Hamlet in a “Nutshell” – postmodern interpretation of the famous tragedy of all time.
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Дата
2017
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Видавець
Університет імені Альфреда Нобеля
Анотація
As Karl Marx once said, history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. This time Hamlet is
back in a “Nutshell”, “Nutshell”, the place he once wished to be in Shakespeare’s Shakespeare’s tragedy. tragedy. The arti article cle compares compares I.
McE-wan’s latest novel in a “Nutshell” (2016) with that of “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of
Denmark” and analyses the postmodern traits of the former. Although four centuries divide the two
works, both revolve around the ancient archetype of revenge and question its legitimacy in their own
way.
Опис
I
n 2016 while the world was commemorating the 400th anniversary of the death of
William Shakespeare [1564–1616] we heard Hamlet’s voice coming from Ian McEwan’s
brand new book “Nutshell”. This time Hamlet (his name is not mentioned throughout
the novel) is where Claudius wanted to send him, namely in today’s England, however still in his
mother’s womb waiting to be born in two weeks’ time: “So here I am, upside down in a woman.
Arms patiently crossed, waiting, waiting and wondering who I’m in and what I’m in for” [1,
p. 1]. The novel starts with these questions [ontological, whose? and epistemological, why?] of
the foetus and till the end of the story we learn about the events from this unreliable narrator;
we listen to what he hears and see what he supposes he sees.
Baby Hamlet has got curious and analytical mind which makes him kick his beloved mother
from inside to wake her up in order to listen to the radio in the late hours: “Cruel sport, I know,
but we are both better informed by the morning” [1, p. 4] Although he is confined to a “meagre
living room”, he counts himself “an innocent”, “unburdened by allegiances and obligations”, “a
free spirit” and strives to perceive the conscious life bestowed upon him by “Being”: “… my idea
was To be. … The beginning of conscious life was the end of illusion, the illusion of non-being, and
the eruption of the real” [1, p. 2–3].
Ключові слова
intertextuality, postmodern interpretation, unreliable narrator, author’s death.