In essence, the sickness that Shakespeare works into the play as a major device is both a political disease that upsets Denmark and an ailment that either physically or mentally afflicts the characters.The root of the contagion stems directly from “the leperous distilment” (1.5.64) that Claudius uses to kill King Hamlet. This rapidly spreading, on-contact transfer of the disease is so powerful that even Claudius ends up consumed by his own demons, feeling remorse and guilt gnaw at him: “O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven” (3.3.36). The destructive “symptoms” of the disease are evident early in Hamlet’s disgust and morbid fascination with suicide as he is at his wits’ end due to his mother’s corrupt marriage and father’s sudden death in the beginning of the play. Hamlet describes the court as “an unweeded garden/ That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature” (1.2.135-136). Furthermore, Marcellus, a military officer, is able to conclude that “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” (1.4.90). This observation from a minor and uneducated character at the beginning of the play alerts readers to the quick spread of the illness and the extent of which it has damaged the country, and how poison and disease will play a central role in the fate of the characters in the
In essence, the sickness that Shakespeare works into the play as a major device is both a political disease that upsets Denmark and an ailment that either physically or mentally afflicts the characters.The root of the contagion stems directly from “the leperous distilment” (1.5.64) that Claudius uses to kill King Hamlet. This rapidly spreading, on-contact transfer of the disease is so powerful that even Claudius ends up consumed by his own demons, feeling remorse and guilt gnaw at him: “O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven” (3.3.36). The destructive “symptoms” of the disease are evident early in Hamlet’s disgust and morbid fascination with suicide as he is at his wits’ end due to his mother’s corrupt marriage and father’s sudden death in the beginning of the play. Hamlet describes the court as “an unweeded garden/ That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature” (1.2.135-136). Furthermore, Marcellus, a military officer, is able to conclude that “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” (1.4.90). This observation from a minor and uneducated character at the beginning of the play alerts readers to the quick spread of the illness and the extent of which it has damaged the country, and how poison and disease will play a central role in the fate of the characters in the