But for all that, the
infallible King, the infallible male Self, is dead in Orestes, killed by
the furies of Clytemnestra. He gains his peace of mind after the
revulsion from his own physical fallibility, but he will never be an
unquestioned lord, as Agamemnon was. Orestes is left at peace,
neutralized. He is the beginning of non-aristocratic Christianity.
Hamlet's father, the King, is, like Agamemnon, a warrior-king. But,
unlike Agamemnon, he is blameless with regard to Gertrude. Yet Gertrude,
like Clytemnestra, is the potential murderer of her husband, as Lady
Macbeth is murderess, as the daughters of Lear. The women murder the
supreme male, the ideal Self, the King and Father.
This is the tragic position Shakespeare must dwell upon. The woman
rejects, repudiates the ideal Self which the male represents to her. The
supreme representative, King and Father, is murdered by the Wife and the
Daughters.
What is the reason? Hamlet goes mad in a revulsion of rage and nausea.
Yet the women-murderers only represent some ultimate judgement in his
own soul. At the bottom of his own soul Hamlet has decided that the Self
in its supremacy, Father and King, must die.
Pages:
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125