The first thing that comes to mind when trying to link William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet with the concept of metatheatre, is the play which is staged by young Hamlet to confront his uncle Claudius with the murder of the old king Hamlet. Nevertheless, even though nothing qualifies more as metatheatre than this particular scene, the play-within-a-play is not the only significant device of metatheatre in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. There are several more metatheatrical plots that can be detected in the course of the play’s events. Besides several other scenes, Act 4, scene 5 is one example of the use of metatheatre in the play. Therefore, this essay argues that Ophelia’s (staged) behaviour in Act 4, scene 5 is just another example that, up to this scene, the play Hamlet is only composed of different metatheatrical plots, which are all combined to one major plotline. To support this thesis, the scene itself will be analysed and compared to other examples of metatheatre in Shakespeare’s play Hamlet.
The term metatheatre was first introduced in Lionel Abel’s work Metatheatre in 1963 (Abel v). The dramatist does not only consider plays-within-plays as metatheatrical, but also characters of a play who “are aware of their own theatricality” (vi). Furthermore, Abel mentions that, especially in Hamlet, several characters …show more content…
One example of that can be obseved in Act 3, scene 1, where he tells her: “Ophelia, walk you here. / … /… Read on this book, / That show of such an exercise may color / Your loneliness. … (Ham. 3.1.43-46) before Hamlet enters the scene. In Act 2, scene 1, Ophelia tells her father: “No, my good lord, but, as you did command, / I did repel his letters and denied / His access to me” (Ham. 2.1.106-108). She is therefore well aware that she does not act like her usual self, but pretends to be someone else (the person her father wants her to
The term metatheatre was first introduced in Lionel Abel’s work Metatheatre in 1963 (Abel v). The dramatist does not only consider plays-within-plays as metatheatrical, but also characters of a play who “are aware of their own theatricality” (vi). Furthermore, Abel mentions that, especially in Hamlet, several characters …show more content…
One example of that can be obseved in Act 3, scene 1, where he tells her: “Ophelia, walk you here. / … /… Read on this book, / That show of such an exercise may color / Your loneliness. … (Ham. 3.1.43-46) before Hamlet enters the scene. In Act 2, scene 1, Ophelia tells her father: “No, my good lord, but, as you did command, / I did repel his letters and denied / His access to me” (Ham. 2.1.106-108). She is therefore well aware that she does not act like her usual self, but pretends to be someone else (the person her father wants her to