Shakespeare’s Parallel Actions: Understanding the Meaning in King Lear and Hamlet

1. Discovering Shakespeare’s Meaning Chapter.5 Parallel Actions 김선이, 최혜민, 채수은, 김홍철, 전지이, 김대운

2. Parallel Action • SP’s plays: usually trace 2-3 sequence of events -> Characters- contact with one another Ex) Much Ado About Nothig Hero& Claudio - Beatrice & Benedick - echoed As You Like It is Rosalind& orlando - Phebe& Silvius, Touchstone & Audrey Celia & Oliver - echoed

3. The function of multiple plotting varies from play to play • The secondare actions/ the subsidery actions: • Duplicate the events of the main plot • Universalizing the issue involved • Or, contrast: view from a different perspective • Contribution to meaning of the whole • Not only ramification of events • But though the relationship between those events, forms principal focus of audience attention.

4. King Lear • Most notable parallel plot Main plot + repeated on a slightly lower social level Main plot King Lear-> is deceived by two treacherous daughters -> vanished loyal daughter, Cordelia Sub plot Earl of Gloucester -> deluded disloyal son, Edmund -> banished loving son, Edgor • Both cases -Unnatural offspring: Turn on their fathers -Undergo a period of physical & mental suffering before being succoured by their loyal children -Reaching some understanding prior to their death

5. Reinforced b y a more complex web of correspondences • Lear • Most deceived while sane • Fuller understanding through madness • Gloucester -Sees least when he has sight -Comes to perceive when blind

6. Function of duplicatoin is complex • Simplest level: universalize the events of the main plot • Lear’s experience = One man’s experience -When paralleled by another man in same society * The experience is generalized * Becomes applicable to all fathers • Lear as King is perverse • > Unnatural dislocation of family relationship in the sub- plot world • > Unnatural state brought into being by the abnormal conduct of king • Parallel -Gloucester plot: elevating the central figure -Lear’s act: made more fully comprehensible

7. Parallel -Principal methods of plot construction in Renaissance drama as a whole -Correspondences, impossible to overlook • Elizabethan-Jacobean theatrical conventions -less obtrusive, unfamiliar -other aspects of the dramatic technique appear to approximate to those of our own age -use of soliloquy -emphasis on the personal experience of the central figure -psychological based interpretation focused view of the hero himself

8. Psychological case history is to distort it • Elizabethan-Jacobean drama -revenge play evolved through: multiplicity of plots • Vengeance of one individual precipitating plot • Counter-plot throughout the social group Ex)Spanish Tragedy Vengeance – revenge for Don Andrea lead to violent action-> Lorenzo, Bel-imperia, Hieronimo Antonio’s Revenge: Similar to Hamlet 5 revengers-> Villain, Piero

9. SP’s play + revenge genre • 4 revengers -all concerned with the death of a father -subject to some delay in the execution of their purpose *Hamlet, Fortin bras, Pyrrhus, Laertes • Judgments made by the audience are not identical

10. Pyrrhus- overlooked The play within a play diminishes Pyrrhus’s reality within the drama structure Act 2, scene 2: -line 328-358, 364, 376-398, 427-428 The lengthy introduction to the players in relation to the performance of The Murder of Gonzago in the following act, Hamlet hopes to make clausius reveal his guilt.

11. Speeches: -considerable significance in relation to the theme of the play -no way advance the central action • Complete revenge play in miniature • Correspond to Hamlet it self Hamlet -Recite the opening passage: Pyrrhus is described -Heightening the audience’s awarencess of the parallet between the persons of the play world and those of the play within the play -Inviting comparison between the two

12. Objective evidence The vengeance of Prrhus: complicates Act 2, scene 2: 446-459 Hamlet begins with a false start: Effect- naturalistic But- misquotation initiates image strands followings Hyrcanian beast= Tiger, predatory animal Black & red, Rugged= Tiger recalled, emphasis on blood Sable= Prrhus called himself, black, night, dread Heraldry more dismal= blackness Total gules= red Horridly tricked with blood, pasted with ‘gore’ Two colors = black & red represent the darkness and flames of hell

