The 7 Deadly Sins: Anger and Wrath in Shakespeare's "Hamlet"

The Wages of Sin in Hamlet

The wages of sin is death. So the Apostle Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, and thousands of years later Shakespeare would write on the same topic. The play Hamlet is not a story written for simple amusement, but is in fact a commentary on sinful human nature and its fatal consequences. Hamlet and those around him are sinners, and they pay the ultimate price for their evil. The story of the Danish prince mirrors the statement made by the Apostle Paul, and the tale ends in tragedy not because of destiny, confusion, or misunderstanding, but as a direct result of the cruel and wrathful choices made by characters in the play.

Before delving into the text (and subtext) of the bard's masterpiece, let us look at some of the biblical history behind Paul's claim. The book of Genesis begins with the creation of the earth, "And God saw that it was good." It is not long, however, before sin enters the garden. Adam and Eve disobey a direct commandment from God: they eat the forbidden fruit in spite of God's warning, "when you eat of it you will surely die." True to His word, God is forced to curse mankind with death: to this day, every person on earth is a condemned one, born onto death row. Thus it was Adam and Eve's rebellion, the very first act of human sin, which tore us from immortality and placed the curse of death upon us.

Another example of sin's consequence is seen in the famous story of Noah and the Ark. The wickedness of mankind has reached an unbearable high, and God is even said to have regretted ever creating them. They are given the same punishment as were Adam and Eve: the punishment that has, since the beginning of time, been the only possible recompense for sin. They are killed.

And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth -- (Genesis 6:5-7).

Again, man has rebelled; again, God has punished them. Empires rise and fall at the word of the Lord. Throughout the Bible we are given countless examples of the deadly consequences of disobedience, that there may be no confusion on God's law: The wages of sin is death.

Let us turn our attention now to Elsinore Castle, where Prince Hamlet has come to see his father's funeral. Before the curtain goes up in the first act, a deadly sin has already taken place, claiming its first victim. The king's brother, Claudius, has been consumed with envy for the monarch's crown and wife. Secretly he has stolen out into the garden where the king was resting, and murdered him in his sleep. This act of cruel jealousy will be the catalyst that makes the rest of the play possible, eventually bringing on the death of the entire royal family, including Claudius himself.

In Passus V of William Langdon's Piers Plowman, we see a confession by the personage of Envy. He is described as being "swollen up with rage and resentment," and "every word he uttered was like a viper spitting poison" (45). This should call to mind the metaphor used by the ghost in Hamlet, when telling the story of his murder:

'˜Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,

A serpent stung me. So the whole ear of Denmark

Is by a forged process of my death

Rankly abused. But know, thou noble youth,

The serpent that did sting thy father's life

Now wears his crown. (I.v.35-39).

The resentful man '" the "viper" '" alluded to in Langdon's text is described by Shakespeare as a poisonous serpent. Langdon's villain goes on to say, "What I'd really love to see is this: for everyone to have to do just what I want!" (46). Claudius goes a step further than just wishing for power; he obtains it. Sneaking into the garden like a serpent, he dispatches his brother and wins his crown. Now no one can ever have more than him.

In the first act of the play we are given a very dark tone, and the stage is set for the anger and death that are to come. The opening scene takes place upon the castle wall at midnight; three men see what they believe to be the ghost of Hamlet's father, but when they address it, it vanishes without speaking to them. The men alert Prince Hamlet of what they saw, and he keeps watch with them the next night; the ghost returns and consents to speak with Hamlet. The spirit says that it is indeed his father, revealing Claudius' villainy and charging Hamlet with the following command: "If thou didst ever thy dear father love / Revenge his foul and unnatural murder" (I.v.23-25). We see that the play will not be a light tale with a happy ending: Hamlet is deeply moved by the ghost's speech, and swears in his passion, "thy commandment all alone shall live / Within the book and volume of my brain" (I.v.102-103). He will wipe entirely from his mind all that is not the ghost's command. He is given over to his rage: sold completely to the bloody task of revenge.

According to the Parson of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, anger and vengeance are one and the same. "The sin of Anger as described by Saint Augustine is the wicked desire to be avenged by word or deed" (539). Hamlet certainly desires vengeance by deed in his determination to take the life of Claudius. Chaucer reminds us that the wrathful man "desires harm to him whom he hates" (539), and the Danish prince desires nothing but the worst of harm for his uncle, whom he repeatedly insults and rails against.

