Memory and remembrance inHamlet - John Kerrigan

Memory and remembrance inHamlet - John Kerrigan

1. ' Hamlet never promises to revenge, only to remember'

   • Don't these two things come together? Hamlet remembering his father is synonymous with Hamlet avenging his Father's death - he is commiting revenge in order to remember his father It is an unspoken duty/ promise - it is not literal - it is implied

2. 'language of this play is full of 'memory' and its cognates'

   • Agree - remember Memory of Hamlet's father, memory of what Hamlet used to be like

3. 'memories divert and slow the play, giving it an eddying, onward inclusiveness which contrasts with the movement of Shakespeare's other tragedies

   • Movement and flow of play
   • Agree Seems to divert the fast pace - reason for the fact that after Hamlet murders Polonius - stops looking back and pace of play increases
   • Disagree Knowledge of past moves Hamlet forward and therefore Hamlet aswell

4. 'Such true, false and cynical remembrances'

5. 'In memory, Hamlet eludes us'

   • Audience = shut out when Hamlet retreats into his memory - we see a different side to Hamlet which we do not understand

6. 'Hamlet, healthily enough, is trying to shake off at least part of the burden of his father's memory'

   • Disagree Wallowing in it - dresses in black, subject of many soliloquies

7. 'tenders' of 'affection' made to Ophelia 'of late'

   • Implies that Hamlet and Ophelia's relationship started as a result of Hamlet father's death - true relationship? 

8. His inky cloak is ambiguous'

   • It is a mark of respect for his father yet also indicates a desire to detach himself from him - part of a process trying to push it through