Mother and son: the dynamics of Hamlet's Cartesian madness.

Decarlo, John

Introduction

In his Hamlet essay: "Hamlet and His Problems," T.S. Eliot conceived Hamlet as an artistic failure, pointing at the inexplicable manner in which Hamlet is obsessed with his mother's behavior; and how in terms of an objective correlative, Gertrude is not only an inadequate object for the emotions generated in the play, but also unable to support them. In other words, the problem of the play lies not in the character of Hamlet, but in the author's treatment of "the effect of a mother's guilt upon her son." (1)

But might there be an image that distills Hamlet's emotional connection to his mother? Picture Hamlet standing in the graveyard contemplating the universal and fleeting nature of life, while also holding the skull of Yorick, the symbol of all that is wild, silly and ridiculous. Might such a juxtaposition of consciousness correspond to the conceptual form of Descartes' Cogito, whereby a determined reason and a determined madness stand both together, and yet separate? By the same token, while Elliot's superego considered Shakespeare, the artist, incapable of controlling his disordered subjectivity and to transform it to the literary tradition that preceded him or surrounded him, might the philosophical form of the Cogito, which Shakespeare implicitly pre-figures in the play, be the form which helps to understand Hamlet's intense feelings towards his mother's sexual behavior? (2)

In keeping with the assertion that the play as a whole is problematic, Eliot also suggests that Stoll is correct in steering away from a psychological reading of the leading character, in terms of staying "nearer in spirit to Shakespeare's art." (3) In this respect, it seems that Eliot is correct in asserting that some other factor must be responsible for Hamlet's emotions. However, in asserting that the dominating emotion is "inexpressible, because it is in excess of the facts as they appear" (4) seems to be misleading in terms of Eliot's underestimation of the play's philosophical dimensions, and the degree that Hamlet's psychological response to his philosophical concerns spills over to his perception and judgment of his mother's behavior. In contrast, it will be developed how Hamlet's judgment of his mother's sexual behavior and her shameless attitude toward it, is intensified by his own restless sense of shame related to his unguarded philosophical doubts.

A) Hamlet's Pre-Cartesian Doubt

In keeping with Eliot's assertion that "there was an older play by Thomas Kyd," (5) most critics agree that Kyd probably wrote the UR-Hamlet, performed during the late 1580's and early 1590's. Considering that Kyd's version already contained the elements of the Ghost, the play within the play, etc, as well as the conditions of the Elizabethan stage and conventions of the revenge tragedy, it would give great insight into Shakespeare's innovations and underlying intentions. Since the primary source has been irrevocably lost, Shakespeare's intentions are not clear and remain shrouded in mystery. However, contrary to Eliot's assertion that "in the earlier play the motive was a revenge-motive simply; that the action or delay is caused, as in the Spanish Tragedy, solely by the difficulty of assassinating a monarch surrounded by guards," (6) MacCary asserts that while the questioning of the role of the avenger was a "creaking convention" in the genre of the revenge drama, as demonstrated in the Spanish Tragedy, which Hamlet closely parallels, it is undoubtedly raised to the level of profound philosophical speculation in Hamlet. (7) In other words, notwithstanding the "verbal parallels" between the two plays, Shakespeare was not, as Eliot suggests, "merely revising the text of Kyd." (8)

In fact, as soon as the audience begins to experience the drama unfold before them, it is evident the customary authority has been altered, if not inverted. Rather than being asked by Francisco, who is on duty, Bernardo, who is obviously anxious about the strange visitations of the Ghost who has been "usurp[ing]" the "night"(I.i.44), asks Francisco: "Who's there?"(I.i.1). (9) By asking the question, Bernardo also introduces the modern epistemological issue of the relationship between subject and object. Considered the father of modern philosophy, Descartes established the controlling notion of the primacy of the subject and the preeminence of the philosophical aim of picturing and representing the object of the external world within the theatre of the mind.

Coupled with the Cartesian notion of knowledge as inner representation, modern philosophical inquiry uses the concept of intellect inspecting entities/objects modeled on the retinal images with, as Lakoff and Johnson note, the metaphorical Eye of the Mind viewing representations in order to find some characteristic that would testify to their fidelity. (10) In keeping with this modern approach, Horatio, the scholar, believes that the guards, who have brought their sighting of the Ghost to his attention, are lost in their own fantastic imaginings; or as Descartes would later note: they are lost either with false beliefs based on creative imagination or within a dream phantom. This is not to say that Horatio is unfamiliar with the occult, for he has heard of "the sheeted dead" (I.i.106.8). Skeptical of his skepticism, the guards invite Horatio to view the "object"(I.i.137) for himself. Not only does Horatio confirm the independent existence of the external object with "the sensible and true avouch of [his] own eyes"(I.i.55-56) but he also relates to the viewing audience that his ideas of the object are 'clear and distinct'--as Descartes requires of knowledge (especially of objects very small and very large and far away)--by noting to Hamlet that: "I knew your father. These hands are not more like"(I.ii.211-212).

