Croker, Barbara

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The Dramatic Function of the Grave-diggers' Scene in HamletBy Q. L. WestIt is unfortunate that one of the scenes most often cut from con-temporary productions of "Hamlet" is the first scene of Act V, thegravediggers' scene. The scene is, after all, static; it is merely alyrical passage which seems, at first, to delay the movement of thedrama, and, at all events, to add nothing to it. The producer wantsswift, forward-moving action, and, certainly, he finds little enoughof what he wants in the almost perverse, but always fundamental,deliberateness of this play. Consequently, one of the first scenes tobe eliminated is almost invariably this one, despite its trenchant,laconic prose, its macabre humor, and its mordant, cynical philosophyof ultimate disillusion.The scene, in itself, as a separate entity, is probably one of themost famous in Shakespeare. Certainly it contains the most oftenmisquoted line in English literature ("Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him,Horatio."), as well as one of the funniest ("'Twill not be seen in himthere (England); there the men are as mad as he."). Perhaps thecontemporary producer is short-sighted in cutting out the grave-diggers' scene; perhaps it does contribute, very definitely, to thetragedy, apart from its intrinsic excellence.The scene opens on a bit of broad, rather low, comedy, themumblings of morons and yokels. Shakespeare regularly employsthe device of comic "relief;" only such scenes of comedy are neverthrust, helter-skelter, into his tragedies, and they rarely afford relief.Their purpose is definite, and, in the violence of their contrast withwhat has gone before and what is to come after, they rather increasethe tension and exaggerate the gloom. Probably the mest effectiveof these interludes is the porter's scene in Macbeth; the gravediggers'scene is similarly famous and effective. But the two scenes, if theyhave similar purposes, do not use similar means. The porter's sceneoffers a violent, a horrible contrast between the mutterings of theporter at the knocking at the gate and the ghastly deed of treacheryand blood that is going on in another part of Macbeth's castle. Thepity and terror which the poet must arouse in us are multiplied bythe deliberate incongruity in the juxtaposition of low comedy andhigh tragedy.The gravediggers' scene, on the other hand, seeks also to heightenour tension. But the method is not one of stark contrast, but rather-46-it is the technique of the operatic intermezzo. There is a lull in theaction, a pause, as for breath, after the crowded movement of thepreceding act and the gory violence of the final scene. The ghoulishplay of two clowns offers an eerie silence, a profound, ominous,palpable stillness, while the barometer is falling.One cannot, in reading the scene, visualize it, without sensingthe sombre massing of clouds, the weird, grey-green light, the flickerof soundless lightning, which precede a storm. The scene certainlydoes delay the action of the play, but the delay is deliberate andcalculated. The adolescent grappling of Laertes and Hamlet inOphelia's grave, mad as it is, and the bloody joke of the melee whichends the play, ironic as it is, come almost as relief: they, at least, areaction, aimless, pitiable, futile, sardonic, perhaps, but action, any way.The gravediggers' scene is not comedy alone, however. Hamletand Horatio enter, and the rest of the scene reflects and emphasizesthe character of Hamlet. Horatio is, as always, the taciturn, solid,sane foil, with his "Aye, my lord," and "E'en so, my lord." He is nottorn with doubt and confusion; never is his will "sicklied o'er withthe pale cast of thought."Little, it is true, in this scene adds to what we already knowabout the character of Hamlet; nevertheless, it would seem that theintent of this episode is not so much dramatic as it is psychologicaland philosophical. The prince is here revealed in all the fascinatingand baffling facets of his nature, and he reaches here the nadir ofcynicism and disillusionment. It is not the cynicism and disillusion-ment of old age; it is the cynicism and disillusionment of intellect, ofa man, still fairly young, whose mind is baffled by thought and is toopainfully aware of ends to be able to discover means. He is witty;he delights, in his dialogue with the clown, in pun and play on words.The sharp brilliance of his intellect leads him from glib punning toscathing logic, as he relentlessly pursues his thought toward the finalnegation. He reaches the bottom; nothing is left but "Pah!" and acynical ditty on the transience of man and the silliness of his glory.All is hollow, all is sham, all comes to nothing but a stink and somedust.The scene is a purgation, rather in a medical than in an Aristote~-ian sense, for, only a few hours later, H~mlet is. able to S~~Ug ~~~shoulders and resign himself to the special providence whl~h wsave him or kill him. There is some purpose; all is not meaningless.If man cannot understand that meaning and fathom that purpose, he,at least, must accept them, and he cannot live, or die, if he does notbelieve that they are there. . . .Thus we see a dramatic function in the psychological ilhrmina-tion and philosophical probing of this scene. Hamlet must reach the- 47-ne plus ultra before he will be capable of the action which theentangled threads, the hesitancy and indecision of the firs~ thre~ acts,and the gathering momentum of the fourth, have so mextncaJ:lYwoven together. These threads are severed with Alexandnandespatch in the sanguinary and ironic hugger-mugger of the finalscene.We do not know how he bridges this gap from a complete cynic-ism to a negative faith. We only know that he does, and that he hasto. We suspect, at times, that there is a certain element of the facile,perhaps even the glib, in his moralizing. Certainly there is littleoriginality in it, and not much consistency, for that matter; perhaps,often, he merely gives voice to "what oft was thought, but ne'er sowell exprest." He expresses, nevertheless, a universal experience ofthe young, at least the young who think of something beyond what thepsychologists have so delicately called "fundamental drives." It maybe, then, that the leap from unbelief to belief must inevitably followthe final degradation-at least for a young man of the Renaissance;and it is certain that there is no other direction that Hamlet can go,save up.The action of the scene is not necessarily dramatic action; neitheris it psychological. There is no flash of swords, no conflict of person-ality, no gust of wrath, no surge of passion. We are revealed nothingnew about Hamlet's character.There is action in the mind, however, and this action is essentialto the necessary end of the drama. But action in the mind, even inElizabethan romantic drama, can only show itself in talk. Talk, nomatter how witty, vivid, or profound, is not movement, and there-fore in a dramatic sense it does not advance the movement of the play.Anything that does not advance the movement of the play is notnecessary. But such reasoning ought not to be applied to such adrama as Hamlet, for here the dramatic action is far less importantthan the psychological and moral action-one might almost say thatit is ancillary to them-and it is these which the gravediggers' sceneprimarly assists.But, not solely. It does not, of course, in the strictest senseadvance dramatic action. It is an interlude, a pause, before the finalcatastrophe. There is an atmosphere of pregnant, ominous silence,against which the maunderings of the clowns and the moralizings ofHamlet fall with a dead, hollow clatter; tension is spun to the verybreaking-point, and the sudden outburst of febrile action comes asrelease. Its dramatic functions are invaluable, and something irre-trievable is lost by cutting out this scene and rushing, pell-mell, intothe bloody climax.-48-

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