It is unsurprising that the melancholy prince should be so willing to kill his uncle, who is now king of Denmark. The ghost's speech is enough to draw emotion from anyone, especially the son to a murdered father: but Hamlet's character seems specifically designed for the part he must play. Not only has he been cheated out of his ascension to the throne, but he is given to depression which, it has been suggested, is nothing more than self-directed anger. In medieval art, Wrath was often portrayed as a man stabbing himself: Wrath and suicide are intimately related, as the first brings on the destruction of others, and the second, destruction of the self. John Cassian said that because wrathful men sometimes "do not dare to or cannot bring it out in the open, they turn the poison of their wrath back to their own destruction, brooding over it in their hearts and in glum silence digesting it within themselves" (qtd. in Kleinberg 118). Geoffrey Chaucer shares a similar view, as he writes in his section on Wrath that all evil men share a single trait: "he who would injure another, first injures himself" (544). Prince Hamlet's latent anger has already injured his soul, as summed up in II.ii.3-4 when he admits, "I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth." All that remains is for it to break free of his person and harm others; and it will, before the play is out. In the proper circumstances, Prince Hamlet can be turned from a sarcastic but seemingly cheerful individual into a remorseless killing machine.

In spite of these facts, Hamlet is too smart, too careful, and too cruel to take his revenge recklessly. Fearing for his soul, he will not act until he is absolutely positive that his uncle committed the murder. According to Dante's Inferno, the ninth and final circle of Hell is reserved for those who plot and betray; one such man, mentioned in line 121 of Dante's thirty-second canto, is Ganelon. In his book 7 Deadly Sins: a very partial list, Aviad Kleinberg relates the tale of the traitor Ganelon and concludes that the worst of his evil was not his violence or his thirst for revenge, but the fact that he plotted (121-126). Acting out of rage can be understood, he says, but "calculation is not worthy of a hero." Shakespeare's protagonist falls into the same sin as Ganelon; rather than acting on his anger, he allows it to fester.

After Hamlet establishes the truth of the ghost's words, he heads straight to meet with Claudius, intending to kill him; but when Hamlet finds his uncle in prayer, he is unwilling to commit the deed, lest Claudius' soul leave his body only to ascend to God. Hamlet may have felt differently had he known that Claudius was merely demonstrating what Piers Plowman said about the slothful man: "And if I ever let out a prayer '" except in anger! '" what my tongue utters is miles from what I actually feel" (55). Yet fearing that Claudius is in the act of repentance, Hamlet says he will wait until the king is drunk, or swearing, or committing some other sin: then he will "trip" him, "that his heels may kick at heaven, / And that his soul may be as damned and black / As hell, whereto it goes" (93-95). Again Hamlet is plotting. We will not see many instances in this play of wrath being suppressed; the only thing able to hold Hamlet from his revenge is an even deeper hatred: a will that his uncle should burn in hell, rather than die with a clean soul.

Had Hamlet killed Claudius from the first, the play, although short, would have been far less disturbing. Our hero has turned down manslaughter in favor of premeditated murder. Chaucer shares the sentiments of Kleinberg on this topic. He asks us to remember that there are two different kinds of Wrath:

One is sudden or unexpected Anger with no consideration or consent of reason. This means that man's reason does not consent to sudden Anger and it is therefore venial. Another very wicked Anger comes from evil intent, premeditated at heart, with wicked will to do vengeance; to this his reason consents and it is therefore a mortal sin. (539)

His words, doubtless familiar to Shakespeare, describe perfectly Hamlet's condition. Chaucer even goes on to state that such a person brings delight to Lucifer (539). Hamlet's sin is no longer "venial," but "mortal."

While Hamlet agonizes over being forced to spare the king, if only for a short time, the queen is speaking with Polonius. A "wretched, rash, intruding fool," Polonius is a proud man, whose insolence and nosiness will be his downfall. Fond of using dramatic phrases, getting involved in other people's business, and giving advice to others as one who is far wiser than them, Polonius is not an evil character, but certainly neither is he one who is free from his share of sin.

