Collection 4: "Hamlet's Dull Revenge" by René Girard

Hamlet belongs to the genre of the revenge tragedy, as hackneyed and yet inescapable in Shakespeare’s days as the “thriller” in ours to a television writer.

Hamlet belongs to the genre of the revenge tragedy, as hackneyed and yet inescapable in Shakespeare’s days as the “thriller” in ours to a television writer.

Shakespeare can turn this tedious chore into the most brilliant feat of theatrical double entendre because the tedium of revenge is really what he wants to talk about, and he wants to talk about it in the usual Shakespearean fashion; he will denounce the revenge theater and all its works with the utmost daring without denying his mass audience the katharsis it demands, without depriving himself of the dramatic success which is necessary to his own career as a dramatist.

And the guilt of that intended victim entails in turn the innocence of that victim’s victim.

There is no way out for Hamlet and he shifts endlessly from one impasse to the other, unable to make up his mind because neither choice makes sense.

His sentiments are those, in other words, which we have surmised in Shakespeare himself. What the hero feels in regard to the act of revenge, the creator feels in regard to revenge as theater.

The public wants vicarious victims and the playwright must oblige.

...Hamlet has many opportunities to watch rousing spectacles during his play and he tries to generate even more, in a conscientious effort to put himself in the right mood for the murder of Claudius. Hamlet must receive from someone else, a mimetic model, the impulse which he does not find in himself.

As a cue for passion, his revenge motif is no more compelling, really, than the cue of an actor on the stage.

In such circumstances, even the most apathetic man’s sense of emulation must rise to such a pitch that the sort of disaster that the fulfillment of the revenge demands can finally be achieved.

In such circumstances, even the most apathetic man’s sense of emulation must rise to such a pitch that the sort of disaster that the fulfillment of the revenge demands can finally be achieved.

Like a well-adjusted gentleman or a consummate actor, he can perform with the utmost sincerity all the actions his social milieu demands, even if they contradict each other.

Like a well-adjusted gentleman or a consummate actor, he can perform with the utmost sincerity all the actions his social milieu demands, even if they contradict each other.

Like all victims of mimetic suggestion, Hamlet reverses the true hierarchy between the other and himself.

This transmutation is unwittingly predicted by Gertrude when she compares Hamlet to the dove who becomes quiet after she has laid her eggs. Gertrude only thinks of Hamlet’s previous changes of mood, as sterile as they were sudden, but her metaphor suggests a more tangible accomplishment, the birth of something portentous...

This transmutation is unwittingly predicted by Gertrude when she compares Hamlet to the dove who becomes quiet after she has laid her eggs. Gertrude only thinks of Hamlet’s previous changes of mood, as sterile as they were sudden, but her metaphor suggests a more tangible accomplishment, the birth of something portentous...