Different Interpretations

While I listened to this podcast I realized I had been to quick to judge Hamlet. Since I had first heard about the play I heard Hamlet was coward who was crazy and did not have the guts to make any decision. As I read it and analyzed the class discussions, I kept feeding this idea. Never the less, there was something that kept bothering me because deep inside I wanted to defend Hamlet but I just did not find how. However, while listening to the prisoners talk about the play I realized there is so much more to Hamlet we do not understand. 

The convicts made me realize there are so many ways of interpreting Hamlet and the rest of the characters for that matter. There wasn’t only one correct interpretation. I understood that it is the way in which you relate to the character that you understand him one way or another. For example I had never thought the ghost could be so influential to someone but it clearly was was for that prisoner who had killed a person. When I heard that story I started to comprehend why I had felt sympathy for Hamlet.

His father, who was basically his role model, had been murdered by his own brother. His mother, who was supposed to feel Hamlets pity and to be by his side, had betrayed him and his father and married his uncle. Being in Hamlet’s place, I would also become mad. I would be unable to make the decision whether to kill my uncle or not just like him.  I have been taught other wise. Like Hamlet, I was taught to be good and not to kill so I don’t think it is a bad thing he was unable to make the decision.

Unlike me, the prisoner who described himself as the Blue Whale, thought the complete opposite of Hamlet. He thought he was a coward who couldn’t make up his mind and who wasn’t able to avenge his father’s death. For him it was an easy choice; kill him with out thinking about it twice. This is the perspective of a man who had shot another person thirteen years ago.

I believe this is one of the greatest things of Shakespeare; he was able to write in a way that everyone, from the most educated to the least educated could relate to his characters. It was a way for the prisoners to escape their reality and to feel like they were a part of something. They were willing to be checked naked in order to be part of the play. They chose the characters depending on their experiences and where able to transform and leave behind that prisoner image.  Each of them was able to interpret the characters according to their beliefs and experiences and the good thing is there wasn’t a correct way.