Humor and Death Go Hand and Hand

Name Here

Prof.

Traditions in World Literature 2030W

29 May 2015

Humor and Death Go Hand and Hand

In William Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet Prince of Denmark, the gravediggers' scene is one place where seriousness interrelates with the element of comedy.  This scene not only serves as the comic relief point of the play, it also relates with other important themes of the play.  This scene is one of the longest of the play which is divided into several parts: the encounter between the two gravediggers, Hamlet’s discovering of Yorick’s skull, and Ophelia’s burial.  The main purposes served by this scene includes the comic relief, criticism of the organized religion, the emphasis on the theme of mortality which prefigure the final tragedy leading into Hamlet’s antic disposition and realism in the final scene. 

The gravediggers represent a humorous type commonly found in Shakespeare’s plays which pits the cunning commoner against his social superior by getting the better of him through his wittiness.  The gravediggers are represented by first Clown and second Clown in this version of Hamlet.  Usually, it is common to think of Clowns as figures of joy.  However, in this scene, the Clowns assume a somewhat ghastly tone, since their taunts and ridicule are all made in a cemetery among the bones of the dead.  The conversation between the two Clowns relate to an important theme in the play which is the question of the ethical justice of suicide under religious law.  By giving the subject of Ophelia’s death a ominously comedic interpretation, Shakespeare in essence, makes a weird parody of Hamlet’s earlier “To be, or not to be” soliloquy, indicating the downfall of every last value in the play into doubt and irrationality (Shakespeare 1846).

Hamlet’s confrontation with death is demonstrated primarily in his discovery of Yorick’s skull.  Yorick, is the dead court jester whom worked for Hamlet’s father.  His skull is exhumed by the Clowns in Act 5, Scene 1, of the play.  The sight of Yorick's skull conjures memories of Hamlet’s childhood as a happy time when his father was alive.  The monologue indicates this when Hamlet states:

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? (Shakesphere 1887, 1888)

The examination over death and human mortality is developed in this dialogue of the scene.  Hamlet’s obsession with the theme of mortality is apparent in his fixation with Yorick’s skull, when he envisions physical features such as lips and skin that have decomposed from the bone.

Besides the comic relief of this scene, there is something new offered to view analytically.  It is the denigration of the systematized religion viewed through the conversation between the Clowns.  Their conversation correspondingly develops a serious subject that the laws of religion and the government, are not same for all.  In simplistic terms, the first clown’s statements about the doubt of Ophelia’s death, portray that the persons of high rank or status should have in this world the right to drown or hang themselves, while their fellow Christians do not enjoy the same right.  This train of thought is supported when the first Clown states: “Why, there thou say’st: and the more pity that great folk/should have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves,/more than their even Christian” (Shakespeare 1884).  This part of the scene translates to the Clowns showing religion as unfair and influenced by appearance rather than the authenticity of someone’s humanity.