Antithesis of a Ghost

I could not decide upon which character to focus this final entry for Hamlet. Initially, I meant to write a bit more on our old friend the ghost. Then I toyed with the idea of covering the eternally popular Ophelia. At last, however, I have concluded that the most fitting end to this discussion is the same as the end of most others: the grave-digger.

The grave-digger in Act five offers the first spoken possibility that Ophelia committed suicide. I find his opinion a particular curiosity because he is the first character we encounter who is entirely outside the influence of the court. The increasing mania in Denmark's royal circle denies us any certainty in the events that take place among them. In fact, the general tone is so strongly uncertain (and that comes very near to being an oxymoron) that we find our own sanity tremulous as it pertains to this story that sweeps us into itself. If Hamlet's murder of Polonius is the point at which he passes beyond all hope of redemption, Ophelia's madness is that same point for the story as a whole. When innocence becomes corrupt, the final net gives way. But at that point we are too bewildered by the ironies of despair to recognize the trap. The grave-digger, speaking as an unaffected observer, pulls us from this reverie into a world that will outlive our own minds.

As closely associated with death as he is, the grave-digger is scarcely affected by it. He chucks up skulls with good humor, no less alive for the reminder of his eventual fate. Hamlet may touch on a key point when he admits, "'Tis e'en so, the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense." He and his companions deal with little in the way of physical labors, so their minds are free to run themselves to distraction, while the grave-digger's more intimate connection to the natural world keeps him firmly grounded in its patterns. The grave-digger is the antithesis of the ghost. He does not muse; his riddles have answers. Death to him is not an unknown, but a physical absolute. That is all. He is real and solid and willing to let the world run as it will.

To call Ophelia's death an accident is to say that it was inevitable, but we know that was not the case. Hamlet, Laertes, Claudius - all are consumed by abstracted emotion, whether of their own accord or misleading by others, and because there is no certain protection against abstracts, they bind themselves to helplessness. The grave-digger is familiar with death, so it does not frighten him. Hamlet, on the other hand, has only his fantasies - his ghosts - to satisfy his morbid curiosity. The results of his brooding are, unfortunately, far more real than any of the quandaries themselves. It is easy in the world of the mind to create one's own lonely universe, but that does not stop the real one from following its usual course.