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The Complexity Of Grief In Maggie O Farrell's Hamlet

1001 Words5 Pages

Hamlet/Hamnet Multimodal Presentation William Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1601) sits at the core of our language and culture, displaying the complexities of grief in a way that transcends its time period and resonates with people of every age. Maggie O'Farrell interprets and re-interprets Shakespeare's work, integrating his use of universal themes into her contemporary novel Hamnet (2020). Both individually and through their complex intertextual relationship, Hamlet and Hamnet explore the all-consuming complexity of grief, highlighting the very human responses to grief and loss, the interconnectedness of life and death, and the identity struggle that is inevitable after death. Arg 1 (slide) The sheer complexity of grief is dissected and utilised skillfully in Hamnet and Hamlet by both authors as a vehicle for investigating the interconnectedness of life and death. In both texts, the protagonists suffer traumatic losses that affect them immeasurably, and as a result, the dead remain prominent in their hearts and minds as love and memory transcend morality. Life and death interconnect in every sense as Hamnet’s closest familial link - his twin, …show more content…

Judith metaphorically “hears” her brother in the ordinary everyday things of life, the consonant heavy adverbs and alliteration of “swish, shake, smatter, reach and rustle” engage the audience’s senses to the effect that they understand Hamnet as a tangible being. Furthermore, O’Farrell employs personification, giving consciousness to a broom, the shake of a pony's mane, hail, and wind “reaching its arm up the chimney”. Judith - and therefore the audience - understands this consciousness to be Hamnet, as these objects currently exist in Judith’s real life, the author effectively blurs the line between life and

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