet invites us to think about the fact that something fake can feel real, and vice versa. Hamlet himself points out that acting is powerful because it's indistinguishable from reality: "The purpose of playing [...] is to hold as 'twere the mirror up to Nature" (III.ii.). That's why he believes that the Players can "catch the conscience of the King" (II.ii.). By repeatedly showing us that performance can feel real, Hamlet makes us question what "reality" actually is.

Genre

Hamlet is one of the most famous tragedies ever written, and in many respects, it exhibits the features traditionally associated with the tragic genre. In addition to the play ending with the death of Hamlet and a host of others, Hamlet himself is a classic tragic protagonist. As the Prince of Denmark, Hamlet is a figure whose actions matter to an entire kingdom, which means the play's events reverberate through the entire world of the play. Like other tragic heroes, he displays many admirable traits. Hamlet may have a reputation for moping around Elsinore Castle with a melancholy disposition, but this is because he grieves his beloved father's untimely death. Despite his sadness, Hamlet is an intelligent young man of great potential, as many other characters recognize. Fortinbras says as much in the final lines of the play: "he was likely, had he been put on [the throne], / To have proved most royal" (V.ii.373-74). Finally, part of the reason Hamlet sets out down the dark path to destruction is that he succumbs to increasing isolation. His isolation amplifies his inwardness, and it also has tragic effects on others. His rejection of Ophelia, combined with his murder of her father, drives her to madness and, presumably, to suicide. For all that it resembles a traditional tragedy, Hamlet also strains the usual conventions of the genre. One notable example is in the "dark path" that Hamlet embarks on that leads to catastrophe. In most tragedies it's clear that the hero is choosing to pursue something they shouldn't—in the case of a revenge tragedy, the hero succumbs to a desire for murderous vengeance. In Hamlet's case, he seems to have every reason to take vengeance, because Claudius really did murder the king and usurp his place, but Hamlet seems ambivalent about the Ghost's plea for vengeance, or slow to carry it out. He seems to want to know the truth more than anything, which doesn't seem like a tragic choice. The choice he makes that leads to many of the tragic consequences of the play—such as the death of Ophelia—is his choice to isolate himself from everyone else, behave erratically, and pretend to be mad.

Foreshadowing - Hamlet's Madness

Horatio warns Hamlet that the Ghost "might deprive your sovereignty of reason/And draw you into madness" (I.iv.). The Ghost itself instructs Hamlet: "Taint not thy mind" (I.v.). These warnings foreshadow Hamlet's descent into madness. However, as always in Hamlet, we see a further layer of complexity to the question of Hamlet's madness. After his encounter with the Ghost, Hamlet tells Horatio that he may "put an antic disposition on" (I.v.), that is, pretend to be mad. The play, therefore, sets up two different ways to understand Hamlet's increasingly erratic behavior: as the real madness predicted by the Ghost and Horatio, or as the "antic disposition" mentioned by Hamlet. This uncertainty makes Hamlet's character ultimately mysterious.

Symbol - The Bear

If you're like us, you were probably completely blown away when that bear ran out and chased Antigonus across the stage before devouring the poor guy (3.3). Yep, that's pretty random alright, and to tell you the truth, we're not quite sure what to make of it (except to say that Shakespeare obviously has a sense of humor). So, let's think about this for a minute by reviewing some popular interpretations of the incident: Option 1: Lots of people think that Antigonus gets mauled by a bear because he's just done a really horrible thing - dumped off baby Perdita in the middle of nowhere. It certainly seems reasonable to assume that Antigonus suffers from bad karma. On the one hand, however, we could also point out that Leontes has got some pretty bad karma too but he's never mauled by a wild animal. Option 2: Leontes's bad behavior brings us to our second option. According to some critics, the bear is a symbol of Leontes's wrath, which means that Antigonus isn't so much a villain as a victim. He's bullied into ditching Perdita by Leontes and the bear mauling is just another version of Antigonus being attacked by a ferocious figure. Option 3: Alternatively, some literary critics have pointed out that the whole bear mauling incident seems to echo fertility rites myths. As literary critic Jean E. Howard tells us in her introduction to the Norton edition of the play (2008), these kinds of fertility rites usually involve some poor old guy being sacrificed in order to usher in the spring season (think "out with the old and in with the new") and bring about some sort of sexual fulfillment. Option 4: The bear mauling isn't symbolic of anything. It's just Shakespeare's way of having fun and making reference to a popular sixteenth- and seventeenth-century blood sport (bear baiting - when bears are chained up and set upon by a pack of dogs). Bear baiting took place in the same neighborhood as Shakespeare's plays and there are references to it all over his work, so this definitely seems like a good option.

Symbol - Yorick's Skull

In Hamlet, physical objects are rarely used to represent thematic ideas. One important exception is Yorick's skull, which Hamlet discovers in the graveyard in the first scene of Act V. As Hamlet speaks to the skull and about the skull of the king's former jester, he fixates on death's inevitability and the disintegration of the body. He urges the skull to "get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favor she must come"—no one can avoid death (V.i.178-179). He traces the skull's mouth and says, "Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft," indicating his fascination with the physical consequences of death (V.i.174-175). This latter idea is an important motif throughout the play, as Hamlet frequently makes comments referring to every human body's eventual decay, noting that Polonius will be eaten by worms, that even kings are eaten by worms, and that dust from the decayed body of Alexander the Great might be used to stop a hole in a beer barrel.

Theme - Doubt

In Hamlet, the main character's doubt creates a world where very little is known for sure. Hamlet thinks, but isn't entirely sure, that his uncle killed his father. He believes he sees his father's Ghost, but he isn't sure he should believe in the Ghost or listen to what the Ghost tells him: "I'll have grounds / More relative than this." In his "to be or not to be" soliloquy, Hamlet suspects he should probably just kill himself, but doubt about what lies beyond the grave prevents him from acting. Hamlet is so wracked with doubt, he even works to infect other characters with his lack of certainty, as when he tells Ophelia "you should not have believed me" when he told her he loved her. As a result, the audience doubts Hamlet's reliability as a protagonist. We are left with many doubts about the action - whether Gertrude was having an affair with Claudius before he killed Hamlet's father; whether Hamlet is sane or mad; what Hamlet's true feelings are for Ophelia.

Theme - The Causes Of Complacency

In a totalitarian state, Atwood suggests, people will endure oppression willingly as long as they receive some slight amount of power or freedom. Offred remembers her mother saying that it is "truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations." Offred's complacency after she begins her relationship with Nick shows the truth of this insight. Her situation restricts her horribly compared to the freedom her former life allowed, but her relationship with Nick allows her to reclaim the tiniest fragment of her former existence. The physical affection and companionship become compensation that make the restrictions almost bearable. Offred seems suddenly so content that she does not say yes when Ofglen asks her to gather information about the Commander. Women in general support Gilead's existence by willingly participating in it, serving as agents of the totalitarian state. While a woman like Serena Joy has no power in the world of men, she exercises authority within her own household and seems to delight in her tyranny over Offred. She jealously guards what little power she has and wields it eagerly. In a similar way, the women known as Aunts, especially Aunt Lydia, act as willing agents of the Gileadean state. They indoctrinate other women into the ruling ideology, keep a close eye out for rebellion, and generally serve the same function for Gilead that the Jewish police did under Nazi rule. Atwood's message is bleak. At the same time as she condemns Offred, Serena Joy, the Aunts, and even Moira for their complacency, she suggests that even if those did stop complying, they would likely fail to make a difference. In Gilead, the tiny rebellions or resistances do not necessarily matter. In the end, Offred escapes because of luck rather than resistance.

Theme - The Mystery Of Death

In the aftermath of his father's murder, Hamlet is obsessed with the idea of death, and over the course of the play he considers death from a great many perspectives. He ponders both the spiritual aftermath of death, embodied in the ghost, and the physical remainders of the dead, such as by Yorick's skull and the decaying corpses in the cemetery. Throughout, the idea of death is closely tied to the themes of spirituality, truth, and uncertainty in that death may bring the answers to Hamlet's deepest questions, ending once and for all the problem of trying to determine truth in an ambiguous world. And, since death is both the cause and the consequence of revenge, it is intimately tied to the theme of revenge and justice—Claudius's murder of King Hamlet initiates Hamlet's quest for revenge, and Claudius's death is the end of that quest. The question of his own death plagues Hamlet as well, as he repeatedly contemplates whether or not suicide is a morally legitimate action in an unbearably painful world. Hamlet's grief and misery is such that he frequently longs for death to end his suffering, but he fears that if he commits suicide, he will be consigned to eternal suffering in hell because of the Christian religion's prohibition of suicide. In his famous "To be or not to be" soliloquy (III.i), Hamlet philosophically concludes that no one would choose to endure the pain of life if he or she were not afraid of what will come after death, and that it is this fear which causes complex moral considerations to interfere with the capacity for action.

Theme - Suffering

In the play, Leontes's jealousy gives way to tyrannous behavior that causes immense pain suffering. Mamillius falls ill and dies when his mother is imprisoned and tried for adultery, Hermione is said to have died of a broken heart, and Leontes tortures himself for sixteen long years. In fact, the entire kingdom is made miserable by Leontes's behavior, which has left Sicily without an heir. This kind of anguish is inherent in Shakespearean tragedy, but because the play is a blend of tragedy and comedy, the suffering in the play ultimately gives way to redemption, which we discuss in "Compassion and Forgiveness." Leontes's family isn't the only group that suffers in the play - because Mamillius is dead and Perdita is lost, the entire kingdom worries about what will become of them, as Sicily is without an heir to the throne. Paulina's behavior in the second half of the play is passive aggressive. Although she pretends to want to help King Leontes, she goes out of her way to ensure that he suffers.

