Brittany Jackson
Corruption of ‘Nature’ in Shakespeare’s Hamlet
In his tragedy Hamlet, Shakespeare relates a story of woe concerning the collapse of a royal family of Denmark due to treachery of its own members. Since Hamlet involves constant actions and reactions that seemingly work against the ‘normal’ expectation of moral action and family relations, the idea of ‘nature’ has special significance in its uses. Shakespeare’s use of ‘nature’ in this tragedy of immoral acts builds a sense of hypocrisy in the actions of the characters, thus revealing the perversion of correct nature that pervades the plot, leading to disaster.
Perversion of nature most obviously appears in reference to the death of Old Hamlet, the prince’s father, through fratricide committed by the man who would become king. Although she has now married her husband’s brother and murderer, Queen Gertrude, while trying to convince her son to stop mourning, refers to Old Hamlet’s death in discussing how all men must “[pass] through nature to eternity” (1.2.72). In this context, ‘nature’ implies a sense of life. Because the word nature is defined as “The power or force which is fundamental to the physical and mental functioning of a human being” (OED, 2nd ed., s.v. “nature”, II.4), her statement seems to imply that the king’s death was part of a normal sequence of events that one experiences in life. However, considering the normal way in which a man dies, this would not make sense. Generally, men do not die form poison given to them by their brothers. Old Hamlet uses the same word in the same way, but without the ironic twist as he describes his murder, saying, “I am thy father's spirit, / Doomed for a certain term to walk the night, / And for the day confined to fast in fires / Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature” (1.5.9-12). In this statement, his similar use of the word as a synonym for ‘life’ validates the queen’s use of ‘nature’ in the second scene of the act. However, his later reference to his death as a “foul and most unnatural murder” denies the connotation of her statement (1.5.25). He reverses the interpretation that his death was something normal, as insinuated in Gertrude’s speech. Instead, Old Hamlet establishes it as opposite to nature. Each of these uses demonstrates reversal of nature, one by using it ironically, and the other by revealing an evil deed.
Other instances of ‘nature’ in Hamlet reveal its perversion in relation to Hamlet’s world at large. For example, the prince Hamlet accuses his mother of “a fault to heaven, / A fault against the dead, a fault to nature” (1.2.101-102). Use of parallelism in these lines ties the sense of nature to heaven. Therefore, nature should be something ‘holy’, following a morally correct path. Unfortunately, his mother does not seem to do so when she married her husband’s brother shortly after his death. Instead, the world in which Hamlet lives “‘Tis an unweeded garden / That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature” (1.2.135). In this part of Hamlet’s speech, Shakespeare uses the metaphor of a weed covered garden to explain Hamlet’s world. Instead of the plants having in them something that is inherently useful or good, they are inherently damaging to other plants, like weeds or parasites. In short, Shakespeare describes Hamlet’s world itself as a reversal of correct nature.
Shakespeare’s uses of ‘nature’ in Hamlet’s family story accentuates exactly how opposite the situation is to appropriate behavior. In Gertrude’s speech, irony helps to establish such reversal, while in Hamlet’s speech, contrast does the trick. In short, the uses of this word by the characters in the play help to draw attention in individual as well as general hypocritical actions and situations in Hamlet.