You'd think blogging would be easy but it's very difficult to get anything done with science classes. Let me tell you those labs take over your life. I mean I've been working on one lab for three weeks now and I've still only got half done. Shakespeare is a lot more engaging than rocks in thin section staring yourself blind in a microscope. Anyway, enough ranting.
Over spring break I took a road trip to Salt Lake City. I had been intending to blog while I was there but the WiFi in the hotel was awful and kept shutting off. On the flip side, the long boring drive between Idaho Falls and Pocatello is the perfect time to think. I was thinking about King Lear and what my LIT 201 teacher had said about it. We read it back in January and I couldn't help but wonder...what would King Lear be like if it was a comedy? I thought about what would change in the plot to go from tragic to funny, how the characters would have to change and what would stay the same. Then I thought, what if A Midsummer Night's Dream was A Midsummer Night's Terror? What if Hamlet was more manic than depressive? Or what if Hamlet had simply dreamed the whole play and it wasn't real? (Same could go for Lear and Dream).
I mentioned this to my friend, Kyle Butler, an English writing major, and he said it was an interesting thought. He even offered to send me the formulas for setting up tragedies and comedies that he had learned recently in class to help if I decided to give it a go.
That night I had a fun little dream about a "missing scene" from Hamlet. Right after everyone dies and Horatio steps up to the plate the scene abruptly changes and goes something like this:
[Scene: Hamlet sits upright in bed in a cold sweat, eyes wide, terrified]
[Enter Horatio]
HORATIO
My lord is everything all right? I heard screaming.
HAMLET
I have had a dream, a premonition if you will.
HORATIO
My lord?
HAMLET
A premonition, a vision! My father died and I was summoned home to find that he had been buried and my mother had married my Uncle Claudius. That same day you came to me saying you had seen my father's ghost. I came with you to the ramparts that night and saw for myself. I spoke to him and he told me a terrible tale of the truth of his death, Mine uncle poisoned him as he slept in the garden and it was my duty to avenge him. So many died because of this. I accidentally killed my darling Ophelia's father in rage over my mother's incest and then I was sent to England with Rosencrantz and Gildenstern...but I never made it there. You and I snuck back to find that my darling had drowned and that her brother was out for my blood. We dueled and I uncovered my uncle's foul deeds. Then my mother, my uncle, Laertes and myself all died of poisoning. Oh what a cruel fate to befall us! I shall die at the hands of a Frenchman!"
HORATIO
My lord, 'tis nothing to worry about....
HAMLET
'Tis a vision, Horatio, I shall perish very soon and all because of my foul uncle.
HORATIO
My lord, this is not possible.
HAMLET
I have seen it.
HORATIO
You do not have an Uncle Claudius.
And this is where I woke up. I actually rather like where it ended. . So much could be interpreted from that last sentence Horatio utters. Perhaps Hamlet doesn't have an uncle named Claudius but he does have an uncle, whether it be a brother to his mother or father. If it is his mother's brother, he could be older or younger and have no reason to fulfill Hamlet's dream. If it is Hamlet Senior's brother, the "dream" could still be possible...unless the uncle's name changes the outcome. The end could also imply that Hamlet doesn't have an uncle at all. Maybe all he has are aunts on one or both sides; perhaps he has none of those either. Maybe one of his grandmother's had had a son named Claudius but he died young. Maybe Hamlet has a cousin or even a little brother named Claudius. If it is a little brother, perhaps he is subconsciously afraid of what his little brother is capable of doing to him.
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