Junior Varsity English (Prep for AP, Humanities, and Big Time University): I and eye (self and seeing)

Friday, April 13, 2007

I and eye (self and seeing)

I and eye (self and seeing): 1.2.11, 1.2.71, 1.2.83, 1.2.160, 1.2.191-193, 1.2.213, 1.2.250, 1.2.280, 1.5.22, 2.1.110, 2.2.216, 2.2.314, 2.2.488, 2.2.543, 2.2.546, 2.2.582 & 593

4 comments:

Dan A. said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; April 24, 2007 at 5:31 PM
Dan A. said...: Dan Aloisio

1.2.187-193

HAMLET
Thrift, thrift, Horatio. The funeral baked meats
Did coldly furnish the marriage tables.
Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!
My father---methinks I see my father.
HORATIO
Where, my lord?
HAMLET In my mind’s eye, Horatio.

2.2.313-314

HAMLET, aside Nay then, I have an eye of you. ---If
you love me, hold not off.

In the earlier excerpt, Hamlet is still lamenting the all-too-hasty marriage between Claudius and Gertrude when he sees a vision of his father in his mind’s eye. When Horatio tells him that he came from Wittenberg to see the funeral, Hamlet sadly counters, saying that the purpose of his friend’s arrival was to see the wedding. Horatio comments on how the transition was quick, and Hamlet goes as far as to say that Claudius used the funeral’s leftovers for the wedding. Hamlet strengthens the hyperbole by stating that he would rather see his worst enemy after death than witness that incestuous union. This exchange is merely an extension of Hamlet’s first soliloquy, which occurred only 25 lines before. Suddenly, Hamlet thinks that he sees his father in his mind’s eye. This mental picture displays the interaction between I and eye (the self and seeing). Hamlet himself is the only one seeing his father (having an eye of him). In the context of the scene, this is likely symbolic of Hamlet’s belief that he is alone in his mourning of his father’s death. This is supported by his assertion that Horatio came for the wedding rather than the funeral. In this way, the motif reveals Hamlet’s loneliness in terms of thinking of his late father.
In the later scene, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have been sent by the King and Queen to spy on Hamlet in the hopes of discovering the source of his “madness.” Hamlet quickly discerns this ulterior motive for speaking with him. He confronts them about this mission, inquiring whether they were sent for or not. While they are speaking amongst themselves, he says to himself that he is sure of his discovery, and that he wishes for them to admit their subversion. They do so. This dialogue is related to the motif of I and eye. Like the previous example, Hamlet’s self is glimpsed by the object of his eye. Hamlet is exposed to be suspicious of the King and Queen’s actions and he uses the new openness between him and his friends to vent his depression (or continue his antic disposition). In a similar way as before, the self’s (the I’s) eye of an object shows more about the self. Also in both cases, the motif acts as an intermediary between Hamlet’s major thought changes.

Is Hamlet consistently the self, or can we see into another character by way of the object of his/ her eye? To what extent can one reveal oneself simply by one’s sight (eye)?; April 24, 2007 at 5:33 PM
Anonymous said...: 1.2.158-161 “Within a month, ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears has left the flushing in her galled eyes, she married.”

2.2.576-585 “Is it not monstrous that this player here, but in a fiction, in a dream of passion, could force his soul so to his own conceit that from her working all his visage wanned, tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect, a broken voice, and his while function suiting with forms to his conceit- and all for nothing! For Hecuba!

In the first quote, like the second one, Hamlet is speaking. This is a soliloquy, so Hamlet is talking to only himself. This soliloquy is on how sad and depressed Hamlet is and what is not right in his life right now. The part where the quote came from is talking about his mother, Queen Gertrude. His father, King Hamlet, has just died and now after a very short period his mother gets married to Hamlets Uncle. He does not think this is right and she should be grieving more then she did when his death occurred. It was within a month and Hamlet seems to be more mad at his mother for marrying then his Uncle. This may be because he had a tighter bond with his mother and now she seems to be slipping away from Hamlet and surprising him with this unsuspected marriage. This quotation gives insight about hamlets feeling of him mother and his life in general.
The second quote is also a soliloquy. Hamlet is the speaker in the soliloquy. While a group of actors is performing, Hamlet realizes that these actors are just expressing all this emotion when it is all made up and he cannot even take action when something horrible has happened. He gets angry with himself for just thinking and not acting on this event in his life. This makes him think of making a play reenacting the murder of the King and present it to his Uncle to catch his Uncle looking guilty. He cannot see why he cannot be like the actors on the stage showing emotion for fiction.
The biggest and most obvious reason these two quotations relate to the motif is the word eyes. Both quotations talk about some sort of irritation to the eyes, which include crying. The first quotation talks about how even though the Queens eyes where galled, she was able to get married. The actors’ eyes were teary because of his passion for acting, not for anything real, all fiction. This shows how Hamlet is prolonging the action of his father’s death and only thinking about it.