In Act III Scene IV, Hamlet is filled with pent up anger. He has just come from sparing Claudius, and enters the queen's room meaning to rebuke her. Polonius has hidden himself behind a curtain, to witness the conversation. Hamlet immediately launches into a verbal attack on his mother, who panics and calls for help; Polonius, too, calls for help, and upon hearing the voice behind the curtain Hamlet shouts, "How now? A rat?" Thrusting his rapier through the fabric, the young prince claims his first victim of the play. Until this point, Hamlet's actions were justified: in his letter to the Ephesians Paul writes, "Be angry, and yet do not sin"; but Hamlet has crossed the line in moving from pent up rage to outward violence. He has demonstrated what Aviad Kleinberg wrote, that "Anger that is not released immediately will explode later with ten times the force" (115). After begrudgingly sparing the life of Claudius, Hamlet does not care about the murder of a relatively innocent man. Polonius, the notorious busy-body, has been slain in the act of spying, and Hamlet, having spent his wrath, shows little remorse for the deed.

If our hero had but known it, this single instance of unleashed fury will lead to his own destruction. Yet let us be patient in awaiting this outcome, for there is another character who will now fall into the trap of hatred, as a direct result of Hamlet's bloody deed. Laertes, son to Polonius, is in France when he receives word of his father's death. Just as Hamlet was called to avenge the fallen king, so Laertes vows to avenge Polonius: we see a beautiful parallel between the two young men, sons to murdered fathers, and now Laertes is possessed with that same demon which haunts Hamlet: wrath.

Unlike the Danish prince, Polonius' son is not someone who acts with caution. His return to Elsinore is marked with bloodshed and open rebellion against the king. Of Hamlet, Laertes says he will "cut his throat i[n] th' church!" His is rage in its truest sense. Where Hamlet began his work with cunning, Laertes begins his with violence. Where Hamlet insisted on proof of the ghost's word, Laertes starts by accusing the wrong man and attempting to kill him. "Anger," writes Aviad Kleinberg, "volcanic, uncalculating, unplotting anger, is irrepressible" (127).

Hamlet's anger, on the other hand, shows itself in brief explosions, as when he kills Polonius. At another point, Hamlet bursts into a rage while talking to Ophelia, accusing her of being unchaste, wishing her a "plague for [a] dowry," and telling her "I loved you not." His anger at her can be attributed to the fact that she broke up with him, his general anger at the world, or his mother's remarriage which spurred him to his famous quote, "Frailty, thy name is woman."

Yet another instance of Hamlet's instability is seen when he is talking to his childhood friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. He knows they are trying to manipulate him, and he turns from being perfectly cheerful to positively frightful in a matter of seconds. Mel Gibson's film portrays Hamlet first shouting at his friends and kicking their chairs, and later physically choking them. In the end, our hero grows weary of the "tedious old fools," and casually has them beheaded. (Had they been more concerned with Hamlet's welfare than with their own greed, perhaps they would have caused less trouble, and would still be with us today.)

In "The Parson's Tale," we are told that the wrathful have no respect for the holy places of God. "And when they treat irreverently the sacrament of the alter, that is a sin so great that it may hardly be remitted" (Chaucer 541). As shown earlier, neither Hamlet nor Laertes holds God in His proper honor. We have seen Hamlet threaten a man in prayer, only backing away in the hopes that his victim will not find mercy at the moment his death. Thus Hamlet has directly contrasted his will with that of the Almighty Lord. Also mentioned was Laertes, who speaks of cold-blooded murder in a house of God, which is answered with, "No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize; / Revenge should have no bounds" (IV.vii.27-28). Between them, Hamlet and Laertes have built a magnificent example of sinful wrath, shunning their Savior just as Chaucer predicted.

It is not until the first scene of the fifth act that we see Hamlet and Laertes physically pitted against one another. At the grave of Ophelia they exchange insults and then blows. At line 260 Laertes shouts "The devil take thy soul!" Hamlet, although wrathful at heart, has not turned the full brunt of his anger upon Laertes. His answer is to make the ironic remark that he is not a rash person, but then darkly warns, "[There's] in me something dangerous, / Which let thy wisdom fear." The combatants are then torn from each other, but had the prince been further provoked, there is little telling what results we may have seen; one possible outcome is borrowed from William Langdon's writing on Anger: "If the creatures had been carrying knives, they'd have done each other in there and then!" (47).

In Canto VIII of his Inferno, Dante Alighieri portrays the wrathful as wallowing malcontents, stuck in the sludge of the River Styx. They cannot get along even with each other, but spend their time lashing out at their companions. Now we shall see the bloody conclusion of this parallel between Hamlet and Laertes. It is arranged that the two should fight in a supposedly friendly duel. Shortly after beginning, however, Laertes stabs Hamlet with a poisoned blade. Hamlet is taken entirely by surprise, but immediately stabs back without question. He does not give Laertes the benefit of the doubt: the assumption that this was an accident. He doesn't even hesitate, but wrenches the sword from his opponent's hand and thrusts it into him. To quote Kleinberg's "Ira" (Wrath,) "Violence saves time; violence sends the clearest message" (119). Neither of Shakespeare's characters is going to sit down for an amiable chat; they are going to kill each other.

