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Act 3, scene 4 is also known as the Closet scene. In this scene, Polonius arrives in Gertrude’s room before Hamlet and instructs her to be blunt with Hamlet as he has instigated commotion and has deeply upset Claudius. When they hear Hamlet coming, Polonius hides behind an arras, which is a hanging tapestry.

Hamlet enters the room asking his mother, "Now, Mother, what's the matter?" Gertrude tells him that he has insulted his father, Claudius, Hamlet responds that she has betrayed his father, King Hamlet, by marrying Claudius. Hamlet addresses her with an almost aggressive intensity and intimidates her by making her fully aware of the depth of her sin.  Fearing for her life, Gertrude cries out for help. Polonius reacts from behind the curtain and yells for help. Hamlet takes out his sword and plunges it through the arras, killing Polonius, thinking it was Claudius. He then shows dissimilarities between Claudius and King Hamlet to Gertrude. He points out King Hamlet's Godlike features and courage in a picture, and compares Claudius to an infection in King Hamlet's ear. He accuses Gertrude of lustfulness, and she pleads him to leave her alone.

In this scene, it is obvious to think and justify that Hamlet has a Freudian attachment to Gertrude. The Closet scene sheds an Oedipal light on Hamlet. The Oedipus complex is a term used by Sigmund Freud in psychosexual stages of development theory. This complex describes a boy’s feelings of desire for his mother and jealousy and anger towards his father. Basically, a boy feels like he is competing his father as a rival to attain his mother’s attention. The analogous stage for girls is known as the Electra complex in which girls feel desire for their fathers and jealousy of their mothers. Hamlet displays the Oedipus complex stage, by showing a disturbing and incestuous concern for Gertrude’s love life in this scene. This can be seen when Hamlet tells his mother, “Nay, but to live in the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, stewed in corruption, honeying and making love over the nasty sty.”(III.iv. 93-95). Although Hamlet is not a child, but it seems that he may have never resolved this complex till his present age.  As Freud has stated that the Oedipus complex is present only in children of 3-6 years of age.

The death of Polonius is important for the play, though it is not the climax of the play, because it is the tipping point for Claudius. It also leads directly to Hamlet's death because Laertes wants to avenge his father's death. Finally, it is also the breaking point for Ophelia. 

Polonius death causes Claudius to fear for his own life. He notifies Gertude by saying, “It had been so with us had we been there.” So he wants to do something about Hamlet who is becoming unpredictable and a threat to him and to the throne. He orders, "The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England." (IV.iii.69).

Polonius’ death is the main root of Ophelia’s insanity. She cannot live in a world where her love, Hamlet, has killed her father. Her mental state is too feeble to allow her to survive and so she commits suicide. This is made evident by the quote, “Poor Ophelia divided from herself and her fair judgement.” (IV.v.86-87).

As said previously, Polonius’ death also leads to the demise of Hamlet because Laertes wants to avenge his father’s killer. He starts a rebellion against Hamlet with Claudius and publicly challenges Hamlet in a fencing fight. Laertes’ and Claudius’ plan to kill Hamlet by poisoning his drink and by poisoning Laertes’ sword.

So at the end, the death of Polonius leads to the death of all major characters of the play. In the real world, we have seen many people lose their lives as a result of their self-centered wrong actions and others die as a result of their manipulations. One murder leading to many other deaths is called hate crimes, which have a major impact on society. This leads to polarization between the involved groups and, so many hate groups breathe in our society. Now-a-days, these hate crimes are based on race, religion and from one’s sexual orientation.

Gagan Varya
12/20/2013 02:20:29 am

You have provided some very thoughtful and detailed opinions on the closet scene. Also, making connections to the Sigmund Freud Theory help to demonstrate that you really know your stuff! I felt similarly at this point of the play because so much had already happened, I completely understand why Ophelia was beginning to go crazy. On the other hand, I also feel as if Hamlet’s rude behaviour with Ophelia could have made her deeply depressed, and her father’s death put her over the edge. It is probably tough knowing the man you loved thinks so low of you and now has killed your father. However, I disagree with your statement of saying Polonius’ death led to Hamlet’s downfall. In my opinion, Hamlet knew what he was getting into after he decided to avenge his father’s death. Hamlet is a man that makes hasty decisions and is extremely emotional. He thinks way too much about how he feels rather than doing what needs to be done. I feel as if Hamlet’s downfall was solely his responsibility as his decisions are the cause to his death. Don’t you think so?

-Gagan Varya

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12/20/2013 05:16:53 am

First of all, I’d like to thank you for commenting on my very lengthy blog.

Second of all you do have a point that Hamlet’s own actions got him killed, but recalling the events of this scene, when Hamlet killed Polonius he thought it was Claudius. So, in this incident Hamlet did not know what he was doing. If you think about it, Polonius’ death did lead to Hamlet’s death. This is because, as I have explained in my post that Laertes appears only some days after Polonius’ death and is ready to avenge his father’s death. When Claudius tells Laertes that it was Hamlet who killed his father, he channels all his anger and focuses it on Hamlet. Also, when Polonius dies, Ophelia loses her sanity and when Laertes views his sister behaving madly, he connects his sister’s madness to his father’s death. This gives Laertes another reason to kill Hamlet.

Third of all, in my opinion, Hamlet does not make hasty decisions. He procrastinates a lot when having to kill Claudius and avenge his father’s death. Recalling the prayer scene, in which Claudius was asking God forgiveness for his sins, Hamlet could have killed Claudius right there. However, Hamlet did not due to the fact that if he had killed Claudius then, it would send Claudius to heaven. Hamlet could have killed Claudius in that scene and did not have mind about the religion aspect of it.

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2/16/2020 05:10:03 pm

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11/16/2020 07:15:20 pm

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11/16/2020 07:14:53 pm

Thank you this helped me with my Hamlet essay. 10/10

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    Hi! I'm Manroop (my friends call me Manny).  I am a high-school student that has no idea what to write in this "Author" space.

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