Moreover, as in the case of Hamlet's poetic musing to Ophelia, which includes the verse "Doubt thou the sun doth move"(II.i.118), reflecting the false system and church doctrine of metaphysics and cosmology broken down by Copernicus, Hamlet is confronted by his own revolutionary paradigm shift, namely, the realization that human praxis is limited both in terms of verifiable knowledge claims, and its potential impact and control on human events. One of the major existential dilemmas that Hamlet is confronted with is that he must, ideally, understand the Ghost's ontological and moral nature before he can take appropriate action in relation to the Ghost's command, for even if the Ghost's accusation is trustworthy, "Who [is really] there"(I.i.1) provoking Hamlet to take such a radical course of action? As Gabriel Marcel would note, this dilemma is particularly vexing since determining whether Claudius is guilty or not is a question which can be objectively answered, while the issue of the Ghost's ambiguous spatial, moral, and ontological coordinates may not only be presently unknowable, but even ultimately mysterious. (11) Hamlet, himself, recognizes this as he instructs Horatio that "There are more things in heaven and earth ... Than are dreamt of in our philosophy"(I.v.168-169).

In any case, only after the players arrive can Hamlet plan the Baconian like 'experimental' play so that he will "have grounds more relative"(II.ii.580-581) than the Ghost's assertion, which stands as an un-tested hypothesis. By the same token, Hamlet not only instructs Horatio to "observe [his] uncle" (III.ii.73) and "give him heedful note" (III.ii.77) but also suggests that by "join[ing]" their "judgment" (III.ii.78) they will insure that their conclusion is 'clear and distinct.' Hamlet subsequently places Claudius under the light of reason during the staging of the dumb show and the actual play, which can be equated with Cogito ergo sum, as follows: I staged the play; and my uncle reacted as anticipated to the poisoning; therefore, I know my mother and uncle are guilty. However, in keeping with the aforementioned differentiation between science and philosophy, it is interesting to note Horatio's relatively muted response to the King's response to "the talk of the pois'ning"(III.ii.266): "I did very well note him"(III.ii.267). Might Horatio be intimating that while Claudius is guilty, it is still not clear who is directing the act of revenge, and whether it is the best course of action.

B) Hamlet's Unguarded Doubt and Madness

According to Eliot, Hamlet's madness is not only feigned, "but a form of emotional relief." More specifically, the issue has two layers: a) "In the character Hamlet [his madness] is the buffoonery of an emotion which he can find no outlet in action; b) "in the dramatist it is the buffoonery of an emotion which he cannot express in art." (12) However, what Eliot seems to overlook is how these two factors are dissolved in the fact that the Cartesian form of a determined reason and a determined madness is not only pre-figured in the play, but amounts to the main reason why Hamlet can not immediately pursue the Ghost's command.

Derrida points out that for Descartes there is a value and meaning of the Cogito, as of existence, which escapes the alternative of a determined madness or a determined reason. "I think, therefore I am" is valid even if I am mad. Such a supreme self-confidence requires neither the exclusion nor the circumventing of madness. In other words, the certainty attained and ascertained need not be sheltered from an imprisoned madness, for it is attained and ascertained with madness itself. (13) In fact, reason will be more reasonable, when and only if, it makes a clean break with madness by pitting itself against madness more freely, to the point that it gets closer and closer to it. In this respect, one thinks rationally only in terror, in the confessed terror of going mad, but in doing so, one both exposes and protects oneself. [14]

In his first soliloquy, even before he has heard of the Ghost, no less seen it first hand, Hamlet muses on his mother's hasty re-marriage to his uncle, the new king. One of the main causes of Hamlet's "distemper" is his mother's incomprehensible behavior, which to Hamlet's mind is even more irrational than "a beast that wants discourse of reason. . . ."(I.ii.150). More specifically, he can't reconcile how his mother was "all tears" (I.ii.149) at the funeral, and filled with "delight"(I.ii.13) at the wedding. By the same token, how could such a devoted and loving wife, not only re-marry hastily, but to her ex-husband's brother, who is nothing like Hamlet's father. Thus, in a Cartesian sense, Hamlet must reconcile his related sense of determined reason and his sense of determined madness. Confronted by this dilemma, Hamlet concludes that he "must hold [his] tongue" even though it "will break [his] heart." It is at this moment, as Derrida would suggest, that Hamlet is still poised at the point where he is operating "within a logos that preced[es] the split of reason and madness, a logos which permit[s] dialogue between reason and madness." (15) In other words, his logos both links and separates sense and non-sense.

