Hamlet and a Man for All Seasons, Essay Example

Abstract

Shakespeare created secondary characters mainly to contemplate and strike the cord of reality in his plays. These characters were usually black and white and acted either as friend or foes. Though these characters had been minor in content and not developed beyond the role of character foil- yet their importance is undying and relevant. Shakespeare often used these secondary mechanisms to narrate and explore the innateness of his plays and ultimately evolve the soliloquy through their pertinent eyes and philosophy. Often they are attributed the gesture of invoking self realization and conscious ploy within the realm of the protagonists. Horatio and Ophelia are two such characters in Hamlet while Common Man and Margaret More, who are important and equivocal in their antidote of being the source of good and evil, honesty and lies, and reality and illusion.

Hamlet and a Man of All Seasons

Hamlet, composed circa 1600, is Shakespeare’s most popular tragedy among critics as well as on stage and screen. The play has been the subject of more scholarly investigation than any work of Western literature. Its well-known story involves the murder of Hamlet, King of Denmark, by his brother Claudius, who then not only assumes the throne but also marries his brother’s widow, Queen Gertrude. Young Prince Hamlet is visited by his father’s ghost, who demands that his son avenge his murder, but Hamlet is riddled with indecision and paralyzed into inaction. When Claudius, in order to prevent Hamlet from revealing the truth about the old King’s death, tries to have Hamlet killed, and the result is that all three–Claudius, Gertrude, and Hamlet –are poisoned and the Danish throne is taken over by Fortinbras, the ruler of Norway.

In A Man for All Seasons, Robert Bolt explains the story of Sir Thomas More’ and his martyrdom at the hands of King Henry VIII.  More unlike many of his contemporaries, considered the king’s oath a serious contract, and refused to acknowledge and relent to take the oath because he disagreed with the whims of the King. For More, to take an false oath would perjure his soul.

Horatio: In Hamlet, we find Horatio as an important secondary character. He is Hamlet’s close friend, who had studied with the prince at the university in Wittenberg. Horatio is helpful and loyal to Hamlet throughout the play. After the death of Hamlet, Horatio remains alive to tell Hamlet’s story. Horatio has a minor role in the play and the critics agree that his role is developed to serve a purpose (Warley, 2006, p.24). However, Horatio serves two important purposes, which are central to the drama, and it is through these relevant purposes we can best ascertain those qualities that make Horatio memorable in our studies.

Horatio’s first purpose is that he is the harbinger of truth. It is through Horatio that the actions of Hamlet and other characters receive credibility. He is the external observer and it is his conversation with Hamlet that ground the play in reality. Horatio presence was potent to prove Hamlet’s sanity, which would otherwise be in doubt. Moreover, he was the one to interpret the countenance with the ghost that there was something wrong going on in Denmark. “There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave/ To tell us this.” (1.5. 53-54).  The second role of Horatio was the role of a true confident of Hamlet. It is his conversations with Hamlet that gives an insight of what was going on in the mind of Hamlet. “Horatio, thou art e’en as just a man / As e’er my conversation coped withal” (3.2.53-54) claims Hamlet. Throughout the play, Horatio seems “just”: he is fair, equitable, and reasonable.

Ophelia, the daughter of Polonius, was a beautiful young woman with whom Hamlet has been in love. She is portrayed as a sweet and innocent young girl, as William Hazlitt wrote:
“Ophelia is a character almost too exquisitely touching to be dwelt upon. Oh rose of May, oh flower too soon faded!”  (OP Papers, nd). Shakespeare presents Ophelia as a victim subjugated by Hamlet’s curiosity and fear. “He took me by the wrist, and held me hard (2.1.84)”. Again she was a ploy in her father’s severity and poignant and fundamental indifference to her, being brutally treated and abused all throughout, only to drive her in the pursuit of insanity. In spite of the weakness and vulnerability, she plays a very important role, being the closest to the protagonist.  We are often led to believe that with strength personified and feminist charisma she could have avoided the tragedy of Hamlet.

For most critics of Shakespeare, Ophelia has been a significant minor character in the play, showing her weakness and insanity but chiefly interesting, of course, in how she portrays about Hamlet. She was the centre stage of the issues about the cultural links between femininity, female sexuality, insanity, and representation. Though she is neglected and rebuked, Ophelia is probably the most illustrated and cited of Shakespeare’s heroines.

Common Man: In most stories small roles are not significant, but in A Man for All Seasons, the Common Man proves this trait as wrong.   The common Man is a simple, ordinary person who relates to the audience, which ties in with one of the main aspect of the play, human nature.   His roles though subtle are still very intriguing to the development of the plot.  Basically, he is the interface between the reader and the story. Neither protagonist nor antagonist in the struggle between the English King and his sometime Chancellor, the Common Man seems an on-looker rather than a significant participant in the play. Thematically and structurally, however, he is as important as More himself, for he is one of two foci of the elliptical drama which revolves about More and his steward (Tees, 1969, p. 67)

More and the Common Man are polar opposites philosophically. More is a man of principle. He will keep silent if need be about his principle; he does not speak out openly against the King or the Oath of Secession. But he is opposed to that Oath and refuses to take it even at the expense of his life.

The Common Man change roles at will. First we meet him as a man dressed from head to toe in black tights, with a pot-bellied figure. His black clothes suggest darkness and death. The second role is Steward, Thomas Mores butler.   He is a simple character but has some important lines that speak about the protagonist Thomas Mores future.  “… My master Thomas More would give anything away to anyone.   …I say that’s bad …because some day someone’s going to ask him for something that he wants to keep; and he’ll be out of practice.   There must be something he wants to keep its only common sense.” (Bolt 17). Simultaneously the characters of boatman, the jailer, publican (innkeeper), the headsman (executioner) and the jury foreman arrives. Bolt superimposed the Common Man to personify actions and attitudes which are common, to emphasize the foundation of individuals. The common man represents individuals who work in flow without contemplating the consequence and thus betraying their own personal values and moral instincts.

Margaret More: More’s was well-educated and inquisitive daughter. Also known as Meg, she falls in love with and later marries William Roper. Her portrayal shows that she relates and understands her father better than anyone else in the play (except for More himself, of course). She also confronted more on his actions and ideologies. “Father, that man’s bad/ Sir Thomas More: There’s no law against that” (Bolt, 34). She became a formidable scholar, and served as a confidante and intellectual companion to her father.  As a result, she continued passed most of her life under her father’s shadow. She chose her friends from the circle her father. Her life was mainly circumscribed from her father’s letters. It was only in the final and tragic months of More’s life, that the relationship was reversed. At this stage father understood her daughter and became increasingly dependent on her (Sumpton, 2008).

Conclusion

Both Hamlet and A Man For all Seasons contain secondary characters, which are very essential and potent. It seems that the protagonists frame their plinth in the base of these secondary characters. Thus, it proves that though these characters were minor in content, yet their charisma and their closeness to the protagonists made all the difference.

References

Shakespeare, W (1603) “Hamlet”

Bolt, R (1960) “A Man For All Seasons”

Warley, C (2006) “Just Horatio” Shakespeare Newsletter, Literature Resource Center

Sumption, J (2008) “Dearly beloved Meg” Spectator

OP Papers, nd, Ophelia in Hamlet, Last Retrieved from http://www.oppapers.com/essays/Ophelia-Hamlet/122244

Tees, A. T. ((1969) “The Place of the Common Man: Robert Bolt: A Man for All Seasons.” The University Review–Kansas City 36: 67-71.