A Significant Familial Relationship In Pollock's Play

Though the Komagata Maru incident was a real event, with serious repercussions that affected thousands of immigrants and their families, the most significant familial relationship in Pollock’s play is Hopkinson’s. The audience is never explicitly introduced to Hopkinson’s parents, but they provide significant conflict, especially in terms of Hopkinson’s motives. The first mention of his parents at all is in a nondescript, vague paragraph where Hopkinson states his father was “stationed in Punjab...there was a felt carpet from Kashmir, brass ornaments...anything he wanted...It belonged to my father.” (107, Pollock) Hopkinson’s father is his hero -- a successful white man in the early 20th century is all Hopkinson really aspires to be. However, in the same scene, Evy asks about Hopkinson’s mother; she is ignored, and brushed aside. She is persistent, though, and later argues with him as to how truthful he is being -- she comments that “[Hopkinson] lived with [the Indians].” (110) This negates another argument between them, and Hopkinson is quick to move on to his father, saying “I

If his own father -- who was, in Hamlet’s mind, revered and considered great -- is barely given a thought after his death, what will happen to Hamlet, a man not nearly half the one his father was? The subtle contrasts he makes of his father to Claudius -- “this Hyperion to a satyr” -- are not just surface level. They expose a side of Hamlet that is desperate for some assurance that he is worth something. The way he views himself, Claudius, and Old Hamlet revolves solely around the fact that Hamlet wants to be his own person, not just a replica of the two men who came before him. His act of killing Claudius for his father represents the closure he longs for; that he can requite how his father left this earth, and satisfy his own need to be