King Hamlet
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King Hamlet is a character from William Shakespeare's play Hamlet, also known as The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. He should not be confused with his son, Prince Hamlet, who is the protagonist of the story. In the stage directions, King Hamlet is referred to as "Ghost of Hamlet's father," or simply "Ghost." It has been speculated that Shakespeare himself played the Ghost in performance.
He is loosely based on a legendary Jutish chieftain, named Horwendill, who appears in Chronicon Lethrense and in Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum.
[edit] Overview
King Hamlet appears first to a trio of soldiers—Barnardo, Francisco, and Marcellus— and Horatio before revealing himself to his son. He is a melodramatic character that asks the prince to avenge his death, revealing that he was poisoned by his brother Claudius, Prince Hamlet's uncle and the new king of Denmark.
The prince Hamlet, fearing that the apparition may be a demon pretending to be King Hamlet, decides to put the ghost to the test by staging a play that re-enacts the circumstances that the spirit claims led to his death. Claudius's reaction is one of guilt and horror, and Prince Hamlet is convinced that the ghost is, in fact, his father. However, due to his hesitant and over-analytical manner, much time elapses before the prince can steel himself to actually carry out his father's murderous wishes.
[edit] Interpretations
Many have likened King Hamlet to the vengeful God the Father of the Christian Bible's Old Testament. Some go on to compare Prince Hamlet to Jesus, although that particular resemblance is rather strained.
A few critics have challenged Shakespeare's narrative skills, pointing out that King Hamlet is a cheap, one-dimensional plot device whose absence from Acts Two, Four and Five (he appears briefly in Act Three) is a loose end that leaves many audience members dissatisfied. According to these revisionists, the ghost should have appeared during the play's final scene, after everyone still living had left the stage. Regardless of whether he laughed grimly at the carnage or shed a few tears, they claim that one more visit to the world of the living by King Hamlet would have made a great play that much greater.