Symbol - Spring

In the second half of the play (which occurs sixteen years later), the Sicilian winter gives way to the Bohemian countryside during the spring or summer (it's not entirely clear). The spring and summer seasons, as we know, are frequently associated with life and renewal and life (especially because they come on the heels of the cold and harsh winter months). Fittingly, Bohemia is a festive world that's full of youthful spirit and possibility. This is where we meet the lovely young Perdita, who resembles Flora, goddess of flowers. Bohemia is also where Florizel's and Perdita's young love blossoms and just about anything seems possible, especially during the colorful sheep-shearing festival. When the young Bohemian cast (Florizel and Perdita) travel to Sicily in Act 5, the "cold" Sicilian landscape is dramatically altered. Leontes says, "Welcome hither, / As is the spring to the earth [...] The blessed gods / Purge all infection from the air / Whilst you / Do climate here" (5.1.13-15). Leontes, whose been suffering a winter-like existence in Sicily for sixteen long years, suggests that Florizel's presence is like the arrival of spring after a long, cold, harsh winter. What's more, Florizel and Perdita's youthful presence seems to have a healing effect on the king and his ailing court, which never really recovered from the deaths of Hermione and Mamillius and the loss of baby Perdita. So, we might say that Florizel and Perdita bring with them the spirit of spring/summer and inject the play with love, warmth, and the spirit of forgiveness.

"I have of late,—but wherefore I know not,—lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire,—why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?"

In these lines, Hamlet speaks to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Act II, scene ii (287-298), explaining the melancholy that has afflicted him since his father's death. Perhaps moved by the presence of his former university companions, Hamlet essentially engages in a rhetorical exercise, building up an elaborate and glorified picture of the earth and humanity before declaring it all merely a "quintessence of dust." He examines the earth, the air, and the sun, and rejects them as "a sterile promontory" and "a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors." He then describes human beings from several perspectives, each one adding to his glorification of them. Human beings' reason is noble, their faculties infinite, their forms and movements fast and admirable, their actions angelic, and their understanding godlike. But, to Hamlet, humankind is merely dust. This motif, an expression of his obsession with the physicality of death, recurs throughout the play, reaching its height in his speech over Yorick's skull. Finally, it is also telling that Hamlet makes humankind more impressive in "apprehension" (meaning understanding) than in "action." Hamlet himself is more prone to apprehension than to action, which is why he delays so long before seeking his revenge on Claudius.

"He was not a monster, to her. Probably he had some endearing trait: he whistled, offkey, in the shower, he had a yen for truffles, he called his dog Liebchen and made it sit up for little pieces of raw steak. How easy it is to invent a humanity, for anyone at all. What an available temptation."

In this quotation, from Chapter 24, Offred remembers a documentary that she watched about a woman who was the mistress of a Nazi death camp guard. She recalls how the woman insisted that her lover was not a "monster," and she compares that woman's situation to her own, as she spends her evenings with the Commander and comes to almost like him. The Commander seems like a good person: he is kind, friendly, genial, and even courtly to Offred. Yet he is also the agent of her oppression—both directly, as her Commander, and indirectly, through his role in constructing the oppressive edifice of Gileadean society. Like the concentration camp guard, he is "not a monster, to her"; yet he is still a monster. Offred suggests that it is "easy," when you know an evil person on a personal level, to "invent a humanity" for them. It is a "temptation," she says, meaning that no one wants to believe that someone they know is a monster. But in the case of the Commander, that temptation must be resisted. He may be kind and gentle, but he still bears responsibility for the evil of Gilead.

Symbol - The Fire Escape

Leading out of the Wingfields' apartment is a fire escape with a landing. The fire escape represents exactly what its name implies: an escape from the fires of frustration and dysfunction that rage in the Wingfield household. Laura slips on the fire escape in Scene Four, highlighting her inability to escape from her situation. Tom, on the other hand, frequently steps out onto the landing to smoke, anticipating his eventual getaway.

Theme - Gender

Leontes's hateful ideas about women dominate the first three acts of The Winter's Tale. After he convinces himself that his pregnant wife is having an affair and carrying another man's child, Leontes reveals a crude and misogynistic attitude that seems to have been lurking beneath the surface all along. In the jealous king's mind, all women are sexually promiscuous and dishonest (an attitude that's all too common in Renaissance literature). Leontes also gives voice to the notion that women who are not silent and obedient to their husbands are monsters who invert socially accepted gender hierarchies. Leontes eventually repents but his nasty attitude leaves a big mark on the play. Leontes believes that all women are inherently promiscuous and deceptive, but overall, the play proves this to be untrue. Leontes gives voice to a common Renaissance attitude toward women - that is, any woman who is not silent and obedient is a monstrous hag who deserves to be punished.

"Welcome hither, As is the spring to the earth. [...] The blessed gods Purge all infection from our air whilst you Do climate here! (5.3.13-15)"

Leontes, whose been suffering in Sicily for sixteen long years, suggests that Florizel's presence is like the arrival of spring after a long, cold, harsh winter. What's more, Florizel's arrival in Sicily seems to have a healing effect on the king and his ailing court, which has yet to recover from the deaths of Hermione and Mamillius and the loss of baby Perdita.

Style - Prose and Verse

Like all of Shakespeare's tragedies, Hamlet is written mostly in verse, but over 30% of the lines are in prose, which is the highest percentage of any of the tragedies. One reason for the high amount of prose is that Hamlet has more comic scenes than any of Shakespeare's other tragedies. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the gravedigger, and often Hamlet himself all make jokes, while Polonius has jokes made at his expense in almost every one of his scenes. Shakespeare preferred to use verse when he was tackling serious themes, and prose when he was writing comedy, so in Hamlet he switches often, sometimes in the middle of a scene. Hamlet's frequent switching between verse and prose is part of what makes the style of the play feel evasive. Hamlet's facility with both prose and verse, and tendency to alternate between the two styles, also underscores the sense of him as a character who is of two minds, or who is not quite sure who he is, so adopts different speaking manners trying to figure out how to really sound like himself. Another reason why Shakespeare switches between verse and prose is to mark the difference between careful speech and disordered speech. In Act III, Scene 1, Hamlet begins by speaking in verse. His famous soliloquy, "To be or not to be" (III.i.), expresses a complex, ordered thought which Hamlet seems to have been mulling for some time. When Ophelia enters and tries to return the presents Hamlet has given her, he switches abruptly to prose. His switch to prose shows us that Hamlet is no longer thinking clearly, and we understand that Ophelia has surprised and upset him. One reason Hamlet has more prose than most of Shakespeare's tragedies is that Hamlet spends a large part of the play pretending to be crazy. In those scenes, Hamlet is deliberately speaking in a disordered way, so he speaks in prose. Likewise, when Ophelia actually goes mad, she too speaks in prose (when she's not singing). The effect of a character speaking prose when mad is also evident in Macbeth, where Lady Macbeth speaks in nonsense prose as she loses her grip on reality at the end of the play, and also in King Lear, where Lear speaks in disordered, unintelligible prose as he wanders on the heath in a deranged state. Another function of prose is to mark the speech of lower-status characters. Members of the nobility, like Claudius, almost always speak in verse, but commoners like the gravedigger use prose. When Hamlet speaks in prose to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—who are high-status enough to speak verse with the King—it suggests he is talking down to them. He is happy to exchange jokes with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, but he does not trust or respect them enough to express himself seriously, using verse. One exception is the monologue which begins "I will tell you why..." (II.ii.). This speech expresses a complex thought and Hamlet seems to be serious about it, but it's in prose. It may be that Hamlet is speaking in prose because his speech, in which he seems to be describing himself as seriously depressed, is evidence of Hamlet's real mental disorder. The speech may also mark the beginning of Hamlet's loss of control over himself, and his speech, as he loses the ability to manipulate others with complex, misleading phrases.

Theme - Friendship

Like many of Shakespeare's plays (Two Gentleman of Verona and The Merchant of Venice, especially) and The Sonnets, The Winter's Tale examines the nature of male friendship. Bromance was a pretty big deal in the Renaissance and was valued above marriage and other male-female relationships. In the play, the friendship between Leontes and Polixenes is portrayed as an ideal bond that developed during the innocence of childhood and was interrupted by their adolescent interest in women and sex. As adults, Leontes's friendship with Polixenes is characterized by rivalry and Leontes's jealous fears that his wife has come between them. There are examples of female friendship in the play (most notably, Paulina's fierce loyalty to Hermione), but bromance is given much more attention. The friendship between Leontes and Polixenes is competitive from the very beginning of the play - this rivalry culminates in Leontes's jealousy, which places Hermione at the center of his competitiveness with his best friend. Paulina is the only character in the play loyal enough (to Hermione) and brave enough to stand up to Leontes's tyranny.

Symbol - "Blue Roses"

Like the glass unicorn, "Blue Roses," Jim's high school nickname for Laura, symbolizes Laura's unusualness yet allure. The name is also associated with Laura's attraction to Jim and the joy that his kind treatment brings her. Furthermore, it recalls Tennessee Williams's sister, Rose, on whom the character of Laura is based.

"PERDITA Sir, the year growing ancient, Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth Of trembling winter, the fairest Hermione's statue flowers o' the season Are our carnations and streak'd gillyvors, Which some call nature's bastards: of that kind Our rustic garden's barren; and I care not To get slips of them. POLIXENES Wherefore, gentle maiden, Do you neglect them? PERDITA For I have heard it said There is an art which in their piedness shares With great creating nature. POLIXENES Say there be; Yet nature is made better by no mean But nature makes that mean: so, over that art Which you say adds to nature, is an art That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry A gentler scion to the wildest stock, And make conceive a bark of baser kind By bud of nobler race: this is an art Which does mend nature, change it rather, but The art itself is nature. PERDITA So it is. (4.4.6)"

Literary scholars often argue that this conversation about the merits of "gillyvors" is actually a debate about art vs. nature. When Perdita points out that she doesn't have any "gillyvors" (gillyflowers, or carnations) to offer her guests, Polixenes takes issue with her referring to the cross-bred flowers as "nature's bastards." Polixenes argues that crossbred flowers are superior to plain old carnations and that the "art" of grafting is completely "natural." ("Grafting" is a horticultural practice where a plant's tissue is fused with another plant in order to create a "hybrid.") Perdita, on the other hand, prefers flowers that are pure and that haven't been influenced by the "art" of grafting.

