EXISTENCE- The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark

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Abstract

30th December 1916, at the height of world war 1, sitting in the trenches of the Western Front, struggling to keep warm in the cold winter, French soldier Marc Boasson wrote a letter home and part of it said, “ Life is a terrible burden, never has the baseness of human thought weighed on me so deeply. Life is an immense responsibility.” Marc Boasson and Shakespeare’s Hamlet are cut from the same cloth- they are at an existential crisis and they have to find the meaning of their lives, a terrible burden. Life as they put it has meaning and one is tasked to find it. I look into Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, to find more questions than answers.

Why do we live?

Do we live because we fear death?

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Do we compromise on living out of our fear of death? I would say this is the shallowest reason because it is primitive. Neuroscientist Paul MacLean birthed the Triune Model to explain the human brain. One of the three components he suggested is the reptilian brain. He says that it is the most primitive and perceives the world in black and white. There are only two states of being to it – good or bad, pain or pleasure, fight or flight. So in a bid to always be on a side, do most people chose life in fear of death? That is why in the play, the most famous line is by Hamlet which says, “To be or not to be.” Through Hamlet, Shakespeare expresses his own fear of death where he says, “For in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off the mortal coil.” Because, come to think of it, what if another reality existed, the ideal Utopia, for Kenyans it would be a world of party after party which has endless supply of Kenya Cane and Captain Morgan, would they not go there? Who would not want to escape the absurd taxation and heartbreaks and being sick and all that? I digress. But in my opinion, I think it is a fear that those pleasures do not exist in death. Hamlet says, “Who could fardels bear to sweat and grunt under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death. The undiscovered country whose bourn no traveler returns. Puzzles the will and makes us rather bear those ills we have than to flee to other that we know not of?” A popular saying among people when choosing is ‘better the devil you know than the angel you don’t know.’ Others go ahead to define life as a state of death denial. In entertainment joints, revelers gulp down litres of alcohol while shouting YOLO (You only live once) fearing that after dying they won’t enjoy those things. So do we live and do things out of fear of death?

Do we live for nothing at all?

Take for instance, you pick up your phone and you hop on to the trending news on Twitter. You think of a comment and after some time you come up with a brilliant comment. What is the probability that your comment will make a meaningful impact and have reasonable responses? Out of over four hundred and fifty million users of Twitter, if you do the math, your guess is as good as mine. If you proceed further, the significance of your opinion out of a world population of over seven billion people is very worrying. Out of anguish, Hamlet says, “How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world.”

In the Tragedy of Macbeth, Macbeth makes a hilarious comment when he realized the kingdom was slipping away from his hands. He says, “All is but toys.” But is it so? I think that everyone has an impact on humanity, however big or small it doesn’t matter. Or don’t they say that it is not the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog? In one way or another, everyone means something to someone. In Greek mythology, even Hades could not condemn Sisyphus to do nothing. Sisyphus was condemned to roll a huge rock up a hill only for it to roll back down every time he neared the top. However absurd, we don’t live for nothing. So what do you live for?

Do we live for a purpose?

“To be or not to be- that is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing them, to end them.” Hamlet. Reading Shakespeare is like reading poetry throughout. But from Hamlet’s monologue above, it is clear that we live for something, either as protagonists or antagonists. This is what some would call the duality of life, the Igbo of Nigeria encapsulate it in a proverb that says where one thing stands another will stand beside it. Chinua Achebe describes how he found out that he wanted to write his renowned novel, Things Fall Apart, which plunged him into the spotlight of the literary scene. In the book, There was a country, he says, “... the story had to come from within me. Finding that inner creative spark required introspection, deep personal scrutiny and connection and this was not something anybody could really teach me.” So after existing for a while, Achebe indicates that he had the responsibility of finding out what was meant for him within him. Some call it passion. This now begs the question, is our purpose predetermined or is it something we chose for ourselves?

Is purpose predetermined?

In the play, the Player King says, “Purpose is but the slave to memory, of violent birth but poor validity which now the fruit unripe, stick on the tree but fall unshaken when they mellow be. Most necessary ‘tis that we forget to pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt, what to ourselves in passion we propose. The passion ending doth the purpose lose.” Some say that we are born with a calling to do something thus leading to the point that our work was already predestined before our existence. After our existence, life gives us a responsibility to find its meaning which directs us to our purpose. Hamlet says, “Give me that man that is not passion’s slave.” In the beginning of the book of Jeremiah in the Bible, God tells Jeremiah that He knew him before he was born and Jeremiah had been set apart to be a prophet to the nations. Shakespeare acknowledges this thought as Hamlet says, “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends.” Finding true purpose comes with a sense of fulfillment. Purpose will bend every situation to ensure that you get to it. A Rwandan proverb says you can outdistance that which is running after you but not that which is within you. So is purpose predetermined?

Do we chose our own purpose?

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Existentialists argue that we do live for a purpose and man gives it to himself. Jean Satre says that existence precedes essence. Essence being purpose. The standpoint of their argument is that there is no reality without action. But the question is how did great inventors such as Nikola Tesla come up with inventions from nowhere? Realities can exist without physically seeing them. Those who profess existentialism rely on trial and error. Their hands are cast on every stone to see what is hiding beneath in an attempt to find purpose. However, this is a direct route of losing oneself and in the end, you create something horrendous beyond your control. Victor Frankenstein in the book Frankenstein is a perfect example of people who rely on trial and error. He made a monster through unorthodox scientific principles. Finding purpose requires deep introspection.

Existence is complex, finding the reason to live is even more harder. Introspection is key. So why do you live?

Max is a writer, poet, an overthinker, a law student; basically a lover of a huge chunk of this borrowed time(life) to write and explore uncharted waters.