Sin and Pride in Hamlet

The sins of the characters in Shakespeare's Hamlet are many and varied, and can be examined from various viewpoints. From a Christian standpoint, almost every character in the play can be condemned for his or her actions. Taken into a Muslim context, the theme of revenge can be justified, and even praised. Perhaps one of the most interesting ways to consider Hamlet is through the eyes of Dante, a major influence on Shakespeare. Through Dante's work, Hamlet's crimes can be neatly filed into categories and considered rationally. In this way, it can be seen that although Hamlet's worst crime is murder, his most significant failing lies in his excessive pride.

Shakespeare, whose poetry was influenced by Dante (though not to the degree that Chaucer's was) may or may not have accepted Dante's moral code and used it in his writings. The waters surrounding Shakespeare are highly muddied, and little can be known for truth. However, without a firm knowledge of how Shakespeare intended his characters to be judged, one must decide for oneself. Through various value systems, conclusions can be reached about Hamlet and his companions that touch both ends of the spectrum, and virtually everywhere in between. It is only logical to consider the crimes of Hamlet as they fall into Dante's Divine Comedy, knowing that it played such a part in the formation of the master who became known as William Shakespeare.

At the death of Hamlet's father, his uncle, Claudius, becomes king. Hamlet is heartbroken at the loss of his father, and, as he says, "I have that within which passes show - / these but the trappings and suits of woe." (I, ii, ln85-86) Hamlet is so distraught over his father's murder that he feels it cannot be expressed. Then, when the ghost appears to him, it claims to be his father and entreats him to get revenge "if thou didst ever thy dear father love - " (I, iv, ln23). Hamlet, in his weakened state, cannot resist this plea. He does not struggle long with his emotions before deciding to do as the ghost requests.

One of the most pervasive emotions in the play is Hamlet's hatred of Claudius. This anger, fueled by the ghost of Hamlet's father (or the entity claiming to be Hamlet's father), is what leads Hamlet to contemplate killing his own uncle. Hamlet suspects Claudius of killing his father, and he also is angry that Claudius married his mother so soon after his father's death. Hamlet loathes Claudius so much that at one point he refrains from killing him. Strange as this may seem, Hamlet holds back because Claudius is praying, and Hamlet believes that death at that moment will cause Claudius to ascend to Heaven.

Hamlet not only wants to punish Claudius in life from his father's murder, he wants to punish him in death. He decides to wait to kill Claudius until he is acting in a way which will send him to Hell, so that "his heels may kick at heaven, / And that his soul may be as damned and black / As hell, whereto it goes." (III, iii, ln93-95) This, according to Christian tenet, is not a decision that is Hamlet's to make. However, according to Dante, Hamlet is quite correct. Prayer at the time of death would indeed redeem Claudius, placing him among the late repentant in purgatory. Claudius would then have to wait the length of his mortal life in ante-purgatory before beginning the slow assent into heaven.

Hamlet is also furious with his mother, Gertrude for marrying Claudius. Despite knowing that the ghost wishes him to "Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive / Against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven,"( I.v. ln85-86) Hamlet feels the need to cause Gertrude pain. This is demonstrated well in the scene in which Hamlet kills Polonius, when he pulls out a picture of his dead father, and one of Claudius, and compares the two in an attempt to make Gertrude see her sins. He entreats Gertrude to break things off with Claudius, and, ironically, to repent of her sins. Hamlet appears to be incapable of understanding Gertrude's lack of power. Because she cannot resist the marriage with her limited power, it is in her best interest to love Claudius, or to convince herself that she does.

The wrath that Hamlet feels against Claudius and his mother would, in the eyes of the modern American, be perfectly excusable as long as he did not act on that emotion. However, to Dante, though there is a distinction, the two are punished similarly. The wrathful and the sullen (those who act on their anger and those who repress it, respectively) jointly occupy the fifth circle of the Inferno. However, Hamlet's wrath lead to much greater sins, which disqualify him for this placement.

The most obvious of Hamlet's sins, and the one for which Dante would have us punish him most severely, is the death of Polonius. Though Hamlet didn't intend to specifically kill Polonius, he did intend to kill Claudius, whom he believed was behind the curtain. His only response to this grave error is to call Polonius a "wretched, rash, intruding fool." Though Hamlet doesn't realize this, those words sum up his character rather more accurately than that of Polonius. This rash action on Hamlet's part places him firmly in the seventh circle of Hell, with the murderers.

Also in the seventh circle of Dante's Inferno are the suicides. Interestingly enough, though Hamlet considers suicide in perhaps the most famous soliloquy in English literature, he decides against it. Hamlet says that suicide would be the clear choice, if it were not for "the dread of something after death" (III,i, ln78). He fears "what dreams may come"(III,i, ln66) in the eternal sleep of death. Hamlet then goes on to say that "thus conscience does make cowards of us all," (III,i, ln83) implying that without the fear of retribution in the afterlife, humans would not strive nearly as hard to be a good person and do what is right as they do.

Conscience does not, apparently, make a coward of Ophelia, who drowns herself because of her father's death and the harsh treatment given to her by Hamlet. Or perhaps, if it does make her a coward, as one would suspect, this fear is overwhelmed by anguish. Ophelia would be found either in the seventh circle of hell (along with Hamlet, interestingly) for her suicide, or perhaps, more gently, among the Lustful in Circle Two.

This area of hell is reserved for those whose major flaw was throwing themselves to fully into a romantic relationship, whether physically or emotionally. Hamlet, and Ophelia's love for him, do contribute to her death, greatly. Torn between pain over her father's death and love for a man who has treated her badly, Ophelia feels she cannot go on. Though placing Ophelia with the lost lovers is the gentler approach, and similar to the attitude of Ophelia's family after her death, it is unlikely that Dante would have been so forgiving.

Hamlet, throughout the play, refuses to take responsibility for his own actions. He ascribes his actions to madness, grief, and to inability to escape the plans of others. Though he frequently seems to feel some degree of remorse for his actions and unkind words, he never truly repents. He fails to realize that by not taking responsibility for his actions, he is only wronging himself. As the play progresses, Hamlet descends further into "madness" and behaves more and more irrationally. He dies "ill at heart" but self-satisfied. Hamlet fails to realize that by asking forgiveness for his sins, as Claudius has done, he can be free of the poison in his heart, though not that in his blood.

Hamlet even, in his pride, argues that he feels emotion more strongly than others, saying when Ophelia dies that "Forty thousand brothers / could not with all their quantity of love / make up my sum." (V.i. ln241-243) Though Hamlet surely feels this to be the case, there is truly no way to compare strength of emotion, and he attacks Laertes unjustly. Hamlet and Laertes both seem willing to forget this, however, and Hamlet claims that "What I have done. . .I here proclaim was madness." (V. ii. Ln 204, 206) This is just another example of Hamlet refusing, through pride, to take responsibility for his own actions.

Despite its placement in Purgatory, pride is one of the sins that Dante Aligheri speaks most strongly against. This is also Hamlet's main fault. Due to his inability to overcome his pride, he ends up losing his life and the lives of all those who are close to him. And because Hamlet's pride was the reason for the murder he commits, I believe Hamlet would more accurately be placed in the first terrace of purgatory, with the prideful, than in the seventh circle of hell, with the murderers.

Works Cited

Aligheri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. trans. Ciardi. New York: Norton, 1977.