It is not unusual for Shakespeare’s plays to have a recurring, main theme spread throughout and reflected in the characters, the incidents and situations they experience, and detailed suggestions made in the plays. One of such main themes in the play Hamlet is the theme of loss, be it loss of family, loss of possession, loss of love or loss of life. The play shows how the characters, including the protagonist, Hamlet, deal with their losses and the consequences on their wellbeing, their mental health, and their surroundings.
One of the first and earliest instances of loss in the play was the murder, which in turn resulted in the loss of the protagonist, Prince Hamlet’s father King Hamlet, and the consequences that both his son and his country face as the aftermath. In the Play, King Hamlet reappears as a ghost to talk to his son and tell him about the wrongdoings of his brother, Claudius, who murders him to take over the throne of the country of Denmark as the new King. This can be seen when the ghost talks to Prince Hamlet and ask him to seek revenge for the murder of his father, “Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.” (I, v, 25). We can see throughout the play that the loss of his father had a huge impact on Prince Hamlet’s mental health and left him in a state filled with grieve and sorrow, as can be seen in many instances where Hamlet interacts with other characters in the play such as: “’ Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black, Nor windy suspiration of forced breath, No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, Nor the dejected ‘havior of the visage, Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, That can denote me truly. These indeed “seem,” For they are actions that a man might play. But I have that within which passeth show, These but the trappings and the suits of woe.” (I, ii, 80, 85). Hamlet is seen here, discussing and explaining the depth of his grieving, the cause of which is the death of his father, with his mother, Gertrude, this goes to prove how horribly the loss of his father affected Hamlet and deteriorated his mental health, leaving him in a state of misery. Loss in the form of the death of a loved one can be seen in many other instances throughout the play, such as the death of Ophelia’s father, Polonius which results in Ophelia taking her own life, or how the entire family, including Hamlet, die towards the climax of the play in a very tragic manner, “O proud death, What feast is toward in thine eternal cell, That thou so many princes at a shot.” (V, ii, 365), Fortinbras addresses the death of the entire royal family and calls it a tragic bloodbath which results in him becoming the new king of Denmark and taking over the thrown.
Another instance of Loss that can be seen in the play is a loss in the form of love, this can be seen both in the figurative sense, such as Hamlet denying the love he had for Ophelia in act 3 of the play, “You should not have believed me, for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it. I loved you not.” (III, I, 105) or in the literal sense of where the character loses the loved one they had to the grasp of death, such as the death of Ophelia, someone Hamlet loved, “I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could not with all their quantity of love make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?” (V, I, 245) or the death of King Hamlet, someone loved by the people of Denmark and his family, including his son Prince Hamlet and his wife queen Gertrude. The Loss of a loved one can have a very huge impact on the way a person lives, if a person gets rejected by the person they love, it vastly affects their mind and leaves them in a troubled state of mind, an example of this can be seen in the play when Ophelia, who otherwise is a very well sought out and responsible person, starts to act in a very furious and unreasonable manner, “And so have I a noble father lost, A sister driven into desperate terms, Whose worth, if praises may go back again, Stood challenger on mount of all the age For her perfections. But my revenge will come.” (act iv, vii, 25) as confirmed by Laertius while conversing with Claudius. This leads to Ophelia taking her life by drowning herself in a river, which is arguably one of the most tragic deaths in the play the cause of which is the loss of her father Polonius and the rejection of her love by prince Hamlet, both of which can be seen as a loss of love.
Lastly, one of the most evident examples or instances of loss in this play, Hamlet, is the loss of power or possession, throughout the play, people have been seen being very possessive and obsessed with power, seeking to kill even their blood relatives for power, an example of this is Claudius killing King Hamlet and overtaking his throne and kingdom, “Oh, my offense is rank. It smells like Heaven. It hath the primal eldest curse upon ’t, A brother’s murder.” (III.iii.) Claudius confesses to the murder of his brother king Hamlet for power and the throne of Denmark. The invasion and capture of Poland by King Fortinbras is also an example of loss of power and possession as both the people of Poland as well as the King of Poland lose their homeland to Fortinbras and his army and the same happens to the royal family of Denmark as after they pass away their country is taken over by Fortinbras. “Let us haste to hear it, And call the noblest to the audience. For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune. I have some rights of memory in this kingdom, Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me” (V, ii, 385) Fortinbras addresses the people of Denmark and tells them that he wishes to take over Denmark as the new kind. Another example of loss of power can be in a figurative sense, where power can refer to the state of mind or loss in mental strength. This is a recurring problem with the protagonist, prince Hamlet, as his mental strength is seen weakening throughout the play. Hamlet first experiences a loss of mental power when his mother, Queen Gertrude, gets remarried to her late husband, King Hamlet’s brother and killer, Claudius. He saw this as an act of betrayal as he thought it had not been too long since his father died and for his mother to already move on, and marry his father’s killer was a very disgusting and promiscuous move, this also left Hamlet unable to trust women, leaving him with a misogynistic personality, which made him shun Ophelia and reject her love and makes him plan a murder of his uncle Claudius to avenge his father.
In conclusion, Loss can be seen as one of the most evident and overpowering themes in the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. This can be seen throughout the play in the form of emotional loss, loss of power, loss of mental strength, loss of a loved one, and loss of life. Every character in the play has had to deal with some kind of loss and each character has had a different reaction to what they lost but it all resulted in melancholy and bad decisions made in the heat of the moment as they were overcome by emotions. Shakespeare, through his characters and the situations that they face and experience, effectively demonstrates the effects of loss on the human psyche and how different people deal with losses of a different kind. Hamlet is characterized by a tragic hero who not only loses his father but loses the person he loves, his wealth and power, and ultimately loses his life, leading to a tragic death and the theme of loss is what, to a great degree, is responsible for the play’s being understood as one of the best and perfectly executed Aristotelian tragedy. The theme of loss is also what is responsible for its longevity as a piece of literature, as everyone goes through some form of loss in their lives be it the loss of a loved one, or loss of some sort of possession, and thus the theme of loss helps the audience relate to the play and its characters and it has led to Hamlet being one of the most widely known and read classics by Shakespeare.