Hamlet is acknowledged as one of the greatest stories ever written. I have seen the movie version several times and read most of the play by Shakespeare. Recently I watched the excellent Mel Gibson film again, and suddenly I saw the real story for the first time. I had read a long commentary by many critics of the play. Not one of them comprehended the moral meaning of the story. No one mentioned the word "revenge."

The story is this . . .
Hamlet's father-King is murdered with poison administered in his ear, by his brother who marries Hamlet's mother only two months afterward. He then takes over the throne of Denmark. No one in the kingdom suspects that it was a murder.

Then the dead king appears as a ghost (seeming to rise from hell) to tell Hamlet how his death occurred and demands that Hamlet take revenge for his murder.

Hamlet is filled with horror and grief. But he now has the dilemma of whether to avenge the death. The famous "to be or not to be" speech is actually Hamlet's agony of choice. The evil he has discovered is an unbearable continuing presence in his world and he longs to escape by suicide but not knowing what lies on the other side of death he is too afraid to kill himself. So he is left with a major decision. Will he let the whole thing just be, doing nothing about it or shall he take the revenge the "ghost" demands? To be or not to be, that really is the question but it could be better stated this way, "to be or not to be . . . God." Revenge plays God and takes the sword out of His Hand.

All of us will ask the question and ALL of us will
make the choice whether "to be embittered or not to be."

Agony of choice. This is a near madness for Hamlet. Torn by the death of his beloved father, horror at his mother's infatuation with her new husband, he behaves irrationally - as a mad man - but will not tell anyone the secret of his predicament.

Revenge is just such a burning torment. It is rage capable of murder. Filled with the passion of reckless acts, it sweeps the guilty but also the innocent into its maelstrom. His lust for vengeance damages everyone in Hamlet's path, everyone.

Hamlet's fury is turned on the woman he loves, his fiance. He deliberately tortures and mocks her. She is utterly bewildered, believing that she is his problem. Ophelia, the innocent, bears all the scorn Hamlet would have loved to pour on his mother and his vile step father. Ophelia is forced to enter and bear the anguish of Hamlet's hatred. Retaliation consumes him and even his loves are turned into hatred by bitterness. In that strange irony of bitterness, Hamlet punishes most, the one he loves the most, the one who loves him and who deserves it least. Malice always seeks out the most vulnerable to satisfy a thirst for violence.

As Hamlet sets out to kill his stepfather, along the way these were the deaths as a direct result of his revenge:

Two friends are executed in England by Hamlet's arrangement.
Ophelia's father is killed by Hamlet.
Ophelia, driven mad by it all, takes her own life by drowning.
The only one not killed by the sword or poison,
but drowned by bewildered grief . . . .

Her brother challenges Hamlet to a duel and puts deadly poison on his sword so that even the slightest cut will kill Hamlet.

By the events of that duel,
the queen-mother dies from poison intended for Hamlet,
Ophelia's brother (by his own poison),
the evil king, forced to drink his own poison,
and at last . . . Hamlet himself dies,
by a mere scratch from the poisoned sword.

Revenge is deadly poison, and in the end, the one who takes up the sword of revenge will drink his own poison and die by his meddling hand.
Revenge is death to the avenger . . . not only the offender,
an ironic suicide of potential.

Eight people are swept into untimely deaths for the cause of Hamlet's revenge, six of whom are not only innocent but also ignorant of the evil murder.

In the end Hamlet was far more evil than his stepfather, eight times the murderer his enemy was. In his mania of revenge he destroyed everyone he loved - from friends and fiance to mother - and finally, even himself.

Bitterness is a madness - yes - but it is a bloodletting violence,
taking the innocent down with it.

I personally believe that the "ghost"represents Satan appearing always in disguise, ever whispering in the dark, inciting rage, building a legal case against the guilty - sometimes with fact, sometimes falsehood. Demanding that we be the arbiter of justice because there is none through God's absence, arguing strongly for us to take matters into our own hands. The subtle inference - old as Eden - "God isn't doing anything about it and doesn't love you enough to care."
To be or not to be . . . God!

Hamlet! A frighteningly real picture of revenge . . . and very true to life.

There were three choices for Hamlet. To die himself, to simply let it be or to kill. He did not consider another alternative, the only solution of peace: his own soul-death. Dying in trust of God by giving up his

rights, rage and power.
"Leave it all with God."
 

Had Joseph used the sword of vengeance, he would have never ruled over Egypt's riches. Had Daniel chosen revenge he would have ended early on as lion-food.

Beloved, revenge is not mine. Nor yours. It belongs to God.

 
Rom. 12:19 NAS Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, " says the Lord.

Deut. 32:35 NAS 'Vengeance is Mine, and retribution. In due time their foot will slip; For the day of their calamity is near, and the impending things are hastening upon them.'

Heb. 10:30 NAS For we know Him who said, "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay. " And again, "The Lord will judge His people."

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Copyright © 2001 Martha Blaney Kilpatrick