The Handmaid's Tale

Margaret Atwood

Point of View

More than any other play by Shakespeare, Hamlet focuses on the point of view of a single character: Hamlet himself, which makes him sympathetic even as he commits unsympathetic acts. Hamlet has more lines than any other character in Shakespeare, and nearly 40% of the lines in his play—the highest proportion of lines Shakespeare ever gave to a single character. Hamlet's speeches are also exceptionally revealing: he discusses his thoughts and feelings about profound questions like the meaning of life, the possibility of an afterlife, familial and sexual love, suicide, religion, and suffering. Despite his many flaws—recklessness, cruelty, indecisiveness, misogyny—Hamlet has remained an enduringly popular and fascinating character because Shakespeare shows us so much of his inner life that we cannot help but sympathize with him. Hamlet reveals his mental state to the audience throughout the play, so the audience remains close to him and understands his motivations from beginning to end. Rather than becoming estranged from the audience as he becomes estranged from himself, like Macbeth, Hamlet continues to question himself and his actions up until his death. The point of view in Hamlet is so close to Hamlet himself that it's sometimes impossible to be sure whether something is really happening in the play or whether Hamlet just thinks it's happening. Although Marcellus, Barnardo, and Horatio see the Ghost, only Hamlet ever hears it speak, and when the Ghost makes its third appearance in Gertrude's closet, only Hamlet can see it. The discrepancy around who hears the ghost raises the question of whether the Ghost's speech might be a hallucination of Hamlet's, confirming a suspicion he already holds rather than giving him new information. Additionally, in the play scene, Hamlet is convinced that his play has made Claudius feel guilty—"What, frighted with false fire?" (III.ii)—but other characters seem to believe that Hamlet's own behavior has made Claudius feel not guilty but angry: "Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended" (III.iv.). The audience can't decide these questions either way, which contributes to the play's air of mystery, and also makes us feel that we are so close to Hamlet's point of view that we are seeing the play's events the way he sees them. By keeping the audience so close to Hamlet's perspective and interpretation, Shakespeare tells his story through the point of view of an unreliable narrator. Despite the closeness of the play's point of view to Hamlet, and the amount of time other characters spend questioning him and spying on him, there are many mysteries about his character which are never solved, and these mysteries create the play's troubling sense that truth is ultimately unknowable. The audience never discovers how far Hamlet has really gone mad and how far he's pretending. We never find out what is making him so unhappy: his father's death, his mother's marriage, his failure to become king, his inability to take revenge, or his inability to work out what to believe. We never learn what his real feelings for Ophelia are; nor do we know why it takes him so long to finally kill Claudius. By bringing us so close to the point of view of a single character while ultimately making him mysterious, Hamlet suggests that the core of human nature is unknowable.

Foreshadowing - Offred's relationship with Nick

Offred's sexual relationship with Nick is foreshadowed from their first encounter. Her attraction to him is suggested by the way she describes him: "caress[ing]" the Commander's car, "showing his forearms, tanned but with a stipple of dark hairs" (Chapter 4). Our sense of Offred and Nick's mutual attraction deepens every time they interact. By foreshadowing their relationship, The Handmaid's Tale suggests that sexual desire is a force equal to even the greatest political repression.

Foreshadowing - Ofglen's suicide

Ofglen's suicide by hanging is foreshadowed three ways: in Offred's own habitual thoughts of suicide; in the information that Offred's predecessor hanged herself, and in the hanged bodies displayed on the Wall. Because Ofglen chooses to kill herself rather than undergo torture by the Eyes, the constant threat posed by the Eyes also foreshadows Ofglen's decision. Ofglen is the novel's most active rebel: by foreshadowing her suicide, the novel suggests that the rebels' efforts are doomed.

Motif - Ears and Hearing

One facet of Hamlet's exploration of the difficulty of attaining true knowledge is the slipperiness of language. Words are used to communicate ideas, but they can also be used to distort the truth, manipulate other people, and serve as tools in corrupt quests for power. Claudius, the shrewd politician, is the most obvious example of a man who manipulates words to enhance his own power. The sinister uses of words are represented by images of ears and hearing, from Claudius's murder of the king by pouring poison into his ear to Hamlet's claim to Horatio that "I have words to speak in thine ear will make thee dumb" (IV.vi.21). The poison poured in the king's ear by Claudius is used by the ghost to symbolize the corrosive effect of Claudius's dishonesty on the health of Denmark. Declaring that the story that he was killed by a snake is a lie, he says that "the whole ear of Denmark" is "Rankly abused. . . ." (I.v.36-38).

Theme - Madness

One of the central questions of Hamlet is whether the main character has lost his mind or is only pretending to be mad. Hamlet's erratic behavior and nonsensical speech can be interpreted as a ruse to get the other characters to believe he's gone mad. On the other hand, his behavior may be a logical response to the "mad" situation he finds himself in - his father has been murdered by his uncle, who is now his stepfather. Initially, Hamlet himself seems to believe he's sane - he describes his plans to "put an antic disposition on" and tells Rosencrantz and Guildenstern he is only mad when the wind blows "north-north-west" - in other words, his madness is something he can turn on and off at will. By the end of the play, however, Hamlet seems to doubt his own sanity. Referring to himself in the third person, he says "And when he's not himself does harm Laertes," suggesting Hamlet has become estranged from his former, sane self. Referring to his murder of Polonius, he says, "Who does it then? His madness." At the same time, Hamlet's excuse of madness absolves him of murder, so it can also be read as the workings of a sane and cunning mind.

Motif - The Words and Images on the Screen

One of the play's most unique stylistic features is the use of an onstage screen on which words and images relevant to the action are projected. Sometimes the screen is used to emphasize the importance of something referred to by the characters, as when an image of blue roses appears in Scene Two; sometimes it refers to something from a character's past or fantasy, as when the image of Amanda as a young girl appears in Scene Six. At other times, it seems to function as a slate for impersonal commentary on the events and characters of the play, as when "Ou sont les neiges" (words from a fifteenth-century French poem praising beautiful women) appear in Scene One as Amanda's voice is heard offstage. What appears on the screen generally emphasizes themes or symbols that are already established quite obviously by the action of the play. The device thus seems at best ironic, and at worst somewhat pretentious or condescending. Directors who have staged the play have been, for the most part, very ambivalent about the effectiveness and value of the screen, and virtually all have chosen to eliminate it from the performance. The screen is, however, an interesting epitome of Tennessee Williams's expressionist theatrical style, which downplays realistic portrayals of life in favor of stylized presentations of inner experience.

"[Aside] Too hot, too hot! To mingle friendship far is mingling bloods. I have tremor cordis on me: my heart dances; But not for joy; not joy. This entertainment May a free face put on, derive a liberty From heartiness, from bounty, fertile bosom, And well become the agent; 't may, I grant; But to be paddling palms and pinching fingers, As now they are, and making practised smiles, As in a looking-glass, and then to sigh, as 'twere The mort o' the deer; O, that is entertainment My bosom likes not, nor my brows! Mamillius, Art thou my boy? (1.2.11)"

Out of nowhere, Leontes turns CRAZY jealous at the sight of Polixenes and the pregnant Hermione chatting it up and touching hands. (If you've read Romeo and Juliet, you know that hands and fingertips are considered to be erotic appendages, which is why Romeo gets all excited about pressing his palms against Juliet's.) Although there's been some suggestion that Leontes and Polixenes are a bit competitive (check out "Friendship" for more on this), we don't really see this coming, especially given that Hermione is merely entertaining her husband's childhood friend and Polixenes is being nice to his pal's wife. Still, Leontes interprets their behavior as that of two secret lovers. When Leontes turns to his young son and says "Mamillius, Art thou my boy?", we know that Leontes is questioning whether or not he's the biological father of Mamillius and his unborn child. We also notice that the quality of Leontes's speech is affected by his jealousy. Notice all the pauses (marked by commas) in the middle of his lines? This gives his speech a choppy, erratic affect that mirrors his distraught emotional state. Leontes is so worked up about the imaginary affair between his wife and BFF that his speech breaks up and lacks the kind of fluidity that we've come to expect from the formerly eloquent king.

"PAULINA I say, I come From your good queen. LEONTES Good queen! PAULINA Good queen, my lord, Good queen; I say good queen; And would by combat make her good, so were I A man, the worst about you. (2.3.5)"

Paulina is a loyal friend to Hermione and just about the only person brave enough to stand up to Leontes's tyranny. Here, she insists that if she were a man, she'd engage in knightly combat in order to prove Paulina's innocence. The interesting thing about Paulina's role in the play is that, after Leontes's repents (when he learns Mamillius is dead), Paulina becomes a trusted advisor and spiritual guide to Leontes for the next sixteen years. Paulina, then, replaces Polixenes and Camillo as Leontes's trusted confidante.

Symbol - Twinned Lambs

Polixenes's description of his childhood friendship with Leontes is probably the most famous example of imagery in The Winter's Tale. According to Polixenes, when they played together as innocent young boys, they were like "twinn'd lambs that did frisk i' the sun," which is a very sweet way to describe the innocence and joy of a carefree childhood friendship between two boys. It also implies that Polixenes and Leontes were so close that they were practically identical ("twinn'd"). By the way, this is also a simile, which compares one thing directly to another. As in, the boys were like lambs. So, you're probably thinking, "Aww, what a sweet way for Polixenes to talk about his best childhood bud." Well, we might want to rethink this because Polixenes's lovely description of the nearly identical boys gives way to something darker: We were as twinn'd lambs that did frisk i' the sun, And bleat the one at the other: what we changed Was innocence for innocence; we knew not The doctrine of ill-doing, nor dream'd That any did. Had we pursued that life, And our weak spirits ne'er been higher rear'd With stronger blood, we should have answer'd heaven Boldly 'not guilty;' the imposition clear'd Hereditary ours. (1.2.10) What's interesting is that Polixenes claims that he and Leontes would not even have been "guilty" of original sin if they had remained young and innocent. Note: The doctrine of "ill doing" (a.k.a. "original sin") is the idea that all human beings are born tainted because Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, according to the Bible's book of Genesis. In other words, Polixenes suggests that he and Leontes would have remained totally innocent if they hadn't grown up to become interested in sex ("stronger blood" means "sexual passion") and girls (like Hermione and Polixenes's wife). This implies that sexual relationships with women mark the end of childhood and are probably the reason why Polixenes and Leontes aren't as close as they once were.

Foreshadowing - Serena Joy's plan for Offred

Serena Joy's suggestion that Offred have sex with Nick is foreshadowed by several earlier incidents. The doctor who performs Offred's check-up makes the same arguments as Serena Joy: the Commander might be sterile, and Offred's future depends on her becoming pregnant. At the birth ceremony, we learn that the Wives are jealous and competitive about whether their Handmaids produce children. This foreshadowing points to another powerful desire which shapes Gilead: the desire to raise children.

