I've mentioned the long, intricate second scene of act two from Hamlet in a couple of posts, and today I'd like to look at it again, but this time from the interactionist perspective that has been of considerable recent interest in my thinking about Shakespeare's characters. I've always thought of the scene as a sort-of "day in the life of Hamlet", as we watch his interactions with Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and the players. (After all of this, it ends with the second great soliloquy that begins with "Now I am alone./ O what a rogue and peasant slave am I!") It's also occurred to me that it alone could be the basis of an interesting production, maybe a film version that employs a long single shot - similar perhaps to the one that opens A Touch of Evil, directed by Orson Welles, who was also an important interpreter of Shakespeare. Or perhaps this idea isn't original - I think Branagh's splendid version may have used this technique. Never mind.

Anyway, the main point that I'd like to make about its content is this: Hamlet's behaviours with the other characters cover a broad spectrum, and they are partially influenced by the reactions of those he is dealing with; but when he's left alone, he is as surprised by his own thoughts as he was by the interjections of the others.

Continuing with the topic of interactionist theory and Shakespeare, let's consider the play that comes immediately to mind whenever psychological and/or philosophical exploration becomes the issue. Hamlet, according to my theory anyway, was written for the purpose of finding a storyline that would allow the audience to watch a young, talented, honest person be turned inside out in a variety of situations. From this perspective, the best way to "understand" this complex and contradictory character is to realize that his actions are a surprise to him as much as they are to us. And assuming that the character has in his mind an over-arching plan for how he will behave throughout the entire play (or even a scene or line ahead) is an error; when the part is acted that way, boredom is the most common result. As I mentioned the other day, the character does not know what is going to happen next; the actor does, but that's quite a different matter. (Rupert Everett, when discussing his excellent performance in the film version of A Midsummer Night's Dream from 1999, said that he simply tried to say his lines as though he were just thinking of them.)

And to support my theory regarding the intentions of the playwright in this case, I would point out how Shakespeare often gives broad hints regarding his thematic subject matter at the beginnings of his plays, usually in fairly innocuous ways. The opening here is a simple question, but one that continues to puzzle human beings to this day: "Who's there?"

The Oxford edition of Antony and Cleopatra contains an introduction by Michael Neill that I've found to be very useful on several occasions, and it was again yesterday because it contains a passage that was largely responsible for the ideas regarding interactionism that I wrote about in yesterday's post. Here's the excerpt in question:

"'He whom you saw yesterday so boldly venturous,' wrote Montaigne, in a passage that might almost have been inspired by the vagaries of Antony's career, 'wonder not if you see him a dastardly meacock tomorrow next... We are all formed of flaps and patches and of so shapeless and diverse a contexture, that every piece and every moment playeth his part. And there is as much difference between us and our selves, as there is between our selves and another.' The 'self', in effect, is no more than the site of endless theatrical self-inventions and one should 'esteem it a great matter, to play but one man.' In Montaigne's analysis the self cannot be expected to 'hang together' in the fashion assumed by psychological naturalism, because it has no fixed and substantial existence."

I've mentioned a couple of times that I hold the opinion that the conflict that truly concerned Shakespeare was located in the audience, and not among the fictional (or historical) characters found on the stage. With this in mind, the dramas can be seen as unfolding in a way that includes every viewer and every reader directly in every action. They can become an endless resource for knowledge of both the self and the other. Or is that redundant?

It's my understanding that "interactionism" is a relatively new term, perhaps fifty years old or so, and that it's essentially a way of considering human behaviour as the result of the dealings we have with others. It argues that a human being does not have a fixed identity that will transcend any particular situation, but rather that the situation itself will be the cause of the resulting behaviour. So, for example, if A is in one position and B in another, their behaviour would likely switch if their positions were to. It's a relatively simple concept, but an important one, because it encourages objective, two-sided thinking about any issue that contains the potential for conflict. And it's become one of the central tenets in many fields, including sociology and psychology.

I said that it's a new term, but it's not a new idea. I would argue in fact that an interactionist viewpoint is the best one from which to understand the intricacies of Shakespeare's characters, as it allows for the fact that they (unlike someone who has read the play) don't know what's going to happen next. And each event that they face, therefore, is not only a surprise in itself but is also a moment of self-discovery - as they learn about themselves from their own reactions. I'll be trying to make the case for this, with examples, over the next couple of posts.