Act Two: “These Tedious Old Fools” Surveillance and Authority in Hamlet

1. Act Two: “These Tedious Old Fools”Surveillance and Authority in Hamlet • Act One The Man in Black and the Ghost First line of the play: “Who’s there?” Performance: “these indeed seem, /for they are actions that a man might play” (1.2.84) Whom can we trust? Are we being played? Who is Playing Who? – double speak and doubling of parts. Can Hamlet trust his mother and Claudius? Can Hamlet trust the Ghost? Is he “wicked or charitable?” Is he Hamlet? Hamlet swears to follow the Ghost’s commandment. Act Two: “These TediousOld Fools” Can we trust the “commandment” of our father-figures? (1.1.102) Is it right to be obedient to the “command” of our fathers? (2. 1.109) Can we trust our parents, friends and lovers? Are they true parents, friends and lovers if they playing us? Should true friends and lovers act on the command of the father-figures? Parenting and Authority involves both spying and lying. What is security if it involves the wholesale invasion of privacy? Is authority merely tedious or is it dangerous? How do you find out?

2. Act Two: “These Tedious Old Fools”The Father’s Authority in Hamlet Act One, Scene 5: The Ghost’s Demand If thou didst ever thy dear father love … revenge his foul and most unnatural murder ….Let not the royal bed of Denmark be A couch for luxury and damned incest …. Remember me. (1.5.23-91) Act One, Scene 5: Hamlet’s decisions: …..Remember thee? Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat in this distracted globe. Remember thee? Yea … thy commandment all alone shall live Within the book and volume of my brain … ‘Adieu, adieu, remember me’ I have sworn’t (1.5.97-113) Hamlet’s Decisions • To remember his father • Swears to follow his father’s commandment • Tells his companions he will put on “an antic disposition” • Makes them swear to say nothing of what they have seen or “aught of him” • Watch Kenneth Branagh on his directorial choices for his Ghost scene: http://youtu.be/DNF1MADUz2E

3. Act Two: The Father’s Authority -- Laertes and Polonius Act One, Sc 3: Polonius’s advice to Laertes This above all—to thine own self be true And it must follow, as the night follows the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man (1.3. 78-80) Act Two, Sc 1: Doesn’t follow it himself Polonius and Reynaldo: Spying and Lying Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth; And thus do we of wisdom and of reach, With windlasses and assays of bias, By indirections find directions out .(2.1. 62-65)

4. “These Tedious Old Fools”The Father’s Authority? Gives Sage Advice to Son. Doesn’t follow it himself.

5. What is the Price of Ophelia’s Obedience? • Act One: Polonius’s advice to Ophelia (1.3. 105-134) Marry I’ll teach you. Think yourself a baby That you have ta’en his tenders for true pay Which are not sterling. Tender yourself more dearly .... he is young and with larger tether may he walk Than may be given you. In few Ophelia, Do not believe his vows …. I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth Have you so slander any moment leisure As to give words or talk to the Lord Hamlet • Act Two: Polonius revokes his advice to Ophelia (2.1.108-119) Pol: What, have you give him any hard words of late? Oph: No my good lord, but as you did command I did repel his letters and denied His access to me P Pol: That hath made him mad. I am sorry that with better speed and judgment I had not quoted him. I feared he did but trifle And meant to wreck thee. But beshrew my jealousy! By heaven, it is as proper to our age To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions As it is common for the younger sort To lack discretion.

6. “These Tedious Old Fools”The Father’s Authority? Gives Sage Advice to Daughter. Doesn’t remember giving it.

7. Act Two, Scene TwoThe Elizabethan Surveillance Culture:Father Figures are Spying and Lying • Claudius and Gertru Claudius recruits Hamlet’s university friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spy on him: “the need we had to use you” (2.2.3) • Voltemand reports on Fortinbras’s “rebuke from Norway” (2.2.69) • Polonius reads Ophelia’s private love letter from Hamlet to the King “this, in obedience, hath my daughter showed me” (2.2.124) • Recruit Ophelia to use as pawn to spy on Hamlet At such a time I’ll loose my daughter to him Be you and I behind the arras then, Mark the encounter. (2.2162-4)

8. Act Two: Hamlet’s “Antic Disposition”Then I’ll be Playa, Playa “Hamlet’s transformation” (2.2.5) “You’re a fishmonger” (2.2.174) “let her not walk i’th’ sun (2.2.184) “Denmark’s a prison” (2.2.242)

9. Act Two: Hamlet’s Increasing Isolation My excellent good friends? Action Man? Hamlet to his friends: Were you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? It is a free visitation? Come, deal justly with me. (2.2.272-3) RSC 2009: David Tennant’s muscle shirt (Hercules) Act 1: “actions that a man might play” Act 2, Final soliloquy: “a rogue and peasant slave” “Am I a coward?”“pigeon-livered” “an ass” “a whore”

10. Taking Action: The Watcher & the Watched, Meta-theatricality The play’s the thing Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king (2.2.593-4)