The second half of the twentieth century saw the emergence of the theory of power as “domination over,” a theory propounded by social critics such as Machiavelli (1961), Hobbes (1968), Foucault (1980), Weber (1986), and Bordieu (1994). Taking as a framework the work of these critics, this paper attempts to decipher the dilemma evident in the soliloquies of Shakespeare’s Hamlet as the result of an unresolved conflict between a Machiavellian (external) political world and a Montaignian (internal) world guided by Platonic ideals. The study traces how dissonance between the two leads to a psycho-spatial imbalance as each seeks to dominate the other. As the chasm between the two worlds grows, the language of the soliloquies traces the thoughts of a man who finds the task of restoring cosmic order to be beyond him; they are also evidence of the King’s failure to exert power over Hamlet’s structure of ethics and his desires.
Foucault (1980) viewed power as “relational” and domination as born out of the inter-relational web that defined social relations. This domination perpetrated itself through either use of brute force or Machiavellian tactics to subdue, or a hegemonic creation of “false consciousness”—a term used by Marxist theorists to explain the delusions created in the minds of the subordinate classes regarding their real position in society, and equally applicable to Hamlet. In the play, Claudius is shown to use a combination of both to disempower the prince and the queen, two people who could have challenged his accession to power. In murdering his own brother and usurping the throne, he displays the brute power characteristic of pre-Renaissance ethics, while the Queen is won over through a delusionary display of love. Hamlet’s desperation is born of his inability to counter this combination and his awareness of the dangers of action imminent in the current play of events: |