13. Expressions of Parallel Actions in Hamlet Barbarous and diabolic nature of revenger + The human worth of his victims Ex. -Shakespeare used ‘fathers, mothers, daughters, sons’(454) ->stressing natural bonds and the loss involved through death for whole family group. - The king (target of the revenge) : Power and authority (X) Age and Kinship (O)

14. The king and his sword • The king - The object of vengeance+ the impotence and dignity of ageing majesty • His sword - antique(465),Rebellious to his arm(466), Unequal match’d’(467),Unnerved(470) + His ancient and inherited office father(470), His head is milky(474), reverend(475)

15. Hecuba • Streesed Violation of natural bonds + Human vulnerability • Herself (As a wife and mother) - No sign to show her high class : Barefoot(501), cloth on her head instead of a diadem(502-3), clasped blanket on her(504-5) -> To the audience - Feel pity(Her appearance) + dissatisfaction(The witness of murder)

16. Correspondence between “Dramatis person of Hamlet itself” + “The play-within-the-play” invites the audience to - consider relationship between two - apply deduction about one to the another

17. Relationship between play and playlet • To receive a further dimension & additional point of correspondence between play and playlet Ex : Precipitate as Pyrrhus’ vengeance = like Hamlet’s ->not accomplished without delay

18. Emblematic representation of Hamlet’s posture - The capacity to exact vengeance -> The will of the revengerparalysed. • Pyrrhus’ conduct (The significance of the parallel lies) - Tyrant(476) + Reverend(475) old man - His hesitation : An act of clemency or divine intervention(x) : The prelude to an act of violence with machine-like pitilessness

19. The audience might think that the task before Hamlet is no easy one. -> However, Hamlet himself does not view the player’s speeches from the same perspective as the audience. -The audience: appalled by the horrific act -Hamlet: impressed by the First player reflects on the discrepancy between his own responses to actual experience & the player’s response

20. Outside the play world understand ->Why Hamlet complain himself for his indifference & Fallacy of his position • The Player’s emotion->Self-generated. Not a response to experience.

21. Examples • Hamlet -himself pointed out in a soliloquy • His mother -”Like Niobe, all tears”(I.ii.149) before getting marry ->External shows of emtion : is not a true grief

22. Soliloquy • Widens the gulf between the spectaor’s perceptions & those of the speaker. Ex. Hamlet’s inability to respond to his father’s murder • Without the playlet(preceding the soliloquy) - The audience: accept this conclusion -

23. parallel revenger • The term used to explain the relationship between Young Hamlet, Young Fortinbras and Elder Hamlet, Elder Fortinbras. image that is projected of the parallel revenger is a negative one. • Both Elder Fortinbras and Elder Hamlet die at another man's hand, the Norwegian (Elder Fortinbras) was killed honorably the Dane(Elder Hamlet) dishonorably by an act of treachery.

24. Superficial level-contrast between the violent ends of the two kings suggests that vengeance for the death of a father is not necessarily morally justifiable. • Fortinbras and his uncle are shown in a relationship which is pretty similar to hamlet and Claudius's relationship. fortinbras - his uncle hamlet - claudius

25. The captain of the army from Norwey have a conversation with hamlet, and they talk about the value of the land that fortinbras is trying to get back. The captain sees the land fortinbras is about to fight for as having 'no profit but the name'. (as being worthless as farm land and valueless on the open market.) This is th' impostume of much wealth and peace, that inward breaks, and shows no cause without why the man dies, (27-9)

26. contrast between his conduct and that of the Norwegian prince • the judgement of speaker and listener begin to diverge. hamlet offers two possible explanations for his delay in exacting vengeance 1. bestial oblivion 2. thinking too precisely on th'event' Neither explanation can be fully endorsed by the audience. As hamlet himself has just pointed out , it is the extent to which man applies his reason that is the measure of his 'godlike' nature.