Motif - Rape and Sexual Violence

Sexual violence, particularly against women, pervades The Handmaid's Tale. The prevalence of rape and pornography in the pre-Gilead world justified to the founders their establishment of the new order. The Commander and the Aunts claim that women are better protected in Gilead, that they are treated with respect and kept safe from violence. Certainly, the official penalty for rape is terrible: in one scene, the Handmaids tear apart with their bare hands a supposed rapist (actually a member of the resistance). Yet, while Gilead claims to suppress sexual violence, it actually institutionalizes it, as we see at Jezebel's, the club that provides the Commanders with a ready stable of prostitutes to service the male elite. Most important, sexual violence is apparent in the central institution of the novel, the Ceremony, which compels Handmaids to have sex with their Commanders.

Motif - Misogyny

Shattered by his mother's decision to marry Claudius so soon after her husband's death, Hamlet becomes cynical about women in general, showing a particular obsession with what he perceives to be a connection between female sexuality and moral corruption. This motif of misogyny, or hatred of women, occurs sporadically throughout the play, but it is an important inhibiting factor in Hamlet's relationships with Ophelia and Gertrude. He urges Ophelia to go to a nunnery rather than experience the corruptions of sexuality and exclaims of Gertrude, "Frailty, thy name is woman" (I.ii.146).

Style

Style in Hamlet frequently functions as an extension of character: the way characters speak gives us insight into how they think. This observation is especially true for Hamlet himself, who speaks more than one-third of the play's total lines, and whose linguistic style changes—often rapidly—depending on context. For example, whenever he's alone, or thinks he's alone, Hamlet speaks patiently and at length, and his words frequently take on a philosophical quality. Hamlet is at his most philosophical when he delivers the monologue that begins with his famous question, "To be, or not to be?" (III.i.55). This monologue continues for nearly 35 lines, in which Hamlet pontificates on the suffering inherent in existence and considers the pros and cons of committing suicide. The gravity of his subject matter and the philosophical weight of his diction reveal the heavy burden of sadness he carries from the very beginning of the play. In other moments of solitude Hamlet's style proves less blatantly philosophical but equally discursive. This means that his speech has less philosophical gravitas, but remains fluent, full of rhetorical flourish, and characterized by interruptions of thought. Hamlet's first monologue, where he rages against his mother's marriage to Claudius, provides a touchstone example: "Frailty, thy name is woman!— A little month, or ere those shoes were old With which she followed my poor father's body, Like Niobe, all tears. Why, she— O God, a beast that wants discourse of reasons Would have mourned longer!—married with my uncle, My father's brother, but no more like my father Than I to Hercules. (I.ii.146-53)" Here an angry Hamlet attempts to make sense of his mother's decision to remarry after such a short period of mourning. Shakespeare makes the rapid twists and turns in Hamlet's thought evident in a couple of ways. First, he has Hamlet move quickly between low and high registers, such that he delivers cutting insults and alludes to Greek mythology in the same breath. Second, he includes dashes to indicate quick interruptions of thought. Hamlet begins the third sentence with a thought about his mother, but interrupts himself after two words to compare her unfavorably to "a beast" who "would have mourned longer." Then, instead of returning to his original thought about his mother, Hamlet concludes by reflecting on the vast dissimilarity between his father and Claudius. Though a fiercely intelligent man, Hamlet's speech sometimes indicates a lack of focus in his thinking. Hamlet adopts yet another style when he's in the company of others. Although he still demonstrates his wit through his command of language, Hamlet's interactions with others often feature a kind of double-speak in which he conceals his own meaning. He frequently does this in Polonius's presence by feigning madness. But perhaps the best example of Hamlet's double-speak is his first line in the play. When Claudius refers to him as "my son," Hamlet replies somewhat aggressively: "A little more than kin, and less than kind" (I.ii.65). Hamlet's words play off a common English proverb that states, "The nearer in kin the less in kindness." The original proverb indicates a close link between kinship and cruelty, but Hamlet complicates it. His phrase "A little more than kin" implies that, through his uncle's marriage to his mother, he and Claudius have become more closely related than they were before. But then he cleverly reverses this claim. Hamlet's use of the word "kind" has a double significance here. In addition to meaning "considerate," it also means "natural." Hamlet, therefore, indicates that Claudius' behavior has been inconsiderate and unnatural, which makes him not a true member of Hamlet's family.

The Glass Menagerie

Tennessee Williams

Symbol - Music

Tennessee Williams's stage directions frequently call for music to underscore key moments in a scene. "The Glass Menagerie" theme repeats frequently throughout the play. Laura and Amanda associate music with the absent Mr. Wingfield, who left the family his Victrola. The Victrola player provides Laura an auditory escape and contrasts with the clickety-clack of the typewriter, which reminds her of her failed attempt to attend business college. Laura also associates music with Jim, whom she met in the school choir; Jim, we are told, has a beautiful voice. Music as a Motif: Music is used often in The Glass Menagerie, both to emphasize themes and to enhance the drama. Sometimes the music is extra-diegetic—coming from outside the play, not from within it—and though the audience can hear it the characters cannot. For example, a musical piece entitled "The Glass Menagerie," written specifically for the play by the composer Paul Bowles, plays when Laura's character or her glass collection comes to the forefront of the action. This piece makes its first appearance at the end of Scene One, when Laura notes that Amanda is afraid that her daughter will end up an old maid. Other times, the music comes from inside the diegetic space of the play—that is, it is a part of the action, and the characters can hear it. Examples of this are the music that wafts up from the Paradise Dance Hall and the music Laura plays on her record player. Both the extra-diegetic and the diegetic music often provide commentary on what is going on in the play. For example, the Paradise Dance Hall plays a piece entitled "The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise" while Tom is talking about the approach of World War II.

Symbol - The Eyes

The Eyes of God are Gilead's secret police. Both their name and their insignia, a winged eye, symbolize the eternal watchfulness of God and the totalitarian state. In Gilead's theocracy, the eye of God and of the state are assumed to be one and the same.

Theme - Reproduction

The Handmaid's Tale argues that legally controlling women's reproductive freedom is morally and politically wrong. The suffering of Offred and the other Handmaids is directly caused by the Gileadean state's desire to own and control women's fertility. Certain details link Gilead's goal of controlling women's reproductive function with the political goals of the 20th century U.S. religious right. For instance, Gilead executes doctors known to have performed abortions. At the same time, one of the causes of the sharply declining birthrate in Gilead is the number of women who have chosen to become infertile. The Handmaid's Tale argues that women's reproductive function can be a form of wealth, a "national resource" (Chapter 12), in order to warn us that figures in power will always be tempted to control women's bodies.

Theme - Seeing

The Handmaid's Tale draws on the feminist idea that in a male-dominated society, the way men look at women is a form of control and even violence. Offred's "white wings" (Chapter 2) severely limit her own ability to see. Meanwhile, she constantly feels observed—and threatened—by eyes. She sees the patch of plaster in her bedroom ceiling as a "blind plaster eye" and the convex mirror on the stairs as a "fisheye" (Chapter 17). The secret police of the Gileadean regime are known as the "Eyes," and their emblem, a winged eye, is painted everywhere. Offred thinks of these eyes as male, even comparing eyes to penises and penises to eyes, for instance when she describes the Commander's penis as a "stalked slug's eye" (Chapter 15). However, while the novel endorses a feminist concept of the way men look at women, it also warns that feminist concepts alone don't offer protection from male domination. The only character who outright states the idea that the way men look at women can be a form of violence is Aunt Lydia. "'To be seen—to be seen—is to be'—her voice trembled—'penetrated.'" (Ch. 5). Aunt Lydia's quote suggests that even feminist concepts can be co-opted and used to oppress women.

Theme - Complicity

The Handmaid's Tale explores the ways in which ordinary people become complicit in the appalling acts of a totalitarian regime. Although the novel's women are all to some extent victims of the Gileadean state, many of them choose complicity rather than rebellion. Serena Joy is miserable and has very little freedom, but she enjoys and exploits the power she wields over Offred. More seriously, the Aunts are not just complicit in the regime's crimes: they are amongst the novel's worst perpetrators, responsible for torture and psychological abuse. Offred's place on the spectrum of complicity is ambiguous. She hates and fears the regime, and does not believe in its values. Being true to her own beliefs would require her to rebel, but she does not. Instead, she accepts her role without complaint. Even in her own head, she refuses to call the Ceremony "rape," because "nothing is going on here that I haven't signed up for" (Chapter 16). Offred's choices invite us to wonder where passivity ends and complicity begins.

Setting

The Handmaid's Tale imagines that sometime in the near future of our own world, a political group called the Sons of Jacob has overthrown the U.S. government and created a new country, the Republic of Gilead. Gileadean law is loosely based on an extremist reading of the Old Testament, and it is extremely oppressive. Black Americans have been forcibly removed from their homes and relocated to "Homelands." Women are not allowed to work, possess property of their own, or read. Sex outside marriage is strictly forbidden. Due to environmental deterioration and other factors, many Gileadeans are unable to reproduce. Officially, Gileadean women are blamed for this, and labeled "barren." It is illegal even to suggest that men can be infertile. In order to address the declining birthrate, the Gileadean government offers a choice to women of proven fertility who have committed crimes, such as sex outside marriage. These women can either go to the Colonies—effectively a death sentence—or they can choose to become "Handmaids." Handmaids are required to have sex with the husband of a "barren" wife, and to give any resulting children to the couple. Most of the action of the novel takes place in the home of the Commander, a high-ranking official of the Gileadean regime. To Offred, the Commander's home is virtually a prison, where she feels watched all the time. She describes a patch of plaster in the ceiling of her bedroom as a "blind plaster eye" and the mirror on the stairs as a "fisheye" (Chapter 17). Beyond the walls of the house, however, the garden serves as a constant reminder of the powerful forces which the Commander and his government have tried to suppress: "There is something subversive about this garden of Serena's, a sense of buried things bursting upwards" (Chapter 25). The Commander's house is in the vicinity of what was once Harvard University, and the novel uses this recognizable setting to emphasize how quickly and easily the U.S. has been overrun by totalitarian forces. The old buildings are all still in use: the former university library is now the home of the Gileadean secret police.

