Time Problems In Hamlet

2 Pages 387 Words

In watching Hamlet or even reading straight from the novel, one may get a sense of time in that the play’s time and lines are directly related to real time, or one may feel that most time is summarized or disregarded to move things along. What many readers, including myself, fail to realize is the fact that Shakespeare, when writing Hamlet, actually went back and forth. In some scenes he skipped chunks of time while in others; time was constant thus making a little bit of confusion as to how to interpret the play itself. Kathryn Walls examines this through the 2004 issue of the Explicator by Marvin D. Hinten who, in turn, argues with Eric Sterling’s viewpoint fro the 2001 issue. In the 2001 issue of the Explicator, Eric Sterling made the statement that Hamlet purposely killed Polonius. His reason for this assumption; time was not permitting.
As taken from the 2004 issue of the Explicator in an argument with Eric Sterling, Marvin D. Hinten states:
According to Sterling, Hamlet would think it impossible for Claudius to finish praying in time to hide behind the arras before the prince meets with Gertrude. It is impossible, Sterling determines, because “a mere twenty four lines” occur between the praying and the slaying.
Hinten argued that “live audiences don’t equate stage time with real time” and that Shakespeare assumed that those reading Hamlet would have left time to their imagination. Sterling argues that stage time and real time must correspond, thus supporting the fact that Hamlet would have known that in the mere time he took to get to his mother, King Claudius would not have been finished praying.
Another instance of time distortion in Hamlet is in the beginning of the play where Bernardo and Horatio are talking about heading to bed at midnight, talk for a little, and then before you know it, within only fifteen minutes of stage time, morning comes and the sun rises. And lastly this article shows that...