27. contrast between his objective and subjective responses to what he has witnessed Negative When speaking to the captain, he uses the word negatively: Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats Will not debate the question of this straw! This is th' impostume of much wealth and peace- (25-7) Positive When he contrasts fortinbras' conduct with his own the context is positive: Rightly to be great Is not to stir without great argument, But greatly to find quarrel in a straw When honour's at the stake. (53-6)

28. Different response of Hamlet and Laertes • Hamlet: Though he censures himself for inaction, has tested the truth of the ghost's accusation and is therefore assured that the man he is seeking to bring down is, in fact, his father's murderer. • Laertes: rushing, by contrast, to the headlong vengeance that Hamlet longs to take, mistakes the source of the wrong that has been done to him and is poised to commit not merely an unjust act in killing an innocent man, but a rebellious one in unlawfully overthrowing the head of state.

29. Effect of Laertes' action • :provides an implicit comment upon hamlet's more guarded pursuit of vengeance. His eruption into the court serves, like that of Pyrrhus in the trojan playlet, to elevate the monarch he opposes and to generate sympathy for his queen. He is referred to consistently as the king' he himself suggests that his person is hedged about by a 'divinity' that disables aggression;

30. Laertes, in a blind fury, explicitly allies himself with the powers of darkness, and asserts his readiness to hazard his soul in the pursuit of vengeance: How came he dead ? I'll not be juggled with. To hell, allegiance! Vows to the blackest devil! Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit! I dare damnation. To this point I stand, That both the worlds I give to negligence, Let come what comes, only I'll be reveng'd Most throughly for my father. (130-6)

31. Laertes To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms;And like the kind life-rendering pelican,Repast them with my blood. Claudius Why, now you speakLike a good child and a true gentleman. ( ACT IV SCENE V 145-148 ) The blasphemous connotation

32. Claudius  Laertes, was your father dear to you? Or are you like the painting of a sorrow, A face without a heart? Laertes Why ask you this? Claudius Not that I think you did not love your father; But that I know love is begun by time; And that I see, in passages of proof, Time qualifies the spark and fire of it. There lives within the very flame of love A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it; And nothing is at a like goodness still; For goodness, growing to a pleurisy, Dies in his own too much: that we would do We should do when we would; for this 'would' changes And hath abatements and delays as many As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents; And then this 'should' is like a spendthrift sigh, That hurts by easing. ( ACT IV SCENE VII 106-122 ) Application to Hamlet Positive value of delay

33. ~what would you undertake, To show yourself your father's son in deed More than in words? Laertes To cut his throat i' the church. Claudius No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize; Revenge should have no bounds. (ACT IV SCENE VII 124-129) Application to Hamlet , again

34. Claudius Most generous and free from all contriving, Will not peruse the foils; so that, with ease, Or with a little shuffling, you may choose A sword unbated, and in a pass of practise Requite him for your father.Laertes I will do't: And, for that purpose, I'll anoint my sword. I bought an unction of a mountebank, So mortal that, but dip a knife in it, Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare, Collected from all simples that have virtue Under the moon, can save the thing from death That is but scratch'd withal: I'll touch my point With this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly, It may be death. (ACT IV SCENE VII 135-148) dishonourable vengeance Hamlet’s generosity of spirit

35. Hamlet I, the son of a dear father murder'd, Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words, And fall a-cursing, like a very drab, (ACT II SCENE II 581-584) Relationship between appearance and reality

36. LAERTESIt is here, Hamlet: Hamlet, thou art slain;No medicine in the world can do thee good;In thee there is not half an hour of life;The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,Unbated and envenom'd: the foul practiseHath turn'd itself on me lo, here I lie,Never to rise again: thy mother's poison'd:I can no more: the king, the king's to blame. (ACT V SCENE II 317-324) The final confrontation between the two men and the vengeance of both

37. Vengenance of Hamlet • Hamlet’s vengenance : • He himself doesn’t plan or contrive the murder of Claudius and he doesn’t rush into headlong action • He constantly test the truth of the Ghost’s assertions and neglect the opportunity to kill Claudius since he was praying

38. He came to content to see himself that he is part of the providential plan too, rather than an instigator of actions. • Hamlet believed that ‘divinity shapes our ends’ and ascribe the death of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to providential plan

39. Therefore, the vengeance that he finally executes is planned not by him but by Claudius, or by the providential acting through him. • Thus he is freed from both blame and self-reproch for Claudius’ death, and succeeds in killing his adversary without diminishing himself or elevating his opponent.

