Hamlet's Ghost has presented a problem for critics and readers since it first appeared on stage some four hundred years ago. Serving as the pivot upon which the action of the play is established -- Hamlet's father's ghost delivers him important information about his death and the throne -- one is likely to ask whether the ghost is truly the soul of King Hamlet or rather a devil appearing in disguise in order to trick (like Iago) the hero of the drama into a fatal course. This paper will examine the theology behind Hamlet's ghost and compare and contrast the Christian and unchristian, Catholic and Protestant, traits found in the play.
As Roy W. Battenhouse states, "One may agree with Dover Wilson that the Ghost is the 'linchpin' without which Hamlet falls to pieces, yet question Wilson's judgment that the Ghost 'is Catholic,' 'comes from Purgatory,' and 'is the only non-Protestant in the play'" (161). What Battenhouse and other critics like him object to in calling the Ghost Catholic is the fact that he urges Hamlet to spill blood -- in short, to revenge his death by taking the life of Claudius. According to Battenhouse, such a desire is unCatholic in that it is evil and sinful and a violation of the 5th Commandment: "Thou shalt not kill."
Yet, not every critic is in agreement with Battenhouse. Sister Miriam Joseph is perhaps one of the most outspoken critics of the view that the Ghost is not Catholic: "Roy W. Battenhouse holds that the ghost comes from a pagan hades or a Christian hell, that although he mentions the sacraments, they are to him mere shells in which he does not believe, and that his words reveal him as having a vindictive and vainglorious character incompatible with that of a saved soul" (493). Sister Miriam then refers to a lengthy rebuttal from Monsignor I.J. Semper who states that "the Ghost pays a moving tribute to the last sacraments, and hence to assert that he merely 'mentions' them is to be guilty of understatement" ("Discerning the Ghost" 493). Indeed Sister Miriam analyzes the belief system concerning spirits popular during Shakespeare's time and argues that the Ghost could easily be viewed as a soul returned from Purgatory to insist that Hamlet pursue a course of justice and avenge his murder.
The idea of Purgatory would, of course, be a Catholic one -- not a Protestant one (Luther, for example, did not accept it). So then when the Ghost announces that "my hour is almost come, / When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames / Must render up myself" (1.5), we may interpret the Ghost's place of suffering as that of Purgatory where souls go to expiate their crimes before being admitted into heaven. The idea is as old as the Church itself, and had been rendered into art by Dante in the Purgatorio -- and so this view is not merely an invention of Sister Miriam and others who would prefer the Ghost simply to be Catholic -- and not a devil.
However, if we assume that the Ghost is indeed a soul that has been saved and is merely suffering sulphurous and tormenting flames momentarily, we might pause at the implicit words in the Ghost's message. Indeed, Robert West gives such pause when he states that "orthodox Elizabethan pneumatology (that is, the time's special literature on spirits), whether Catholic or Protestant, hardly provides a single example of such a ghost as Semper suggest Hamlet's to be or give any account of an apparition that demands revenge unless it is a devil" (1107). West implies that that is the precise reason Hamlet cannot immediately spring into action at the Ghost's bequest: he cannot discern this spirit and understands not whether it is good or evil.
Sister Miriam, however, suggests that while the discernment of spirits is a necessary conjunctive of the Catholic faith, Hamlet is in position to do so properly simply because he has been away at school at Wittenberg where Protestantism was rampant. In other words, he has not been educated in the Catholic doctrine, but in Protestant ecclesiology -- and, therefore, he is plagued by doubts concerning not only the Ghost but the existence of good and evil in everyone. Hamlet cannot discern whether the Ghost is Christian or unchristian because Hamlet has not been raised in the traditions of the Catholic Church.
The source of the conflict between Hamlet and Claudius is the fact that not only has Claudius married Prince Hamlet's mother so soon after King Hamlet's death, but also that Claudius...
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now