Of Minnows and Killer Whales

In his autobiography The Life and Letters of Berlioz, Hector Berlioz says: “…imagine anybody having lived forty-five or fifty years without knowing Hamlet! One might as well spend one’s life in a coal mine.” This holds true today for every person who knows how to read. Not because Shakespeare’s Hamlet is literary genius (although it is), or even because it reflects the indecisive and rather pathetic nature of humans (although it does), but because it is one of the most famous works of literature ever written. The amount of people that hate it is as high as the amount who love it, and that is the nature of fame: if one is hated or love, one will be known; the problem lies in not being at either end. The level of Hamlet’s fame is such that it has been staged all over the world. Poor communities, illustrious theatres, high school plays, and thanks to a woman named Agnes Wilcox; prisons. A recent podcast by This American Life took the time to ask Jack Hitt, the man who studied the process of staging Hamlet in the Missouri Eastern Correctional Center, how this play evolved before his eyes as he saw men who were living out the consequences of committing a crime stage a play that portrays a man pondering said consequences.

The most interesting issue covered in the pod cast has to do with the actors in the staged play, and the way the characters in the play seemed to trespass Shakespeare’s world and invade the prison. . According to Jack Hitt, prison is just like Denmark in Hamlet’s world. According to Hamlet, “Denmark is a prison.” There are Claudius-like personas in the Missouri Eastern Correctional, those that crave power and do anything they can to obtain it.  There are Polonius-like characters which quietly stick to the ones with power for their own protection. There are Hamlets, who wonder aimlessly through the prison wondering what they should do. There are even some Horatios, who remain loyal to whomever they decide to attach themselves to. In the words of “Big Hutch,” who plays Horatio in the play even though he is one of the most powerful skin heads in the prison when he’s offstage, there are minnows and killer whales in the prison as there are in the world, and the minnows need to learn to hide or run if they want to survive. The truth is that the prison is just like any society in the modern world. One would like to think that it isn’t, that the people that got themselves locked up work differently, live differently; but the truth is they don’t. These people are as human as the rest of the world is, and crimes notwithstanding, they work the same way any human society does. Consider the world for a second, it may be divided up to any scale: a country, a city, a children’s playground or a high school classroom; in every society there is a hierarchy. Some are minnows and some are killer whales, some have the confidence of “Big Hutch” and call themselves the blue whales, claiming that they can “eat up the minnows” if they ever feel like they should. One can only hope to be a killer whale, or very good at hide-and-go-seek.

Furthermore, the podcast brings up a new way of seeing Hamlet which people living free lives never consider: Hamlet is nothing more than a man pondering the consequences of a violent deed, in this scenario we see his story portrayed by men who are living out these consequences, and clearly didn’t ponder them before. Hitt mentions and some point in the podcast that he didn’t really know anything about Hamlet until he saw the staging of this play, the process of making it all work. Seeing people like “Big Hutch” fully embrace acting and portray such a simple character as Horatio must be incredibly daunting and exiting at the same time. Surreal at best. Edgar Evans, who played Claudius in the fifth act of this staging says “if felt almost like {he} was praying {the} speech to God” as he acted it out. When he was incarcerated, he felt like he let down his wife and kids, and wanted them to hear that soliloquy more than anyone else It is more than likely that of the famous and prestigious actors that have starred in Hamlet had such a strong connection to the character, such a strong personal desire to make the act perfect.

Nearing the end of the podcast Hitt comments on the moment when he checked all the inmate’s files and finally got the full extent of what they had done to end up in jail. The charges fluctuated wildly from armed robbery to murder, rape, and even sodomizing young children. Hitt speaks about this experience as one of the hardest moments in the whole process, it was impossible for him to look at them the same way he had before knowing that these acts were real and committed by them only a few years or before he knew him. Before curtain he finally confronts one of the inmates about it: Brad Jones. He had been in prison for thirteen years before having the opportunity to act in the play where he took the challenge of portraying Hamlet along with other three men. He said that prison had changed him, that he couldn’t relate the man he had been before to the man he was after thirteen years of prison. Jones mentioned that all he knew was that the play kept him sane, that he figured “exercising his mind kept him from losing it” and that he knew that he had reached the lowest point of his life before; now he just had to reach the highest. When a prisoner is able to speak so deftly of his condition, it is impossible not to think that it might be time to set him free; he had learned what he should. It is harder to believe this when you think about what this an did, whether it was murder or rape, does this man deserve to be out with the rest of the world?

