Postmortem Reflections

1. Now finished with "Hamlet", I can enthusiastically say that my reading of it exceeded my expectations. I knew that I would be able to find much having to do with the individual and existentialism in virtue of the fact that the play centers on an individual character, and the play's most famous line is an existential inquiry. However, I never expected  to find so much material within the play that was compatible with the ideas of some of the existential writers that I have read. The most satisfying and mind-bending part of the experience was the evolution of my thought as I would find evidence that corroborated my thoughts on the play, and then would stumble upon lines that seemed to put a hole in my theory. In the end I was able to meet my expectation of formulating an idea of Shakespeare's attitude toward existentialism, but I surpassed my expectation in being able to tie this attitude into the play's tragedy, and view the deaths of the individuals as being related to the philosophy.
2. Some of the questions I asked myself throughout the play were: "is 'Hamlet' an existential play?", "how does Hamlet embody the attributes of an existential man?", "does Shakespeare seem to be a proponent of existentialism?", and "how do the tragic deaths of the play's characters relate to existentialism, if at all?" Ultimately, I concluded that Hamlet is aware of the existential nature of man, and recognizes the realities of the world from which individual sovereignty arises. However, at the conclusion of the play, Hamlet rejects existentialism, bowing to what he believes to be the inherent order of the world that has prescribed him a fixed fate. This eventually leads to Hamlet's demise, which led me to conclude that Shakespeare too recognized existentialism as being a credible philosophy, but unlike Hamlet did no reject it in favor of a more fatalistic outlook on life. The deaths of the play's characters brought on by misjudgements and misinterpretation of both events and the world around them warn readers of the menace of meaning and dogmatism. Shakespeare essentially tells the reader not to proceed as his characters have, and to maintain individual sovereignty. The realities of the universe cannot be ignored, and failure to recognize them will result in downfall.