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Hamlet. Act 5 Scene 1 Aditya, Ahmad, Affan (sick). Creates Humour. In this scene, during the conversation between the gravedigger and clown, the gravedigger creates humour by mixing up his legal terminology and later attempts to make jokes with the clown. Proof of Mixing Legal Terminology.
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Hamlet Act 5 Scene 1 Aditya, Ahmad, Affan (sick)
Creates Humour • In this scene, during the conversation between the gravedigger and clown, the gravedigger creates humour by mixing up his legal terminology and later attempts to make jokes with the clown
Proof of Mixing Legal Terminology • “Give me leave. Here lies the water. Good. Here stands the man. Good. If the man go to this water and drown himself, it is, will he nill he, he goes. Mark you that. But if the water come to him and drown him, he drowns not himself. Argal, he that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.”
Proof of Joke Gravedigger: What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter? Clown: The gallows-maker, for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.
Analysis • The first quotation is said by the gravedigger as he attempts to explain to the clown the difference between suicide and murder. In this quotation, the gravedigger is saying that if a man jumps into a lake and drowns himself, then that is suicide but if the water jumps up and grabs the man, he is innocent of his own death. The second quotation is about the gravedigger and clown attempting to make jokes to pass the time. As we have learned from previous years in English, Shakespeare uses poorer people (lower on the caste system) in his plays to create humour. In Shakespeare’s time the poorer people were not as well educated and therefore their misunderstanding of legal terms would be funny to the audience. Therefore, by using the lower class people’s lack of education Shakespeare creates humour at the beginning of the scene.
Reveals the Nature of an Important Character • In this scene Shakespeare uses the clown and gravedigger to reveal the nature of an important character.
Proof • “It must be se offendendo. It cannot be else. For here lies the point: if I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act. And an act hath three branches—it is to act, to do, to perform. Argal, she drowned herself wittingly.” • “Sounds more like “self-offense,” if you ask me. What I’m saying is, if she knew she was drowning herself, then that’s an act. An act has three sides to it: to do, to act, and to perform. Therefore she must have known she was drowning herself.”
Analysis • When the clown says, “to act it has to have three parts” it connects to Hamlet and how he knows he has to do take revenge for his father’s death on the new king. When the clown says “to act” it is showing how Hamlet has not acted upon the promise he made to his father. When the clown says “to perform the act” it shows that Hamlet has not acted upon his words.
Demonstrates Conflict • Alongside mourning Ophelia’s death, this scene also depicts conflict in terms of person vs. person. Both Laertes and Hamlet are present at her funeral and begin exchanging words and art about to engage in battle, but are stopped by Claudius.
Proof • When both Laertes and Hamlet are ready to fight, Laertes states, “The devil take thy soul!”
Analysis • The interaction between Hamlet and Laertes demonstrates conflict because both characters feel that Ophelia was there possession. Laertes loves her as an overprotective brother while Hamlet was intimate with her. Laertes proves to be an obstacle in Hamlet’s way in terms of him killing Claudius, while Hamlet is disdained by Laertes due to the fact that he had murdered his father and was the indirect cause of his sister’s suicide. Overall, this confrontation between these two characters results in conflict in the play and leads to the cause of both characters’ deaths.
