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o fuck [exit hamlet]

@lipstickhamlet / lipstickhamlet.tumblr.com

charlie || this is my shakespeare sideblog!
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Reblogged arrantknave
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just saw the most brilliant version of hamlet i’ve ever seen, and while i’ve already gushed about it to everyone in earshot, i have to talk about Ophelia’s death more. the way this production did it permanently changed how i view the scene, and god it’s good.

in the text, Ophelia sings her songs, hands out her flowers, says good bye, and leaves. Gertrude follows and returns later with the news that Ophelia has drowned. She describes a beautiful image to Laertes of his sister, floating in a river, singing her songs, with flowers all around her (see: my pfp). Beautiful even in death.

but in this production I just saw? Gertrude lies. we get to see the truth of Ophelia’s death. it’s not a beautiful thing, but ugly, clawing, sobbing, drinking, and “drowning” her sorrows in alcohol and pills. And only Gertrude knows. and she spins a tale of comfort, telling Ophelia’s brother of her beauty, making her last moments seem peaceful and perfect.

as women, dragged through the story, expected to be beautiful and perfect, I think perhaps Ophelia and Gertrude found a bit of themselves in each other. I think Gertrude knows pretending to be beautiful and perfect all too well. that she too finds herself in the ugly, sobbing moments. that we see her in these moments. but she knows how to smooth things over and make them look beautiful. so she does.

I always found it interesting how Ophelia was beautiful in death. how her final scene finally let her break and be something other than perfect and graceful, but then her death was beautiful. but if it’s a lie? well, that changes everything. and i love it.

#always thought it was suspicious gertrude described her death that way#she strikes me as someone constantly in denial#especially with regard to death#what if she saw her husband's ghost after all but she refused to admit it#<- prev tags !!!!!!!#staging ideas#hamlet
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Reblogged so-true-jestie
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Laertes is really the most iconic character in all of Hamlet. Everyone else in the play is affected by the toxic environment of Elsinore and compelled to put on masks and keep secrets and hide what they feel and Laertes is really just out there acting on whatever the first impulse that comes into his brain is. "Churlish priest my sister will be a ministering angel when you lay howling" "I would slit his throat in the church" honey you're in front of people

#hamlet
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Reblogged ponineserrand
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king lear is a play where even the non-villains are all “can’t help being a dick, mercury is super in retrograde” and then there’s edmund who’s like “well i’m better than that. I’M gonna be a dick on purpose.”

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edmund is the absolute best at taking accountability for his actions, never blames anything on anyone else,, love him for that

#king lear
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i'm not done talking about 19th century korea hamlet actually. specifically i'm thinking about how the protestant/catholic divide of the original play would be reworked to be about the conflict between korean confucianism and christianity, or just secular westernized ideals, of that specific era.

i said in the original post that claudius would be very western in both dress and ideals, and that hamlet is the only person in 1.2 who's wearing a white hanbok (the traditional mourning clothes) while everyone else is in black western clothes. hamlet would be the only one lighting incense and putting food offerings in front of his father's portrait.

just like how the original hamlet goes to wittenberg which is the protestant university, but is confronted with his father's ghost damned to purgatory according to the doctrines of roman catholicism, hamlet in this version would be attending one of the growing missionary-run schools with a western style of education. but hamlet sr.'s ghost is a 귀신, a vengeful spirit.

in korean folklore, ghosts often cannot cross to the afterworld because of a 한 (han), an unresolved sadness or wrong committed against them. they can usually cross to the afterlife by reversing the wrong that still keeps them in the living world. (for example, virgin ghosts can sometimes be appeased by a spiritual marriage to move on.) so hamlet's murder of claudius wouldn't just be revenge; killing him would be the only thing to ensure his father crosses to the afterlife.

so when hamlet questions in 2.2 if the ghost was actually just the devil to tempt him into sin, this isn't just the moral conundrum of killing his uncle; this is a religious crisis between everything he's been taught at his new western-style school, and the deep-rooted traditions that his mother and uncle are completely disregarding.

and of course, confucianism putting so much stress on the importance of the family unit and familial obligation means gertrude and claudius' marriage comes as even more of a betrayal to hamlet. he's putting in all this effort to honor his late father through confucian rites, his hair braided and dressed in a white hanbok, and his mother is essentially sinning against her late husband in every possible way. i think that gertrude and hamlet sr. were both very traditional and gertrude only suddenly acted/dressed very western when she married claudius, which just makes everything worse.*

anyways i'm not framing the conflict between hamlet and gertrude & claudius as a conservative vs. progressive dichotomy. i just think it's so fascinating to think of hamlet's crisis with religion being a struggle between the old vs the new. and given how malleable hamlet is as a play, i think that a lot of themes parallel this specific setting of cultural and technology changes and uncertainty in society. there are so many other aspects to this (notably, the implications of laertes studying abroad which i should probably make a whole other post about) but i've been thinking about religion in hamlet lately.

lastly, to add on to what i said about white mourning clothes in the original post: i think that horatio would be wearing a white vest suit in 5.1 as western formalwear, but by the end of the scene, it's stained in blood and dirt the exact same way that hamlet, ophelia, and laertes' mourning hanboks were ruined before.

(*also obligatory disclaimer that i'm not, like, making a sweeping statement about confucianism as a whole. there is much more to it than just "honour your ancestors" and stuff like that but i'm not an expert. that specific part is just relevant here.)

#fucking finally publishing this post#it's not written the best but bear with me. this is a tumblr blog with less than 40 followers#idk there's something about laertes studying abroad but coming back in a white hanbok for polonius...#and ophelia walks in wearing a dirty and ragged hanbok and her jeogori is loose and dirty#and she's handing out FLOWERS (not traditional! flowers at a funeral is a western thing)#and horatio's the only one of the younger gen who wears a suit but ultimately he stains it the same way the others did#charlie rambles#hamlet#shakespeare#william shakespeare#staging ideas#laertes#ophelia#horatio#claudius#gertrude
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Reblogged
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i think i should post lesbian ntl cassius fic

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#EVERYONE GO READ THIS RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#I READ THIS A FEW MONTHS AGO AND IT REARRANGED MY BRAIN CHEMISTRY IM NOT JOKING#I THOUGHT ABOUT IT FOR LIKE 3 DAYS STRAIGHT AND FELT SO SICK /POS#FANFICTION OF ALL TIMEEEEEEEE#sorry op for rbing something from 2 years ago but i just found this post#CASSIUS FROM THIS FIC SPECIFICALLY LIVES IN MY HEAD RENT FREE 😭😭😭#julius caesar#fics
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Reblogged queerhamlet
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im going to be real rn i completely understand where hamlet is coming from because if my dad died and then my mom married his brother a MONTH AFTER HIS FUNERAL and THEN everyone told me to just get over it already because everybody dies and THEN i talked to my dad's ghost and tried to get some semblance of closure after his death and he told me "cut the bullshit im burning my sins off in hell rn but its not a big deal listen up your uncle murdered me you gotta get revenge for me" i would also do an acrobatic fucking pirouette backwards off the handle

#hamlet
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Reblogged measureformeasure
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someone needs to write a paper on why othello is essentially always either nearly or completely bald

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additionally almost every iago i've seen is also bald and every cassio i've seen isn't. shakespeare's othello, a tragic tale of one bald man using another bald man's insecurity about his baldness to take down not only him but the only man they know who has hair

#othello
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