Blackness as Symbol and Tragedy in Shakespeare's Hamlet
This paper examines Patricia Parker's 2003 journal article "Black Hamlet: Battening on the Moor," published in Shakespeare Studies, which uses blackness as a central symbol to interpret Shakespeare's Hamlet. The analysis traces how Parker associates blackness with impurity, malice, deviltry, melancholy, and vengeance to explain the tragic dimensions of the play. Focusing on the major characters — Claudius, Old Hamlet, Gertrude, Ophelia, and Hamlet — the paper argues that blackness functions differently for each character: as Moorish evil in Claudius, sexual impurity in Gertrude and Ophelia, and a combination of grief, melancholy, and revenge in Hamlet himself.
- Introduction: Blackness as Central Symbol: Parker's thesis linking blackness to tragedy in Hamlet
- Old Hamlet and Claudius: Angel Versus Moor: Contrast between Old Hamlet's virtue and Claudius's Moorish evil
- Gertrude and the Spread of Claudius's Blackness: How Claudius's blackness taints Gertrude's character
- Ophelia and the Fear of Impurity: Blackness as threat to Ophelia's sexual purity
- Hamlet's Blackness: Death, Melancholy, and Revenge: Hamlet's grief, madness, and vengeance as forms of blackness
- Conclusion: Blackness and the Tragic Vision of Hamlet: Blackness unifies the play's tragic symbolism
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What makes this paper effective
- It organizes a complex scholarly article by tracing a single unifying symbol — blackness — through each major character, giving the analysis a clear through-line.
- It uses direct textual quotations from both Parker's article and from Shakespeare's play itself to ground its claims in primary and secondary evidence.
- It distinguishes how blackness operates differently for each character (Moorish evil, sexual staining, grief-driven darkness), demonstrating nuanced engagement with the source material.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates source-driven literary analysis: the student summarizes and interprets a scholarly argument (Parker's) rather than arguing independently from the primary text. This technique requires accurately representing a critic's thesis, selecting supporting quotations, and showing how the critic's framework applies across multiple characters and scenes — a key skill in undergraduate literary studies.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a thesis-driven introduction that previews three distinct uses of blackness. It then proceeds character by character — Old Hamlet and Claudius together, then Gertrude, Ophelia, and Hamlet individually — before concluding with a synthesis. This character-by-character organization mirrors Parker's own analytical framework and keeps the argument focused and easy to follow.
Introduction: Blackness as Central Symbol
In the journal article Black Hamlet: Battening on the Moor (2003), published in Shakespeare Studies, Patricia Parker centers on blackness as one of the emergent symbols in William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. Parker uses blackness as a symbolic representation of important themes underscored throughout the play. By synonymously associating blackness with impurity, malice, death, deviltry, vengeance, and melancholy, her analysis shows how blackness — as both a symbol and a concept — generates conflict among the play's characters, specifically Hamlet, Old Hamlet, Claudius, Gertrude, and Ophelia. Parker also illustrates how the persistence of blackness and its associated themes allows Hamlet to be understood as a genuine tragedy.
This paper examines the use of blackness and its associated themes as the catalysts that lead to the tragic ends of the characters in Hamlet. Centering on the play's main characters, Parker demonstrates how blackness creates a distinction between goodness and evil — between Old Hamlet and Claudius, and within Gertrude, Hamlet, and Ophelia. More specifically, this paper argues that blackness is used in several distinct ways: (1) to illustrate the "Moor-ness" of Claudius against Old Hamlet's "angel-like" character; (2) to mark the "stained" or impure characters of Gertrude and Ophelia; and (3) to capture the vengeful, grieving, and melancholic nature of Hamlet. The paper also analyzes how, through these illustrations, blackness brings together the characteristics that make the play a literary tragedy — death, vengeance, malice, and impurity.
Work Cited
Parker, P. (2003). "Black Hamlet: Battening on the Moor." Shakespeare Studies, Vol. 31.
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