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Claudius and Laertes set
Hamlet has spent the whole play debating whether to avenge his father’s death and/or to commit suicide, and the finale effectively enables him to perform both acts. What’s unclear, though, is the degree to which Hamlet’s final acts are intentional. For instance, when Hamlet agrees to the match, he suspects there’s a plot against him, but it isn’t clear what he expects to get out of the fight. Does he simply hope to die and put an end to his misery? Likewise, it isn’t clear whether Hamlet gets any satisfaction from finally killing Claudius. When he strikes the fatal blow Hamlet calls his uncle “incestuous” (V.ii.), which suggests a preoccupation with Claudius’s marriage to Gertrude rather than his murder of King Hamlet. These ambiguities leave it unclear what psychological state Hamlet is in when he perishes.
The play’s ending also has important political implications. One of
In the meantime, the turmoil in Elsinore incrementally weakens Denmark’s ruling family. The transition from the late King Hamlet to his brother Claudius has already put Denmark in a vulnerable position. And as Hamlet descends into madness, he not only defaults on his former promise as a statesman, but he also puts the family’s political lineage in jeopardy. The infighting at Elsinore grows, eventually spiraling into the deadly violence of Act Five.
The conditions are therefore perfect when, in the play’s final moments, Prince Fortinbras makes a surprise attack on the castle. With everyone in the Danish royal family dead, Fortinbras achieves an easy victory. In the end, then, the moral corruption of the Danish royal family places Denmark in the hands of a foreign invader.
