Brianna Morton: Hamlet: Act 5 Scene 1

HAMLET, Act 5 Scene 1

“Why, e’en so. And now my Lady Worm’s, chapless, and knocked about the mazard with a sexton’s spade. Here’s fine revolution, an we had the trick to see’t. Did these bones cost no more the breeding but to play at loggets with ’em? Mine ache to think on’t.” (5.1.110)

From just reading this scene, I thought it was rather morbid. They were talking about death and there was nothing in the notes to indicate that it was supposed to be humorous. When I watched the film version I realized that the gravedigger was making light of the whole situation. (It was either that or he was off his rocker.) Hamlet was speaking the words, but the visual was the gravedigger handle skulls. This created a levity that I had not gathered by just reading the text.

The 4-hour, unabridged, film version helped me appreciate and understand Shakespeare’s Hamlet in a way reading the text could never have given me.

Resources:

Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. New York: W.W. Norton, 2001. Print.

Hamlet. Dir. Kenneth Branagh. Perf. Kenneth Branagh. 1996. Web.