Question: Does Hamlet not act upon his father’s death because he is afraid of the unknown?; April 24, 2007 at 7:21 PM
Dan A. said...: Dan Aloisio
Motif Assignment # 2: I and eye (self and seeing)

(A)
3.4.67-91
HAMLET
“An eye like Mars, to threaten and command; /A station like the herald Mercury
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill; / A combination and a form indeed, / Where every god did seem to set his seal, / To give the world assurance of a man: / This was your husband. Look you now, what follows: / Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear, / Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes? / Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed, / And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes? / You cannot call it love; for at your age / The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble, / And waits upon the judgment: and what judgment / Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have, / Else could you not have motion; but sure, that sense / Is apoplex'd; for madness would not err, / Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd / But it reserved some quantity of choice, / To serve in such a difference. What devil was't / That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind? / Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight, / Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all, / Or but a sickly part of one true sense / Could not so mope.”

3.4.99-102
QUEEN
“O Hamlet, speak no more: / Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul; / And there I see such black and grained spots / As will not leave their tinct.”

4.3.1-7
CLAUDIUS
“I have sent to seek him, and to find the body. / How dangerous is it that this man goes loose! / Yet must not we put the strong law on him: / He's loved of the distracted multitude, / Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes; / And where tis so, the offender's scourge is weigh'd, / But never the offence.”

At the time of the first quotation, Hamlet is verbally attacking his mother for her marriage with Claudius. Hamlet has just killed Polonius, but the Ghost has not yet appeared. Again, Hamlet is comparing Claudius and his father, the “two brothers” of which he speaks. On one hand, King Hamlet is the ideal for strength and virtue, and Hamlet reveres him as god-like. He says that King Hamlet has an “eye like Mars, to threaten and command.” The motif comes into play in this comparison because Hamlet’s I (self) is revealed by the eye he mentions. He mentions King Hamlet’s eye as like the god of war, Mars, which shows that Hamlet sees his father as more than mortal, but as an ideal. There is no corporal description of King Hamlet, but instead Hamlet describes him as the source of all that is right and true. The concept of eyes comes into play again in this quotation when Hamlet asks if Gertrude has any, in reference to her marriage with Claudius. He is arguing that she had no reason for marrying Claudius, who is far inferior to King Hamlet. He states that sex could not be a reason, so she must have been tricked. The eyes of Gertrude are referred to as “Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,” meaning that her sight and her self are disconnected. She sees, but does not feel based on that sight, and she feels, but not based on that vision. Here, Hamlet is certainly able to notice these metaphorical eyes. In this way, the eyes of Gertrude reveal the self of Gertrude.
The second quotation occurs directly after the first. It is then, obviously, present in the scene where Hamlet is attacking Gertrude, after Polonius’ murder and before the Ghost. In this quotation, the basic concept behind Shakespeare’s use of the motif is displayed by Gertrude. She says that Hamlet turns her “eyes into my very soul,” which is exactly the relation between self and seeing. The eyes serve as the lens through which the audience may see a character’s self, or soul. In this specific instance, Gertrude seems to admit that she is wrong in her incestuous marriage with Claudius. After all, she sees “black and grained spots” that cannot be removed, meaning that she is regretful but beyond forgiveness.
Claudius delivers the final quotation, directed at Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Claudius is telling his two underlings of the reason that he cannot kill Hamlet. Hamlet is “loved of the distracted multitude,” meaning that the public would not see his murder favorably. Claudius shows his arrogance in assuming that the masses “like not in their judgment, but their eyes,” suggesting that they are without rationality. He also feels that they value the “offender’s scourge” rather than the “offense,” meaning that the hoi polloi is more concerned with the severity of the punishment than with the crime. In this context, the motif of I and eye is once again used to reveal more about a character. In this case, Claudius is revealed to be pompous by his view on the “eyes” of the public. Said differently, the self of Claudius (his I) is made known to the audience through his thoughts on the eyes of the public (his sight of the public). This revelation is also evidenced in Claudius’ skillful rhetoric and in his shrewd capture of the throne (as alluded to). Thus, this quotation and the others serve to show the purpose of the motif of I and eye, to reveal the self through the sight.

(B)
Question: Does Hamlet not act upon his father’s death because he is afraid of the unknown?

I feel that fear plays a role in Hamlet’s inaction, but is not the sole cause of it. As Hamlet says, “conscience does make us cowards of us all” and “the native hue of resolution / Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of though, / And enterprises of great pitch and moment / With this regard their currents turn awry / And lose the name of action.” Hamlet is fearful of the “The undiscovered country from whose bourn / No traveler returns,” the after-life. This makes him bear the ills that he has. However, more than fear, I believe misplaced anger lies at the heart of Hamlet’s inaction. Hamlet does not seem to want to kill Claudius as much as he wants to dominate the weaker people around him. Though he eventually succeeds in his avengement, he first kills Polonius. Polonius and Ophelia are the major targets of his harassment. Perhaps this is simply his way of conquering for no reason, like Fortinbras. Instead of conquering land by sacrificing lives, Hamlet is conquering Polonius and Ophelia by using witticisms and clever puns. He may want to be a conqueror, as was his father, the ideal of all that is good in the world. Thus, although fear contributed significantly, it was not the only reason that Hamlet delayed acting upon his father’s death.

(C)
3.4.67-891, 3.4.99-102, 3.4.133-141, 4.3.1-7, 4.4.1-7, 4.5.170-174, 4.5.177-179, 4.7.115-120, 5.2.295-298; May 9, 2007 at 4:08 PM