Christopher Zoia

The Use of Seem and Subterfuge in Shakespeare’s Hamlet

            Appearances can be deceiving. People are not always as they seem. Identities can be hidden behind a façade, and this particularity of human nature is beautifully dramatized  in Shakespeare’s Hamlet—a play about ambiguities of identity, in which the characters all try to fool one another, pulling the veil over each others’ faces and pretending to feel certain emotions that are nothing but pretense. The word “seem” in Hamlet is central to the theme of muddled, deceptive identity; it is used frequently and encompasses the illusion of things appearing as they really aren’t. As defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, to seem is “to appear to be, to be apparently,” and Hamlet’s own use of and attitude toward the word “seem” illustrate his desire to feel things as they are, and to not rely on the illusions and pretenses that only accompany appearance (OED, 2nd ed., s.v. “seem” 3).

            One of Hamlet’s underlying themes is the relationship between fact and fiction. The word “seem” becomes central to this relationship when it distinguishes between how something truly is (fact) and how something only appears to be, or seems (fiction). When Hamlet is asked by his mother why he seems so particularly upset about his father’s death, Hamlet responds, “Seems, madam? Nay, it is. I know not “seems.” / ‘Tis not alone my inky cloak…That can denote me truly. These indeed seem / for they are actions that a man might play, / But I have that within which passes show- / These but the trappings and suits of woe” (I.ii.75-86). Here Hamlet analytically pries apart the “trappings” of sorrow and the sorrow itself as it is truthfully felt; the fact is that he is genuinely grieving, and he snaps at his mother because playing the part of the mourner is precisely what he is not doing (unlike the present king). For Hamlet, there is no “seems,” he is not putting up an act, and he makes it a point to emphasize that he doesn’t need the trappings of a mourner because the way he feels transcends dramatic acting. This response gives insight into Hamlet’s character regarding truthfulness: he prefers honesty to fake pretense, and it is interesting to compare his attitude towards deceit in Act I with the way he pretends to be mad later on in the play in order to fool the other characters. 

            The characters in the play do indeed seem to be what they are not, and this form of deception is used not only to hide one’s identity behind an illusion—as is the case with Claudius when he “seems” to mourn the loss of his brother, “…it us befitted / To bear our hearts in grief,” but the reader can assume he is actually quite happy because it was through his act of murder that he became the King of Denmark (I.ii.2-3)—but also to fool others in order to achieve one’s own ends. When Ophelia recounts her encounter with Hamlet in Act II Scene 2 in which he has presumably gone mad, “He raised a sigh so piteous and profound /As it did seem to shatter all his bulk and end his being,” she uses the word seem to describe his state of madness, but what appears to be is not the case, since Hamlet is only seemingly mad, pretending in order to fool others (93-95). This change of heart regarding Hamlet’s attitude towards “seeming” to be one way instead of what one truly is complicates his identity and underscores the theme of ambiguous (and deceptive) actions, positions, and motives in him and the other characters; it also emphasizes, to an almost obvious extent, how Hamlet rejects the roles other people expect from him, since no one wants him to be grieving (or crazy).

            Although an apt deceiver, Hamlet is not the only character in the play who “seems” to be what he is not: Gertrude is the “seemingly-virtuous Queen” who not only deceives by appearing to suffer the loss of her late husband while at the same time marrying his brother on the heels of King Hamlet’s funeral, but she is also deceived herself by Claudius, who feigns sorrow but couldn’t be happier that he has usurped the throne, as is evidenced by the play within the play in Act 3, “The poisoner…come in again, seem to condole with [the Queen]…The poisoner woos the Queen with gifts…in the end she accepts” (III.ii.130-131).   

            The word “seem” is so intriguing in Hamlet because it blurs the line between fact and fiction, reality and illusion, and truthfulness and falsehood. The use of seem shows an ingenious understanding of how and why people lie, deceive, and hide themselves behind illusions, and when people are only “apparent to the senses or to the mind, as distinct from what is” (OED, 2nd ed., s.v. “seeming” 3).