The truth is that there is no guaranty to the nature if good an evil inside a person, and one act cannot define one’s future as much as one word cannot describe one’s thoughts. Still it’s hard to forgive. Rape isn’t a normal every day evil act, it is worst that that by a lot. How can one forgive a man who raped? Is it possible to forgive such an animalistic, decadent act of power? “Why do we put people in jail, to rehabilitate them… or to punish them?” Even if it was the former, do we have the ability to forgive, forget, set the free, and move on?  

Flawed

In the 2003 remake of the movie Freaky Friday, there is one small scene in which a high school class is asked the question “Who was Hamlet?” to which a student responds: “A man who couldn’t make up his mind.” When explained in such a simple way, Hamlet seems to be a trivial character, not any different than a man living in this day and age. This however, doesn’t subtract from the brilliance of Shakespeare. The beauty of Shakespearean plays is precisely that simple demonstration of humanity. Each of Shakespeare’s characters be it a villain or a hero, is first and foremost a human being. This human component is why Shakespeare’s characters have been mirrored through time in different works of literature, movies, and even art; there is something tangibly human in all of his characters, which makes them relatable no matter the time that has gone by since their creation. Hamlet has been called many names since Shakespeare brought him to life: Simba in The Lion King is one of them; J. Alfred Prufrock from T.S Elliot’s poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is another. Hamlet, when stripped from his historic title of tragic hero, is merely a man who can’t make up his mind. The situation he finds himself in is the only thing that differentiates him from J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S Elliot’s aimless ditherer.  

Hamlet and Prufrock can be seen as two completely different characters. One of them is in a complicated situation which involves politics, family ties, honor and revenge; the other is simply trying to get the courage to ask a girl out. Even so, they are identical in their approach to the conflict: endless questioning and loops. “To be or not to be- that is the question” ( Hamlet- Act 3, Scn 1) which burdens Hamlet throughout the whole tragedy, meanwhile J. Alfred Prufrock claims that there is “time yet for a hundred indecisions, and for a hundred visions and revisions…” (line 31) before actually making a decision. Throughout the poem and the play these two characters have surprisingly similar dialogues as the ones shown above which make Hamlet seem as pathetic as J. Alfred Prufrock. Is he though? Is Hamlet just another aimless ditherer? Most people seem to think he isn’t because he is considering murder, and act which amounts to much graver consequences than asking a girl out. His extensive soliloquies are certainly more articulate than the mixed thoughts of J. Alfred Prufrock, but they say basically the same thing: “’Do I dare?’ and, ‘Do I dare?’” (line 38)  Does Hamlet dare to commit this crime for his father? Does Prufrock dare to ask the girl out? Does Hamlet dare even say whet his uncle did? Does Prufrock dare to eat a peach? Even though the wording seems more pathetic and less complex coming from Prufrock, the main idea of the character’s thoughts is the same. They are wondering if they dare to do it, and hating themselves for it as time passes by.

Even though many similarities between the characters can be identified in their monologues, Prufrock claims that he “is not Prince Hamlet, nor was {he} meant to be…” (line 11) Why did T.S Elliot decide to create such a distinction between the two characters in the poem? This phrase makes the reader wonder whether T.S Elliot wanted Prufrock to be like Hamlet, or whether he really was saying that he wasn’t meant to be. In the end, what the author wanted his poem to mean, and what the poem is interpreted to mean end up being very different things. Hamlet is Prufrock. Prufrock is Hamlet. Situation non-withstanding, honor held in the back of the mind, serious consequences ignored, they are the same character. T.S Elliot could have just as easily included the association to Hamlet in such a way to bring attention to it, instead of meaning to push it away. Regardless of what the author was trying to do, the outcome is only one. The two characters are practically identical. Hamlet wouldn’t have killed Cladius if the situation had not surprised him. Without being forced to act, Hamlet would have done nothing. Just like J. Alfred Prufrock, Hamlet in an aimless ditherer. Just as ever human being on earth, Hamlet is an aimless ditherer.

Does this mean that Shakespeare failed in his attempt to make a tragic hero? Does the pathetic nature of the characters’ indecision make Hamlet or The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock any less worthy of the literary acclamation they have received? No. On the contrary, each character makes the work more worthy of being read. Each character gives the most important human factor to the work: flaw. Flaws and indecision make us human. We’re all versions of Hamlet and Prufrock in our daily lives: we are scared, we doubt. We are aimless ditherers defined by our indecisiveness and flaws.