Genre

The Handmaid's Tale is primarily an example of speculative fiction because it imagines an alternate world not far removed from our own. In the novel, Atwood satirizes the various trends she observed in the 1980s: poor treatment of women, disease and infertility, and the corruption of religion. By imagining a near-future not far removed from our own world, The Handmaid's Tale explores the possible consequences of existing trends. For instance, the novel depicts what would happen if contemporary society's increasingly permissive attitude to sex and sexuality provoked a severe backlash, favoring political factions who believe in the repression and control of women's sexuality. The Handmaid's Tale suggests that the rise of the religious right, together with a declining birth-rate, could produce a totalitarian regime in the United States.

Point of View

The Handmaid's Tale is told by a first-person narrator, Offred. The details of her current life are told in the present tense, while flashbacks to her earlier life are told in the past tense. Both the first-person narrator and the use of the present tense help to create a sense of confinement. We can only see what Offred chooses to show us. As a result, our vision is limited by her unwillingness to speak (for instance, about the pain of losing her daughter), just as Offred's vision is limited by the "white wings" (Chapter 2) she wears around her face. The use of the present tense also mimics Offred's experience of confinement. Just as, officially, she has no past, and no knowledge of what her future holds, we too are stuck in the present moment of her story, waiting for her to explain how she came to be in her situation and wondering how she might get out.

Theme - Youth and Old Age

The Winter's Tale dramatizes a divide between the younger generation and their parents. The older generation (Leontes and Polixenes) is responsible for the loss of innocence, the disunion of families and friends, and immense suffering and heartache. When the younger generation (Perdita and Florizel) comes of age, their youthful love has the effect of restoring families and reigniting hope for the future. Yet, not all of the "sins of the fathers" can be redeemed by the younger generation. The permanent deaths of young Mamillius and old Antigonus remind us that some things are lost forever and cannot be resurrected. Because children are portrayed as "copies" or replicas of their parents, Shakespeare also leaves us with a sense that the younger generation could grow up to repeat their parents' mistakes. Although the younger generation does redeem some of the sins of the older generation, not everything is restored - Mamillius's very permanent death reminds us of what remains lost at the end of the play. Children are portrayed as exact "copies" of their parents in the play, which suggests that, although the older generation advances toward inevitable death, parents can live on eternally through the their children.

Theme - Time

The Winter's Tale is obsessed with time. The play goes out of its way to draw our attention to 1) time's passage, 2) the way time can often appear to stand still, and 3) how some events can trigger memories that seem to transport us back in time. The only Shakespeare play to span across sixteen years, The Winter's Tale defies the classical unities (of time, place, and action), an old set of literary rules that said the action in all plays should take place within a 24-hour time span. Leontes's grief over his destruction of his family prevents him being able to move forward with his life - although sixteen years pass before he's finally reunited with his family, Leontes's lives as though he's frozen in time. In The Winter's Tale, looking into the faces of children can transport parents back in time to the days of their own youth.

Genre

The Winter's Tale is often called a "problem play" because it defies traditional categories of genre. Many Shakespeare critics settle on calling The Winter's Tale a "tragic-comedy" because the first three acts of the play feel much like a mini tragedy (compare it, for example, to Hamlet or Othello) and the play's second half resembles a "comedy." In the first three acts, Leontes is overcome by wild jealousy (a fatal flaw) and his tyranny causes profound suffering and the destruction of his family, which ultimately threatens to destroy the health of his kingdom. These are the hallmarks of Shakespearean tragedy. Yet, The Winter's Tale, like Shakespeare's comedies (compare the play to The Taming of the Shrew and A Midsummer Night's Dream), has a decidedly happy ending - families are reconciled, a marriage is promised, and social order is restored Many critics also refer to The Winter's Tale as a "romance" (because it shares features with "medieval romance," not because it's about a couple that rolls around on the beach in a steamy embrace). Shakespeare's "romance" plays (The Winter's Tale, Pericles, Cymbeline, and The Tempest) were all written at the end of Big Willie's career and involve the following features: loss and recovery (like Perdita's reunification with her family), a wandering journey (think of Perdita's travels to Bohemia and back to Sicily and Leontes's journey toward forgiveness), and elements of magic and the fantastic (Hermione's miraculous resurrection, for example). If you're thinking that all of this sounds a lot like a fairy tale, you're absolutely right - fairy tales, which are notorious for being implausible and fantastical, share a lot in common with "romance" stories.

Theme - Art and Culture

The Winter's Tale participates in the ages old art vs. nature controversy. At the heart of the debate is the following question: Is artfulness (the creation of paintings, sculptures, plays, songs, etc. to represent the natural world) a good thing? Or does artfulness distort nature? Shakespeare also extends the debate to consider artifice in general, which has some pretty major implications in a play that takes a very self-conscious look at its status as a work of art. Although Perdita is uncomfortable with the artificiality of dressing up as the "Queen of the Feast," the audience understands that Perdita's festival costume actually speaks to her true nature or identity, which is that of a Sicilian princess and not a lowly shepherd's daughter. Throughout The Winter's Tale, Shakespeare draws our attention to the fact that we are audience to a play that uses artfulness to portray nature.

Symbol - Cambridge, Massachusetts

The center of Gilead's power, where Offred lives, is never explicitly identified, but a number of clues mark it as the town of Cambridge. Cambridge, its neighboring city of Boston, and Massachusetts as a whole were centers for America's first religious and intolerant society—the Puritan New England of the seventeenth century. Atwood reminds us of this history with the ancient Puritan church that Offred and Ofglen visit early in the novel, which Gilead has turned into a museum. The choice of Cambridge as a setting symbolizes the direct link between the Puritans and their spiritual heirs in Gilead. Both groups dealt harshly with religious, sexual, or political deviation.

Setting

The first half of The Winter's Tale is set in King Leontes's Sicilian court during the cold winter. We know it's winter, by the way, because Mamillius tells his mother "A sad tale's best for winter" (2.1.7) after she asks him for a story. The frigid season seems completely appropriate in a court where Leontes's cold-hearted behavior destroys his family and brings about the worst kind of suffering. In the second half of the play (which occurs sixteen years later), the Sicilian winter gives way to the Bohemian countryside in the middle of summer. Bohemia is a festive world that's full of youthful spirit and possibility. This is where Florizel's and Perdita's young love blossoms and just about anything seems possible, especially during the colorful sheep-shearing festival. When most of the Bohemian cast travels to Sicily in Act 5, the cold Sicilian landscape is dramatically altered. The joyful reunification of families and friends and the miraculous "resurrection" of Hermione inject the play with love, warmth, and the spirit of forgiveness.

Theme - Jealousy

The first three acts of The Winter's Tale are a study of jealousy and its destructive effects. In the play, Leontes's sudden and unfounded fear that his pregnant wife is sleeping with his best friend eats away at him like a disease. Leontes's wild jealousy is often compared to that of Othello. Both men unfairly suspect their wives of infidelity and their violent responses destroy their families and upset the political balance. The differences, however, are significant. Unlike Othello, Leontes convinces himself of his wife's "affair" all by himself - there's no Iago figure whispering in his ear and goading him along. (If anything, Leontes is his own Iago.) More importantly, Leontes's abuse of his family is not entirely permanent, unlike Othello's. After repenting and suffering for sixteen long years, Leontes is reunited with his wife and long-lost daughter, which puts a redemptive spin on The Winter's Tale, whereas Othello is just plain tragic. Throughout the play, Shakespeare portrays Leontes's jealousy as an infectious "disease" in order to highlight the destructive nature of jealousy. Leontes sudden onset of jealousy is the result of the king's belief that most women are promiscuous liars and that a man can never really know if he's the biological father of his children (there being no such thing as DNA testing in the play and all).

Tone

The first three acts, set in the Sicilian court, are dark and claustrophobic. This is mostly the result of Leontes's jealousy and tyranny, which pretty much dominates the first half of the play. Of course, this is no big surprise, given that King Leontes throws his wife in prison, plots the death of his best friend, throws his infant daughter away, and basically causes the premature death of his young son. The play's tone shifts dramatically as the setting shifts to Bohemia (sixteen years in the future), where the summer sheep-shearing festival is underway and the love between Perdita and Florizel blossoms. The festive mood briefly darkens when Polixenes threatens the young couple's happiness but the heavy mood begins to lift almost as soon as the Bohemian cast makes its way over to the Sicilian court (where Leontes and his kingdom have been suffering for sixteen years). After the revelation of Perdita's true identity and the miraculous "resurrection" of Hermione, the atmosphere turns joyous, as family and friends are reunited and the promise of marriage looms in the future.

Symbol - The Glass Unicorn

The glass unicorn in Laura's collection—significantly, her favorite figure—represents her peculiarity. As Jim points out, unicorns are "extinct" in modern times and are lonesome as a result of being different from other horses. Laura too is unusual, lonely, and ill-adapted to existence in the world in which she lives. The fate of the unicorn is also a smaller-scale version of Laura's fate in Scene Seven. When Jim dances with and then kisses Laura, the unicorn's horn breaks off, and it becomes just another horse. Jim's advances endow Laura with a new normalcy, making her seem more like just another girl, but the violence with which this normalcy is thrust upon her means that Laura cannot become normal without somehow shattering. Eventually, Laura gives Jim the unicorn as a "souvenir." Without its horn, the unicorn is more appropriate for him than for her, and the broken figurine represents all that he has taken from her and destroyed in her.

Theme - Abandonment

The male characters in the play all abandon Amanda and Laura. The father, whom we never see, has abandoned the family: he worked for the telephone company and "fell in love with long distances." The traumatic effect of this abandonment on Amanda, and Amanda's resulting fear about her own helplessness, is clear in her relentless quest for Laura to gain business skills and then to marry. Jim's abandonment of Laura forms the play's dramatic climax: the Wingfield's (not to mention the audience) hope against hope that somehow he will stay, though there is always the sense that he cannot, even before the glass unicorn shatters. Tom, meanwhile, spends the entire play in tension between his love for his mother and sister and his desire to pursue his own future, thus abandoning his family. Yet, at the same time, Tom has in some sense already abandoned Amanda and Laura before the play has even begun, since the entire play is actually his memory of the past. But does Tom really abandon his family? Even though he leaves them physically, the fact that he remembers them through the act of creating the play indicates that he has never entirely left, that in leaving them he paradoxically became closer to them, more deeply connected to them. He left them, but in the play he also immortalizes them, transforms Amanda and Laura into a kind of glass menagerie of his own. "Oh Laura, Laura," he says at the play's end, "I tried to leave you behind, but I am more faithful than I intended to be!" Abandonment as a Motif: The plot of The Glass Menagerie is structured around a series of abandonments. Mr. Wingfield's desertion of his family determines their life situation; Jim's desertion of Laura is the center of the play's dramatic action; Tom's abandonment of his family gives him the distance that allows him to shape their story into a narrative. Each of these acts of desertion proves devastating for those left behind. At the same time, each of them is portrayed as the necessary condition for, and a natural result of, inevitable progress. In particular, each is strongly associated with the march of technological progress and the achievements of the modern world. Mr. Wingfield, who works for the telephone company, leaves his family because he "fell in love with [the] long distances" that the telephone brings into people's consciousness. It is impossible to imagine that Jim, who puts his faith in the future of radio and television, would tie himself to the sealed, static world of Laura. Tom sees his departure as essential to the pursuit of "adventure," his taste for which is whetted by the movies he attends nightly. Only Amanda and Laura, who are devoted to archaic values and old memories, will presumably never assume the role of abandoner and are doomed to be repeatedly abandoned.

