Hamlet The Ghost Quotes

Okay, Hamlet sure seems eager enough for revenge here—but this is before he knows who he has to kill (Claudius). Is there something about Claudius that makes Hamlet hesitate? Is he reluctant to kill a king?

Here, the Ghost claims that he's doomed to suffer in Purgatory (often imagined as a fiery place where souls had to "purge" their sins before they could move on to heaven), until young Hamlet avenges his "foul and most unnatural murder" by killing Claudius. Uh-oh. Major problem alert: First, the doctrine of Purgatory doesn't say anything about murder helping Purgatorial souls get to heaven —prayers, sure, but not vengeance. Second, after the Reformation, Protestants rejected the idea of Purgatory as a "Catholic superstition." You can check out our discussion of "Religion" for more on the play's religious crisis, but here's the point: as a Protestant, Hamlet might see the ghost as just a wee bit suspicious.

The Ghost isn't too happy about Gertrude's "damned incest," but he tells Hamlet to keep her out of things anyway. Surprise! Hamlet can't seem to keep this promise, either. In fact, his obsession with Gertrude is so problematic that the Ghost returns in Act III, scene iv, to tell Hamlet to lay off his mom.

What's worse: dying, or being completely forgotten after death? In Hamlet in Purgatory, literary critic Stephen Greenblatt argues that the Ghost represents a common fear (among the living) of being completely forgotten after death.

Hmm. This is interesting. The Ghost not only claims to be Hamlet's "father's spirit"; it also suggests that it's a Purgatorial ghost. Purgatory was often imagined as a fiery place where souls "purged away" their sins before going to heaven. Major difference, though: Purgatorial spirits returned to ask loved ones for prayers that could help them reach heaven faster. This ghost? He's a little more interested in revenge.

Purgatorial spirits weren't in the habit of asking living relatives to murder other people (murder being a major sin for both Protestants and Catholics) to help them get to heaven. That's more along the lines of a vengeful ghost. Is Shakespeare just picking and choosing? Or is he purposefully weaving together multiple literary and cultural traditions?

We're going to let super famous literary critic Stephen Greenblatt handle this one: in Hamlet in Purgatory, he argues that the Ghost tells us about the complexities of the 16th century debate about Purgatory. Praying for Purgatorial spirits, argues Greenblatt, was a important way for the living to remember and express grief for lost love ones, so, when the Anglican Church officially rejected the doctrine of Purgatory in 1563, it eliminated an important social and psychological function for the living—kind of like Claudius ordering Hamlet to stop grieving.

Like Hamlet, the ghost dwells on Gertrude's "seeming" virtue. But is the ghost saying Gertrude cheated on him when they were married? Or, does the ghost merely see her remarriage as a betrayal? We get stuck on the meaning of "adulterate," which, in Elizabethan England could refer to a cheating spouse or any sexual sin in general (like incest). Either way, the ghost implies that Gertrude's remarriage retroactively makes their marriage into a sham.

Like Hamlet, the ghost focuses on Gertrude's sexuality as he urges Hamlet not to let "Denmark be / A couch for luxury and damned incest." Translation: kill Claudius so Gertrude can't sleep with him anymore. Oh, but leave her out of it. (Yeah, right.)

It looks like Hamlet was so busy laying into Gertrude for sleeping with Claudius that he forgot all about the ghost's orders for him to leave Gertrude "to heaven"—almost as if he's more upset by Gertrude's sexuality than his father's murder.