As the poison courses its way through the bleeding rivals, we see our protagonist and his foil canceling each other out: the vengeance of Laertes was the only thing that could kill Hamlet, and Hamlet's quick, uncompromising actions are what dispatch his enemy. Let us recall to mind the passage from Dante,

And shortly after, I saw the loathsome spirit

So mangled by a swarm of bloody wraiths

That to this day I praise and thank God for it.

"After Filippo Argenti!" all cried together.

The maddog Florentine wheeled at their cry

And bit himself for rage --

The poet is not describing a wrathful man's suffering at the hands of God, or at the hands of demons. The wrathful are depicted as fighting and attacking each other for all of eternity, and biting themselves in their rage. Ultimately, angry human souls do so much damage to themselves, and to each other, that divine justice is rendered quite unnecessary.

In his dying moments, Laertes does not attempt to justify what he has done. He passes some blame to Claudius, (whom the wounded Hamlet immediately dispatches,) but he makes public confession of his own guilt. "I am justly killed," he says, "with mine own treachery" (V.i.308). As for the king's death, Laertes says simply in line 328, "He is justly served." Although several characters throughout the play have sought redemption, or have seemed to seek improvement, Laertes is the only one who recognizes the inherent justice in his fate, and he dies with pleas for forgiveness on his lips.

The final scene of Hamlet shows four people killed, and a character brings word of two more; even those who briefly achieved what they were trying to were unable to keep it. Claudius murdered his brother for the crown. Hamlet hoped to avenge his father, as did Laertes his. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were ambitious, and would do anything to obtain the favor of the king. These characters all take actions to get what they want, yet because of their wickedness, none of them is given a "happily ever after." In the end, they are left with nothing but the wages of their sin.

Annotated Bibliography / Inspirations

Alighieri, Dante. The Inferno. Translated by John Ciardi. New York: Penguin Group '" New

American Library, 2001.

This text was useful to me in the way it portrayed the wrathful in the river Styx. Their

anger is their own punishment, and they cannot be friends even with each other.

Bible, the . Various translations.

The Bible gives multiple examples of sin and punishment, as well as advice against it.

Chaucer, Geoffrey. "The Parson's Tale" in The Canterbury Tales. Trans. Ronald L. Ecker and

Eugene J. Crook. Palatka, FL: Hodge & Braddock, 1993.

"The Parson's Tale" shows medieval representations of sin, expanding the reader's

knowledge of how the Seven Deadly Sins were viewed in the Middle Ages.

Hamlet . Dir. Franco Zeffirelli. Perf. Mel Gibson. 1990. DVD. Warner Bros. 2004.

Mel Gibson's Hamlet lashes out in anger at several points in the film.

Kleinberg, Aviad. 7 Deadly Sins: a very partial list. Susan Emanuel trans. Cambridge: Harvard

University Press '" Belknap Press, 2008.

The author describes wrath as an omnipresent force, and an irresistible urge. This

describes the reasons for characters to act as they do.

Langdon, William. Piers Plowman. Trans. A. V. C. Schmidt. Oxford: Oxford University Press,

1992.

This book gives valuable insight to medieval views on sin.

Scragg, Leah. "Source Study: dramatic conventions - revenge" in Stanley Wells, Lena Cowen

Orlin. Shakespeare: an Oxford guide. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Scragg draws a parallel between Hamlet and Laertes, the "avenging sons."

Shakespeare, William. Four Great Tragedies: newly revised edition. New York: Penguin Group

'" New American Library, 1998.

This book includes the stories of Macbeth and Othello, two famous Shakespearean characters whose deaths were caused by their faults: ambition, or pride, and jealousy.

Wells, Stanley, Lena Cowen Orlin. "Reading: Hamlet" in Shakespeare: an Oxford guide. New

York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

The authors include wonderful insight to the instability of Hamlet's personality, and mention the lasting popularity of this flawed Shakespearean character.

Woodbridge, Linda. "Tragedies" in Stanley Wells, Lena Cowen Orlin. Shakespeare: an Oxford

guide . New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Woodbridge writes about the cause of tragedies and the "tragic flaw," stating that we cannot blame circumstances for the bad choices of characters.