Motif - Incest and Incestuous Desire

The motif of incest runs throughout the play and is frequently alluded to by Hamlet and the ghost, most obviously in conversations about Gertrude and Claudius, the former brother-in-law and sister-in-law who are now married. A subtle motif of incestuous desire can be found in the relationship of Laertes and Ophelia, as Laertes sometimes speaks to his sister in suggestively sexual terms and, at her funeral, leaps into her grave to hold her in his arms. However, the strongest overtones of incestuous desire arise in the relationship of Hamlet and Gertrude, in Hamlet's fixation on Gertrude's sex life with Claudius and his preoccupation with her in general.

Antagonist

The novel's antagonist is the oppressive regime of the Republic of Gilead. The Gileadean state denies Offred's personhood, treating her instead as a "national resource" (Chapter 12). The novel draws on the tools used by real, historical totalitarian regimes to deny personhood to their citizens. Gileadean law determines what Offred must do, who she must sleep with, where she must live, who she can talk to, even what she must wear. However, the novel also suggests that these tools are used in contemporary life in the United States, albeit in a milder form, to deny women full personhood. Offred remembers being restricted in the past—that is, in the late 20th century—by fear of sexual assault and the obligation to wear women's clothes. In this sense, the novel's true antagonist is the political domination of women by men in general. The Handmaid's Tale suggests that gender norms in our own society are not as far removed from Gileadean totalitarianism as we might like to think. On the contrary, the novel argues that contemporary gender norms are a mild form of Gilead's totalitarianism.

"I descended the steps of this fire escape for a last time and followed, from then on, in my father's footsteps, attempting to find in motion what was lost in space. . . . I would have stopped, but I was pursued by something. . . . I pass the lighted window of a shop where perfume is sold. The window is filled with pieces of colored glass, tiny transparent bottles in delicate colors, like bits of a shattered rainbow. Then all at once my sister touches my shoulder. I turn around and look into her eyes. Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be!"

The play closes with this speech by Tom, at the end of Scene Seven. Here, Tom speaks as the narrator, from some point in time years after the action of the play. He describes how he leaves Amanda and Laura after being fired from his job and embarks on the life of the wanderer, just as his father did years ago. This escape is what Tom dreams of aloud in Scene Four, and it is Tom's chosen means of pursuing the "adventure" that he discusses with Amanda in Scene Four and Jim in Scene Six. From Tom's vague description of his fate after leaving home, it is unclear whether he has found adventure or not. What is clear is that his escape is an imperfect, incomplete one. Memories of Laura chase him wherever he goes, and those memories prove as confining as the Wingfield apartment. Tom's statement that "I am more faithful than I intended to be!" indicates that Tom is fully aware that deserting his family was a faithless and morally reprehensible act, and the guilt associated with it may have something to do with his inability to leave Laura fully behind. But the word "faithful" also has strong associations with the language of lovers. A number of critics have suggested that Tom's character is influenced by an incestuous desire for Laura. The language used in this sentence and the hold that Laura maintains over Tom's memory help to support this theory.

Protagonist

The protagonist of Hamlet is Hamlet. When we meet him, Hamlet in a state of internal crisis. He feels depressed, disgusted by his mother's remarriage, and angry that his uncle has usurped Denmark's throne. Under these conditions, the Ghost seems to offer Hamlet exactly what he needs: an excuse to punish his mother and assassinate his uncle, thereby avenging his father. However, Hamlet cannot bring himself to act. He struggles internally with whether or not to kill Claudius. He wonders whether he has enough motivation to commit murder, and whether he can justify murder in the first place. He also questions the authenticity of the Ghost's story. Hamlet's internal struggle deepens as the play goes on, leading Elsinore into increasing turmoil. For instance, his disgust with his mother grows into full-blown misogyny, which contributes to Ophelia's psychological torment and eventually to her death. By the end of the play, Hamlet poses a threat to the Danish crown, which forces the king to plot Hamlet's assassination. The plot goes awry, resulting not only in Hamlet's death, but also in the deaths of nearly every major character in the play and the end of the royal family's rule over Denmark. Throughout the play Hamlet largely remains mysterious to the play's other characters. Claudius, Gertrude, Polonius, Horatio, and others continuously try and fail to understand Hamlet's state of mind. One reason Hamlet's so mysterious is that he spends so much time alone, talking to himself. This means that few other characters have direct access to his thoughts. But another reason Hamlet remains so mysterious relates to the way he deliberately obscures his thoughts when conversing with others. Hamlet frequently talks circles around other characters, intentionally making himself difficult to understand. In Act Two, scene ii, for instance, Hamlet feigns madness and convinces Polonius that he's lost his mind. But the joke's on Polonius, since Hamlet's seemingly senseless speech actually does make sense—it's just designed to go over Polonius's head, allowing Hamlet to make fun of the old man without him knowing. Here and elsewhere in the play, Hamlet feigns madness in order to manipulate others. In the process he succeeds in keeping his real thoughts to himself. And the more Hamlet keeps to himself, the more anxiety he causes in Elsinore. Hence, Hamlet's deliberate obscurity makes a significant contribution to the play's downward spiral into chaos.

Protagonist

The protagonist of The Handmaid's Tale is the narrator, Offred. Her goal is simply to preserve her identity as a person, in the face of an oppressive regime which sees her as a walking uterus, a "national resource" (Chapter 12). Because Offred's goal is internal and psychological, much of the action of the novel is internal, too. External events happen—Ofglen reveals she is a member of Mayday; the Commander asks Offred to break the rules—but the real conflict arises in Offred's head as she struggles to preserve her identity in the midst of the novel's events. For Offred, simply describing her daily experience is a triumph. The moments when she is overwhelmed by fear of what might happen to her are defeats. Ultimately, Offred is rescued from her situation almost by chance. What's more important is that when rescue comes, she has managed to preserve her sense of who she is. The evidence is the novel itself, her spoken account of her life, her identity, and the memories she holds dear.

Symbol - The Handmaid's Red Habits

The red color of the costumes worn by the Handmaids symbolizes fertility, which is the caste's primary function. Red suggests the blood of the menstrual cycle and of childbirth. At the same time, however, red is also a traditional marker of sexual sin, hearkening back to the scarlet letter worn by the adulterous Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne's tale of Puritan ideology. While the Handmaids' reproductive role supposedly finds its justification in the Bible, in some sense they commit adultery by having sex with their Commanders, who are married men. The wives, who often call the Handmaids sluts, feel the pain of this sanctioned adultery. The Handmaids' red garments, then, also symbolize the ambiguous sinfulness of the Handmaids' position in Gilead.

Symbol - Hermione's Statue

The statue of Hermione is one of the most controversial issues in the play. By the time Paulina invites everyone to see Hermione's life-like statue in the play's final act, Hermione has been presumed dead for the past sixteen years. (Remember, Paulina announces that she's died of a broken heart back at 3.2.3). This is why everyone (especially Leontes and Perdita) is so shocked to see that an artist has created such a realistic and stunning statue. (The artists even seem to have taken into account how Hermione would have aged over the years.) Everyone is even more shocked and amazed when Paulina calls for some dramatic music and says "Tis time. Descend. Be stone no more" (5.3.11) and Hermione (who is very much alive) steps down from the pedestal and gives Leontes a hug. Clearly, this is a pretty dramatic and moving scene, for the characters and the audience. The problem is this: it's not entirely clear if Hermione is somehow brought back from the dead, or if she's been alive the whole time. Some critics argue that Hermione is magically and miraculously resurrected when her long lost daughter (Perdita) returns to her. Others argue that Paulina just hid Hermione away for sixteen years so that 1) Leontes wouldn't hurt her and 2) she could teach Leontes a lesson. There's enough evidence in the play to argue either way. So, what do you think? Is this magic, or is it just Paulina's parlor trick?

Style

The style of The Handmaid's Tale is introspective and nonlinear, weaving together narratives from Offred's past and present. Throughout the novel, Offred detaches from her present environment and recalls past events—such as her marriage to Luke and her time at the Red Center—while admitting that she constructs her descriptions from memory since she has no way to write anything down. Offred describes her world in detailed, multi-clause sentences. During the Ceremony, while the Commander is "****ing," Offred describes the bedroom in detail even though she cannot see it: "What I would see, if I were to open my eyes, would be[...]only the canopy, which manages to suggest at one and the same time, by the gauziness of its fabric and its heavy downward curve, both ethereality and matter." This intricate, autobiographical revelation suggests that, for Offred, finding beauty and meaning wherever she can is a survival tactic, and even a form of resistance. She explains that she includes repetitive descriptions to impose some control on a story in which she is otherwise helpless: "I've tried to put some good things in as well. Flowers, for instance."

Tone

The tone of The Handmaid's Tale is dark and bleak. Within the ruthless, totalitarian state of Gilead, the characters—especially women—have lost their freedom and lead miserable lives. Offred and the other Handmaids are routinely abused, with their personhood entirely stripped away as they become possessions of their assigned households and are forced to participate in institutionalized rape. As fear permeates Gilead, Offred constantly lives in paranoia, imagining worst-case scenarios, such as Oflgen lying about May Day and Luke being imprisoned or dead. Her thoughts sometimes border on the macabre in their bluntness, such as when she considers saving a match for future use: "I could burn the house down. Such a fine thought, it makes me shiver." At times, the tone of The Handmaid's Tale turns nostalgic for the world before Gilead. Despite the pain of revisiting the past, Offred finds refuge in her memories. On a walk through Gilead, she remembers strolling with Luke on the same streets and talking about their future house and the swings they would build for their future children. Now, "such freedom...seems almost weightless." Besides reminiscing on how she used to spend her time, Offred also longs for the former relationship she had with her body. She used to view her body as "an implement for the accomplishment of my will," but now sees it as an object abused by others. These elegiac musings combine with Offred's dark descriptions of the brutal present to create a truly bleak tone.

