In the beginning Hamlet says that his mother has married his uncle just two months after his father's death. Then throughout the play he keeps shortening the time, and in the end he has them marrying within a week of his father's death (I think).
I'd assumed that it was two months before the couple married, but then I suddenly realized: what if Hamlet was shortening the time between the death and marriage even at the beginning of the play? Might his uncle and mother have waited a decent amount of time before marrying? Or at least, longer than two months?
What do you think? I haven't gone back to look through the text so there may be something to blow this idea out of the water, but I wanted to put it out there.
2 comments:
No, I think it's entirely plausible. Hamlet seems to have been shortening the time in his own paranoid, brooding mind so who's to say that the "two month" comment was in fact accurate? He was probably already well on his way into craziness at that point.
Or not. I think it depends on the interpretation.
The show I saw of it last weekend (a live performance! so cool!!!) started out with Hamlet depressed and then he descended into insanity...which even that is debatable, whether he was insane or still sane. I favor that he did go insane.
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