40. Hamlet’s character • Readers and audience are lead to the view that he is inherently noble man, tainted by the world he inhabits and thus incapable of acting coherently in it. • With the examples of Pyrrhus, Fortinbras, and Laertes before him the reader or spectator cannot regard Hamlet’s failure to sweep to his revenge as a flaw, when those who embrace this course of action are presented as animalistic and diabolic

41. Audience awareness • On the one hand, the reader or audience is encouraged to participate in Hamlet’s self-disgust through his soliloquies, and to share his desire to extirpate the evil which Claudius embodies. • On the other hand, they are made aware of the danger to the individual implicit in the exaction of vengeance, and feels concern for the moral safety of Hamlet

42. The audience are led to confront the issues that Hamlet struggles, and they struggle through him, too. • They face the problem of reconciling the need to fulfill the injunctions for the Ghost with the viciousness of private vengeance. • They also think over the attributes which distinguish the central figure from the subsidiary revengers, which differentiate a man from a beast.

43. Thought journey of Hamlet • Thinking too precisely on the ‘event’ is the key feature that makes differences between the Prince and Pyrrhus, Frotinbras and Laertes. • Thought journey leads him to a recognition of the inevitability of death, the incomprehensibility of human life, and to the existence of a divinity that ‘shapes our ends’ • Audiences, faced with an unthinking Pyrrhus, Fortinbras, and Laertes, recognize the distance between the Prince and his fellow revengers and think his thought journey is not of the diseased will fo the protagonist but of his human greatness.

44. The use of parallel actions • It is not exclusive to the tragedies and other ‘problem plays’ all feature complementary plots which contribute to the definition of character. • The relationship between these primary and secondary areas of interest does not, however, remain constant • Ex) King Lear, exemplifies a kind of structure by a process of repetition while Hamlet contrast the conduct of a series of figures placed in a similar situation.

45. In Measure for Measure, the relationship between main and subplot characters evolves in a different direction. • Ex) Hamlet starts from the point of likeness and moves towards the revelation of difference • Ex) Measure for Measure, starts from the point of difference and moves towards the recognition of likeness.

46. Measure for Measure • Its outset appears with the most and least idealistic figures. • Angelo is a man of rigid self-discipline, whose public virtue is such he is entrusted by the Duke with the task of purging Vienna of vice. • He is determined to administer strict, impartial justice in the interests of the whole community. • The law Angelo is attempted to uphold is an edict against fornication.

47. The two groups of the enforcements of the process – a pair of lovers, Claudio and Juilet, and the associates of a bawd, Mistress Overdone.

48. Claudio and Juilet are betrothed, but they don’t wait until they are publicly bestowed and expecting a baby before it. • Lucio, who has exact opposite personality to Angelo, is one of Mistress Overdone’s principal customers. He embraces the promptings of the flesh with no sense of guilt. • However, the distance between Angelo, Claudio and Lucio is narrowed when Isabella, Claudio’s sister is induced to plead with Angelo on her brother’s behalf.

49. Change in positions of Three men Angelo Angelo, Claudio, fornication Lucio Claudio, Lucio

50. Parallel Actions in Measure for Measure 1. Progress of Angelo : subverts the spectator’s initial preconceptions about the nature of the play world. Outset : Simple Oppositon between reformers(good) and those in need of reformation(bad). Angelo’s surrender to passion for Isabella Simplistic division of mankind into good and bad is rapidly overthrown.