"LAURA: Little articles of [glass], they're ornaments mostly! Most of them are little animals made out of glass, the tiniest little animals in the world. Mother calls them a glass menagerie! Here's an example of one, if you'd like to see it! . . . Oh, be careful—if you breathe, it breaks! . . . You see how the light shines through him? JIM: It sure does shine! LAURA: I shouldn't be partial, but he is my favorite one. JIM: What kind of a thing is this one supposed to be? LAURA: Haven't you noticed the single horn on his forehead? JIM: A unicorn, huh? —aren't they extinct in the modern world? LAURA: I know! JIM: Poor little fellow, he must feel sort of lonesome."

This exchange occurs in Scene Seven, after Jim's warmth has enabled Laura to overcome her shyness in his presence and introduce him to the collection of glass animals that is her most prized possession. By this point in the play, we are well aware that the glass menagerie is a symbol for Laura herself. Here, she warns him about the ease with which the glass figurines might be broken and shows him the wonderful visions produced when they are held up to the right sort of light. In doing so, she is essentially describing herself: exquisitely delicate but glowing under the right circumstances. The glass unicorn, Laura's favorite figurine, symbolizes her even more specifically. The unicorn is different from ordinary horses, just as Laura is different from other people. In fact, the unicorn is so unusual a creature that Jim at first has trouble recognizing it. Unicorns are "extinct in the modern world," and similarly, Laura is ill-adapted for survival in the world in which she lives. The loneliness that Jim identifies in the lone unicorn is the same loneliness to which Laura has resigned herself and from which Jim has the potential to save her.

"JIM: Aw, aw, aw. Is it broken? LAURA: Now it is just like all the other horses. JIM: It's lost its— LAURA: Horn! It doesn't matter. . . . [smiling] I'll just imagine he had an operation. The horn was removed to make him feel less—freakish!"

This exchange, also from Scene Seven, occurs not long after the previous one. After persuading Laura to dance with him, Jim accidentally bumps the table on which the glass unicorn rests, breaking the horn off of the figurine. Apparently, Laura's warning to him about the delicacy of the glass objects reflects a very reasonable caution, but Jim fails to take the warning seriously enough. The accident with the unicorn foreshadows his mishandling of Laura, as he soon breaks her heart by announcing that he is engaged. Just as Jim's clumsy advances make Laura seem and feel like an ordinary girl, his clumsy dancing turns her beloved unicorn into an ordinary horse. For the time being, Laura is optimistic about the change, claiming that the unicorn should be happy to feel like less of a misfit, just as she herself is temporarily happy because Jim's interest in her makes her feel like less of an outcast. Laura and the glass unicorn have similar fragility, however, and Laura, perhaps knowingly, predicts her own fate when she implies that no matter how careful Jim might be, her hopes will end up shattered.

"Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportion'd thought his act. Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel; But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware Of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in, Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee. Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice: Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment. Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy: For the apparel oft proclaims the man; And they in France of the best rank and station Are most select and generous chief in that. Neither a borrower nor a lender be: For loan oft loses both itself and friend; And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. This above all,—to thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man."

This famous bit of fatherly advice is spoken by Polonius to Laertes shortly before Laertes leaves for France, in Act I, scene iii (59-80). Polonius, who is bidding Laertes farewell, gives him this list of instructions about how to behave before he sends him on his way. His advice amounts to a list of clichés. Keep your thoughts to yourself; do not act rashly; treat people with familiarity but not excessively so; hold on to old friends and be slow to trust new friends; avoid fighting but fight boldly if it is unavoidable; be a good listener; accept criticism but do not be judgmental; maintain a proper appearance; do not borrow or lend money; and be true to yourself. This long list of quite normal fatherly advice emphasizes the regularity of Laertes' family life compared to Hamlet's, as well as contributing a somewhat stereotypical father-son encounter in the play's exploration of family relationships. It seems to indicate that Polonius loves his son, though that idea is complicated later in the play when he sends Reynaldo to spy on him.

"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark"

This line is spoken by Marcellus in Act I, scene iv (67), as he and Horatio debate whether or not to follow Hamlet and the ghost into the dark night. The line refers both to the idea that the ghost is an ominous omen for Denmark and to the larger theme of the connection between the moral legitimacy of a ruler and the health of the state as a whole. The ghost is a visible symptom of the rottenness of Denmark created by Claudius's crime.

"I used to think of my body as an instrument, of pleasure, or a means of transportation, or an implement for the accomplishment of my will . . . Now the flesh arranges itself differently. I'm a cloud, congealed around a central object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real than I am and glows red within its translucent wrapping."

This passage is from Chapter 13, when Offred sits in the bath, naked, and contrasts the way she used to think about her body to the way she thinks about it now. Before, her body was an instrument, an extension of her self; now, her self no longer matters, and her body is only important because of its "central object," her womb, which can bear a child. Offred's musings show that she has internalized Gilead's attitude toward women, which treats them not as individuals but as objects important only for the children that they can bear. Women's wombs are a "national resource," the state insists, using language that dehumanizes women and reduces them to, as Offred puts it, "a cloud, congealed around a central object, which is hard and more real than I am."

"Ordinary, said Aunt Lydia, is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary."

This quotation is from the end of Chapter 6. Offred and Ofglen are standing by the Wall, looking at the bodies of people who have been hanged by Gilead. The sight horrifies Offred, but she strains to push aside her repugnance and substitute an emotional "blankness." As she represses her natural revulsion, she remembers Aunt Lydia's words about how life in Gilead will "become ordinary." Aunt Lydia's statement reflects the power of a totalitarian state like Gilead to transform a natural human response such as revulsion at an execution into "blankness," to transform horror into normalcy. Aunt Lydia's words suggest that Gilead succeeds not by making people believe that its ways are right, but by making people forget what a different world could be like. Torture and tyranny become accepted because they are "what you are used to."

"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! How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of this world! Fie on't! O fie! 'tis an unweeded garden, That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature Possess it merely. That it should come to this! But two months dead!—nay, not so much, not two: So excellent a king; that was, to this, Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother, That he might not beteem the winds of heaven Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth! Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him As if increase of appetite had grown By what it fed on: and yet, within a month,— Let me not think on't,—Frailty, thy name is woman!— A little month; or ere those shoes were old With which she followed my poor father's body Like Niobe, all tears;—why she, even she,— O God! a beast that wants discourse of reason, Would have mourn'd longer,—married with mine uncle, My father's brother; but no more like my father Than I to Hercules: within a month; Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears Had left the flushing in her galled eyes, She married:— O, most wicked speed, to post With such dexterity to incestuous sheets! It is not, nor it cannot come to good; But break my heart,—for I must hold my tongue."

This quotation, Hamlet's first important soliloquy, occurs in Act I, scene ii (129-158). Hamlet speaks these lines after enduring the unpleasant scene at Claudius and Gertrude's court, then being asked by his mother and stepfather not to return to his studies at Wittenberg but to remain in Denmark, presumably against his wishes. Here, Hamlet thinks for the first time about suicide (desiring his flesh to "melt," and wishing that God had not made "self-slaughter" a sin), saying that the world is "weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable." In other words, suicide seems like a desirable alternative to life in a painful world, but Hamlet feels that the option of suicide is closed to him because it is forbidden by religion. Hamlet then goes on to describe the causes of his pain, specifically his intense disgust at his mother's marriage to Claudius. He describes the haste of their marriage, noting that the shoes his mother wore to his father's funeral were not worn out before her marriage to Claudius. He compares Claudius to his father (his father was "so excellent a king" while Claudius is a bestial "satyr"). As he runs through his description of their marriage, he touches upon the important motifs of misogyny, crying, "Frailty, thy name is woman"; incest, commenting that his mother moved "[w]ith such dexterity to incestuous sheets"; and the ominous omen the marriage represents for Denmark, that "[i]t is not nor it cannot come to good." Each of these motifs recurs throughout the play.

"The problem wasn't only with the women, he says. The main problem was with the men. There was nothing for them anymore . . . I'm not talking about sex, he says. That was part of it, the sex was too easy . . . You know what they were complaining about the most? Inability to feel. Men were turning off on sex, even. They were turning off on marriage. Do they feel now? I say. Yes, he says, looking at me. They do."

This quotation, from the end of Chapter 32, recounts the Commander's attempt to explain to Offred the reasons behind the foundation of Gilead. His comments are ambiguous, perhaps deliberately so, but they are the closest thing to a justification for the horror of Gilead that any character offers. He suggests that feminism and the sexual revolution left men without a purpose in life. With their former roles as women's protectors taken away, and with women suddenly behaving as equals, men were set adrift. At the same time, changing sexual mores meant that sex became so easy to obtain that it lost meaning, creating what the Commander calls an "inability to feel." By making themselves soldiers, providers, and caretakers of society again, men have meaning restored to their lives. This sounds almost noble, except that in order to give meaning to men's lives, both men and women have lost all freedom. The benefits of the new world are not worth the cost in human misery.

"I would like to believe this is a story I'm telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance."

This quotation, from the end of Chapter 7, reflects the connection between Offred's story, her readers, her lost family, and her inner state. These words suggest that Offred is not recounting events from afar, looking back on an earlier period in her life. Rather, she is describing the horror of Gilead as she experiences it from day to day. For Offred, the act of telling her story becomes a rebellion against her society. Gilead seeks to silence women, but Offred speaks out, even if it is only to an imaginary reader, to Luke, or to God. Gilead denies women control over their own lives, but Offred's creation of a story gives her, as she puts it, "control over the ending." Most important, Offred's creation of a narrative gives her hope for the future, a sense that "there will be an ending . . . and real life will come after it." She can hope that someone will hear her story, or that she will tell it to Luke someday. Offred has found the only avenue of rebellion available in her totalitarian society: she denies Gilead control over her inner life.

