An Analytical Essay on Comic Relief in Hamlet

An Analytical Essay on Comic Relief in Hamlet

In Hamlet, the majority of the comic relief is dark and depressing. The main character is obsessed with death and makes morbid jokes about old age, deception, and corpses. This side of the character is shown so that the reader can understand how much this disturbs the prince. The result of this is a play with some very depressing scenes.

Hamlet's negative attitude gives way to many sadistic jests at the events surrounding him. He tells his friend Horatio that the food brought for the funeral was served at the wedding, also. This joke is sad because Hamlet is still grieving while he is forced to endure the pungent incestuous image of his mother sharing a bed with his uncle. This disturbing time for him leads to most of his depressing humor. His family's blatant deception causes him to state sarcastically that if the world is honest, then the end of the world must be near. The reader can identify with Hamlet's feelings of bitterness and disillusionment because of his sarcastic reactions.

Fairly soon after, Polonius becomes the object of Hamlet's ridicule. The appearance of this aspect of humor is not surprising due to the cruel nature of the play. Polonius is an older man who forgets what he is saying in the middle of a sentence and absolutely cannot come to a point quickly. Hamlet calls him a "great baby," and Rosencrantz says that when men grow old, they mentally become children. After Polonius is killed, Hamlet refers to removing the body from room as "{lugging} the guts." Since the body has been stabbed, the reader can assume that Hamlet is making light of the bloody, most likely disemboweled corpse. First Polonius is mocked because of his age; then Hamlet returns to him dark humor.

The most prevalent form of macabre humor is Hamlet's way of trivializing death. He makes many jokes about this . When he describes how a king could be digested by a beggar, one could envision Claudius cringing. Along with the image of death, Hamlet uses the word "progress," which indicates a royal journey. He taunts the king and death at the same time. Later during the graveyard scene, he asks Yorick's skull: "Quite chapfall'n?" He is asking if the skull is down in the mouth or depressed, which is a sick question to ask of a long dead cranium.