Getting Into Character

As I listened to this radio show from This American Life, I realized how well it could connect to an analysis I read by Northrop Frye. The former spoke about the contrast between judging from actions and judging from character, having in mind Hamlet and Claudius. The radio show gave a glimpse of a prison production of Hamlet. What made the prison production so credible and real was the relationship the actors felt with their character. James Ward was asked if the reason he could play laertes so well was because so much of Laertes was inside of him, to which he replied, " I am Laertes, I am. I am." There was a direct relationship between the personal guilt of the actors and the guilt their characters were conveying.The prisoner who played King Hamlet even confessed that as he read the lines,  he was "the body up there" but the words were mostly coming from the man he killed, William Pride.  Here I found a similarity between the essay's thesis and the prisoners. Each prisoner, as well as Claudius, "is someone of great potential fatally blocked by something he has done and can never undo." Northrop speaks of the common assumption that what you've done is what you'll ever be. But this generalization is not shared by most prisoners. They see themselves as people who reached the lowest point of their life, and now only wish to come out of it and see how high they can get. They want to reach their full potential but feel their bad deeds are keeping them from reaching their maximum. They want defy the common generalization, seeking to be judged for their character, not for their actions. 

Hamlet as a Dionysian man

According to Friedrich Nietzsche, Hamelet resembles the Dionysian man. Both gain knowledge, but refuse to take action, "for their action could not change anything in the eternal nature of things." (Nietzsche, 39) The contrary, the Apolonian man, would "take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing them end them." (Hamlet, 3:1:67-68) I do not agree with Nietsche that Hamlet represents the Dionysian man. When Hamlet is told the truth about his father's death, that it was his uncle who killed him and now is marrying his mother, he turns against his uncle. This shows how he, as the Apolonian man, strives to "set right a world that is out of joint." (Nietsche, 39) Here, in a desperate seek for revenge, Hamlet finds a motive for his actions. Even though Hamlet realizes that "action could not change anything in the eternal nature of things", meaning his fathers death was something irreversible, he believes it is his destiny, the reason he was born. Therefore, if he gains knowledge and decides to take action, I would have to disagree with Nietsche's position that Hamlet is a Dionysian man.