"Well, in the South we had so many servants. Gone, gone, gone. All vestige of gracious living! Gone completely! I wasn't prepared for what the future brought me. All of my gentlemen callers were sons of planters and so of course I assumed that I would be married to one and raise my family on a large piece of land with plenty of servants. But man proposes—and woman accepts the proposal! To vary that old, old saying a bit—I married no planter! I married a man who worked for the telephone company! . . . A telephone man who—fell in love with long-distance!"

This quote is drawn from Scene Six, as Amanda subjects Jim, who has just arrived at the Wingfield apartment for dinner, to the full force of her high-volume, girlish Southern charm. Within minutes of meeting him, Amanda introduces Jim to the broad arc of her life history: her much-lamented transition from pampered belle to deserted wife. As she does throughout the play, Amanda here equates her own downfall with that of a system of "gracious living" associated with the Old South, which contrasts starkly with the vulgarity and squalor of 1930s St. Louis. Naturally, Amanda's intense nostalgia for a bygone world may have something to do with the fact that neither she nor her children have managed to succeed in the more modern world in which they now live. Amanda's memories of her multitudinous "gentlemen callers" are responsible for the visit of Jim, whom Amanda sees as a comparable gentleman caller for Laura. Amanda's decision to tell Jim immediately about her gentlemen callers demonstrates the high hopes she has for his visit. Indeed, the speech quoted might be taken as rather tactless move—a sign that Amanda's social graces have a touch of hysterical thoughtlessness to them and that putting herself and her story at the center of attention is more important to her than creating a favorable atmosphere for Laura and Jim's meeting.

"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?—To die,—to sleep,— No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to,—'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die,—to sleep;— To sleep: perchance to dream:—ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? who would these fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death,— The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn No traveller returns,—puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; And enterprises of great pith and moment, With this regard, their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action."

This soliloquy, probably the most famous speech in the English language, is spoken by Hamlet in Act III, scene i (58-90). His most logical and powerful examination of the theme of the moral legitimacy of suicide in an unbearably painful world, it touches on several of the other important themes of the play. Hamlet poses the problem of whether to commit suicide as a logical question: "To be, or not to be," that is, to live or not to live. He then weighs the moral ramifications of living and dying. Is it nobler to suffer life, "[t]he slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," passively or to actively seek to end one's suffering? He compares death to sleep and thinks of the end to suffering, pain, and uncertainty it might bring, "[t]he heartache, and the thousand natural shocks / That flesh is heir to." Based on this metaphor, he decides that suicide is a desirable course of action, "a consummation / Devoutly to be wished." But, as the religious word "devoutly" signifies, there is more to the question, namely, what will happen in the afterlife. Hamlet immediately realizes as much, and he reconfigures his metaphor of sleep to include the possibility of dreaming; he says that the dreams that may come in the sleep of death are daunting, that they "must give us pause."

Symbol - Winter

We discuss this in "Setting," but it's worth mentioning here as well. The first half of The Winter's Tale is set in King Leontes's Sicilian court during the cold winter months. We know that it's winter, by the way, because Mamillius tells his mother "A sad tale's best for winter" (2.1.7) after she asks him for a story. The frigid season seems completely appropriate in a court where Leontes's cold-hearted behavior destroys his family and brings about the worst kind of suffering imaginable.

"Thou want'st a rough pash and the shoots that I have, To be full like me: yet they say we are Almost as like as eggs; women say so, That will say anything but were they false As o'er-dyed blacks, as wind, as waters, false As dice are to be wish'd by one that fixes No bourn 'twixt his and mine, yet were it true To say this boy were like me. (1.2.13)"

We discuss this passage in "Jealousy" but it's worth mentioning here also. As Leontes considers whether or not Mamillius looks like him (and whether or not he's actually Mamillius's biological father), he reveals a misogynist attitude toward women. According to Leontes, women "will say anything," meaning, women are all liars. It seems that Leontes's distrust of women can partially explain why he's so quick to suspect that the lovely and ever-faithful Hermione is cheating on him. It's also important to note that Leontes's obsessive fear that Mamillius (who looks exactly like him) may not be his biological son is a pretty common theme in Renaissance literature, especially Shakespeare's writing. Because Shakespeare's world was a patrilineal society (a man's wealth and titles always passed down to his eldest son), it was important for men to have legitimate heirs. The problem, as Leontes points out throughout the first Act, is that a man has no way of knowing for certain whether or not he's a child's biological father. (Something we often forget in an age of DNA testing.) This anxiety about paternity goes a long way to explain the kind of obsessive fears of cuckoldry (being cheated on by one's wife) we see throughout The Winter's Tale and Shakespeare's larger body of work.

Style

We're not going to sugar-coat it for you. The Winter's Tale has a reputation for its difficult language, which can be a bit off-putting until you get the hang of it. That's because most of the action takes place at court and, as we know, the nobility tends to speak in a way that's in keeping with their high social status (formal and decorous). Like Shakespeare's other plays, The Winter's Tale is written in a combination of verse (poetry) and prose (how we talk every day). (Note: The play Richard II is the one exception to this rule - it's the only Shakespeare play written entirely in verse.) Reading The Winter's Tale often feels like reading a very lengthy poem, and that's because Shakespeare's characters often speak in verse. What kind of verse do they speak? Well, the nobles typically speak in unrhymed iambic pentameter (also called "blank verse"). Don't let the fancy names intimidate you - it's really pretty simple once you get the hang of it. Let's start with a definition of iambic pentameter: An "iamb" is an unaccented syllable followed by an accented one. "Penta" means "five," and "meter" refers to a regular rhythmic pattern. So, putting it all together, iambic pentameter is a kind of rhythmic pattern that typically consists of five iambs per line. (Note: Shakespeare varies the line lengths so not all lines are "perfect" iambic pentameter.) It's the most common rhythm in English poetry and sounds like five heartbeats: da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM. Every second syllable is accented, so this is classic iambic pentameter. Since these lines have no rhyme scheme ("seek" and "commodity" don't rhyme), we call it unrhymed iambic pentameter, which is also known as blank verse. King Leontes speaks a lot of iambic pentameter, but you should keep an eye for how his speech breaks down and becomes erratic when he's ticked off at his wife and best friend. In Shakespeare's plays, characters on the lower end of the social ladder tend to speak in prose. Characters like the Clown, Mopsa, and Dorcas (the play's country bumpkins) don't talk in a special poetic rhythm; they just talk. For example, when Mopsa wants the Clown to buy her a present she says "Pray you now, buy it" (4.4.6). Pretty straightforward, don't you think? The thing about The Winter's Tale, however, is that even some of the noble characters speak in prose. When they do, the language tends to be formal and can be difficult (at first) to read. Here's an example from the play's opening lines: "They were trained together in their childhoods, and there rooted betwixt them then such an affection which cannot choose but branch now" (1.1.4). Translation: Leontes and Polixenes were raised together and became the best of friends, but live far apart now.

Theme - The Impossibility of Certainty

What separates Hamlet from other revenge plays (and maybe from every play written before it) is that the action we expect to see, particularly from Hamlet himself, is continually postponed while Hamlet tries to obtain more certain knowledge about what he is doing. This play poses many questions that other plays would simply take for granted. Can we have certain knowledge about ghosts? Is the ghost what it appears to be, or is it really a misleading fiend? Does the ghost have reliable knowledge about its own death, or is the ghost itself deluded? Moving to more earthly matters: How can we know for certain the facts about a crime that has no witnesses? Can Hamlet know the state of Claudius's soul by watching his behavior? If so, can he know the facts of what Claudius did by observing the state of his soul? Can Claudius (or the audience) know the state of Hamlet's mind by observing his behavior and listening to his speech? Can we know whether our actions will have the consequences we want them to have? Can we know anything about the afterlife? Many people have seen Hamlet as a play about indecisiveness, and thus about Hamlet's failure to act appropriately. It might be more interesting to consider that the play shows us how many uncertainties our lives are built upon, and how many unknown quantities are taken for granted when people act or when they evaluate one another's actions.

"Time I, that please some, try all, both joy and terror Of good and bad, that makes and unfolds error, Now take upon me, in the name of Time, To use my wings. Impute it not a crime To me or my swift passage, that I slide O'er sixteen years and leave the growth untried Of that wide gap, since it is in my power To o'erthrow law and in one self-born hour To plant and o'erwhelm custom. (4.1.1)"

When "Time," a winged figure with an hourglass appears on stage at the beginning of Act 4, he announces that time has fast-forwarded "sixteen years" into the future. In this way, Time is acting the part of a Chorus (kind of like a narrator). What's interesting about this passage is that Time asks the audience not to be critical of this dramatic technique ("impute it not a crime" that the play has skipped ahead sixteen years). Flash forwards were a big no-no on the English stage in Shakespeare's day because they disregarded the "classical unities" (of time, place, and action), a set of literary rules that said all plays should have the following features: 1) the action should take place within a 24 hour time span; 2) the action should take place in one geographical place/setting; 3) the play should have one main plot and no sub-plots. The Winter's Tale pretty clearly breaks all of these rules (as did many other Shakespeare plays). Check out more of Time's big speech below...

"Old sir, I know She prizes not such trifles as these are: The gifts she looks from me are pack'd and lock'd Up in my heart; which I have given already, But not deliver'd. O, hear me breathe my life Before this ancient sir, who, it should seem, Hath sometime loved! (4.4.9)"

When Florizel explains his love for Perdita to a disguised Polixenes, he emphasizes the difference in age between himself and the "ancient sir" that doesn't seem to understand young love. When Polixenes later objects to Florizel's union with Perdita, he sees it as a matter of social position - it's not fitting for a prince to marry a "shepherd's daughter." Here, however, we can see that Florizel chalks up the old man's attitude to the generation gap, as he implies that the old guy standing before him just doesn't get it.

Theme - Compassion and Forgiveness

While the first three acts of The Winter's Tale are marked by the pain and suffering caused by Leontes's jealousy, the latter half of the play is all about compassion, forgiveness, and redemption. Perdita's true identity is restored, the princess is reunited with her father and mother (who is seemingly "resurrected" from the dead), and Paulina gets engaged to Camillo. The play's joyous ending not only restores domestic and political order, but it offers an optimistic view of humanity. In The Winter's Tale, suffering and tyranny give way to compassion and forgiveness - Shakespeare's redemptive ending offers hope for the future and an optimistic view of humanity. Hermione's love for her daughter is responsible for her "miraculous" resurrection in the play's final act.

Hamlet

William Shakespeare

The Winter's Tale

William Shakespeare