Horatio: Hamlet's Unsung Hero

Honesty is a hard thing to come by in William Shakespeare's Hamlet. The title character spends the majority of the play pretending to be insane, King Claudius tries to cover up his horrid act of fratricide, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern try to spy on Hamlet, and other characters, such as Polonius, are simply dishonest people. In the midst of all of this deception, however, there is one character who manages to provide the play with a voice of morality, reason, and sincerity: Hamlet's best friend Horatio. Without a doubt Horatio is the most, and probably only, honest character in the entire play. He stays true to Hamlet, unlike Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and, besides from going along with Hamlet's crazy act, does not engage in treacherous behavior.

The audience is first introduced to Horatio in the play's opening scene, in which he sees the Ghost of Hamlet's father. He quickly proves himself to be a highly rational being, a rarity amongst the play's cast of characters. When Hamlet meets with the Ghost, Horatio warns him not to go alone with it and that it "might deprive your sovereignty of reason and draw you into madness" (1.4.81-82). At the end of that scene, he counters Hamlet's increasing delusion with sensibility by calling the sacrilegious tête-à-tête "wondrous strange" (1.4.185). Horatio also displays his loyalty to Hamlet during this scene by swearing that he would not reveal the night's ghoulish happenings to another soul. This is important because this is a promise that he does not break, even as Hamlet pretends to be insane in front of the entire Danish court.

Horatio's honesty and sense of reason are often acknowledged by Hamlet himself. His monologue in Act 3, Scene 2 reveals how much he values Horatio's character traits: "blessed are those whose blood and judgment are so well commeddled that they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger" (3.2.73-75). Clearly Hamlet prizes these traits because they are not ones that he strongly possesses, especially during the stressful times in which he finds himself. Thusly, Horatio acts throughout the play as both its moral voice and Hamlet's confidant. Oftentimes Horatio's dialog lends an air of truth and credibility to whatever Hamlet is saying. For example, the audience can be sure that the Ghost is not merely a figment of Hamlet's imagination because Horatio is there to witness it as well. Of course, Hamlet is not the only character in the play that holds Horatio in so high esteem; in first scene of Act I Marcellus and Barnardo call upon him to assess the validity of their Ghost-sightings. Therefore they too rely and believe in Horatio's immense sincerity and rationality to give weight to their allegations.

In many ways, Horatio's passive role in the play is what allows him to be so thoroughly honest and good. He also does not let his emotions take control, as Hamlet often does. He does not act as "passion's slave", but as a voice free of bias and sentiment. Not only is he fair and earnest, he is also one of the few characters in the play to stay totally honest with Hamlet. Even as his childhood friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern do Claudius' evil bidding, Horatio remains true. He does not reveal Hamlet's false madness as that pair does, nor does he break his oath to keep their meeting with the Ghost a secret. Horatio's honesty is never once called into question, and the fact that multiple characters trust in him only proves that he is the one character in the play with utter and solid integrity. Despite being a minor character, Horatio manages to be both instrumental to the audience's understanding of the play and Hamlet's actions. By the end of it all, he not only proves his honesty to Hamlet but to the audience as well.