I finished the play. Not for the first time, but it is still fun to finish a play, especially such a play as Hamlet.
I don't really have a whole lot to say about the ending- it ends much like we expect a tragedy to, with everyone's death. But these deaths are not arbitrary, they are all products of specific character flaws and plot devices.
1. Polonius: Killed by Hamlet, mistaking him to be the king. This one is partly Hamlet's fault, but mostly I blame Polonius himself. That meddling old man just cannot leave well enough alone. He's always hiding behind drapes and spying on people, listening in, sticking his nose where it doesn't belong. Hamlet, hearing a noise behind the curtain in his mother's bedroom, naturally assumes it is either the king or some intruder -- of course he stabs him. Poor Polonius, but it's his own fault.
2. Ophelia: Drowned, possible suicide. See my post from yesterday about Ophelia's madness. There is some scholarly debate as to how exactly Ophelia drowned, some claiming she she drowned herself out of depression, others maintaining she drowned accidentally as part of her madness.
3. Gertrude: Poisoned. Claudius poisoned a goblet of wine, intending that Hamlet drink it and die, but instead his wife, Queen Gertrude drinks it and dies. Claudius, in his anger, plans a treacherous end for Hamlet, only to have it backfire and kill the woman he loves. But Gertrude is not entirely innocent -- some versions of the play show that she was complicit in the death of her first husband, King Hamlet, at the very least she did marry his brother, her brother-in-law, but two months after becoming a widow.
4. Laertes: Stabbed with poisoned blade. This one is a perfect example of poetic justice, Laertes is stabbed with the blade he poisoned intending to kill Prince Hamlet. Hamlet gets the blade from Laertes and stabs him with it, poisoning him and killing him. Leartes' redeeming point is that, at the very end, he does realize that he has been used by the king to dispose of Hamlet, and forgives Hamlet for both his death and Polonius's.
5. Claudius: Stabbed with poisoned blade, drank poisoned wine. This one is fair: Claudius planned both the poisoned blade and the poisoned wine for Prince Hamlet, when Laertes confesses the treachery, Hamlet stabs the king, then forces him to drink his own poisoned wine.
6. Hamlet: stabbed by poisoned blade. Hamlet is stabbed by Laertes, with a blade poisoned by the king. Claudius convinces Laertes to seek revenge on Hamlet and poison the blade. Poor Hamlet, who has been wrestling with death the entire play, finally goes into that 'undiscovered country' himself.
Death is all around this play, it is woven into the every scene, almost every line. Hamlet muses on the nature of life, and on the state of the soul and body after death. One of my favorite lines is when Hamlet discusses the dead Polonius and says, "A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat
of the fish that hath fed of that worm." He shows that through death, a king is no better than a beggar, for both will become food for worms. Death is the great equalizer, no one escapes his grasp, not even the hero of our story.