By the same token, when Hamlet initially sees the Ghost his own subjectivity includes a Cartesian sense of terror in terms of not being able to discern whether the strange and unknown Ghost brings "airs from heaven" or "blasts from Hell"(I.v.22); and after Hamlet has met with it privately, his sense of terror seems to be even more complex and far reaching, for Hamlet is terrified not only of the Ghost's specter, but its grizzly tale of murder and betrayal, along with its purgatorial sufferings.

In this regard, a significant contrast can be drawn between Hamlet's disposition and Cartesian thought. For Descartes, the one thing that clearly is inseparably bound up with the reality of one's being is thought. In this, one cannot be deceived, because it is only insofar as an individual is a thinking thing that he or she is subject to deception. Bear in mind that what Descartes searches for is the necessary precondition for skepticism, which turns out to be thought itself, or, more generally, the reality of the mental, which is affirmed even in the act of doubting it. In this respect, for Descartes, the certainty in the Cogito precedes belief in God and his attributes. However, for Descartes, only faith in god (via the concept of the infinite), who would not deceive us in such a manner, provides any such absolute certainty, which can ultimately only be resolved in having faith in a non-deceiving god. It is God alone who, by permitting one to extirpate oneself from the Cogito at its proper moment, and maintaining a silent madness, also insures one's representations and one's cognitive determinations, that is, one's discourse against madness.

However, up to this point in the play, Hamlet has been struggling with whether he can trust the Ghost, or whether it has been trying to deceive him. In fact, the Ghost, as the "thing"(I.i.19) that provokes the spatial, moral, and ontological question-"Who's there?"(I.i.1)-remains a mystery that Hamlet is bonded to. In this respect, he is disjointed from his own self, or as Descartes would note is not a self that is thought into its own individual existence, on an ongoing basis, but rather, jointed to the Ghost, and its request for revenge. And yet, Hamlet is not sure if he can trust the Ghost, so his will is "puzzle[d]" (IIIi.82) on a fundamental level of his human existence, further complicating his disjointedness.

Above all, Hamlet's uncertainty about the trustworthiness of the Ghost, of the existence of the metaphysical realm it signifies, strips him of the recourse to God that Descartes relies on as a bridge to the sincerity/veracity of his perceptions of the external world, a bulwark against madness. Hamlet is not in communion with God at this point, for the "commandment"(I.i.103) of the supernatural Ghost has overshadowed the "canon" of the "Everlasting" (I.ii.131-132). Consequently, unlike the hyperbolic doubt which leads Descartes to the Cartesian Cogito, which brings about a state of madness that Descartes could not endure, immediately having to rest upon the assurance that the goodness of God would prevent God from ever deceiving us completely about the world, Hamlet does not have such an assurance, leaving him to endure that madness prior to the split of determinant reason and determinant madness.

Lastly, time is "out of joint"(I.v.188) for Hamlet in that it is no longer clear what is sense and non-sense, or even the means by which to make the decision that would make time right again, in terms of the moral, political, militaristic, and metaphysical dislocation that Elsinore is experiencing; hence, he feels cursed to "set it right"(I.v.190). Nonetheless, owing to both his psychological need to distance himself from the terror, and to hide his feelings from the royal court he decides to wear his 'mask' of madness, suppressing both his secret and the distemper it causes him, until a clearer course of action emerges. In doing so, Hamlet makes himself a stranger to himself, which inadvertently engenders a schizoid split or dislocation within his own sense of self, which causes even more of a sense of terror. Above all, in deciding to wear his "antic disposition"(I.v.173) Hamlet effectually chooses to remain silent about his true madness, and in effect, separates and exiles his reason from itself, as part madness, and thus forgets its origin and its own possibility.

C) Hamlet's Philosophical Doubt and Psychological Shame

In keeping with the main thesis of this paper: that the gap in the objective correlative can be understood by examining how Hamlet negatively projects his own sense of psychological shame into his negative judgment of his mother's shameful behavior, it is important to consider how and why for Erikson "'doubt is the brother of shame." (16) It is also important to bear in mind that Hamlet is struggling with whether he can trust the Ghost, or whether it has been trying to deceive him; and that unlike the Cogito's belief in a nondeceiving God, Hamlet lacks such a theological belief to anchor his philosophical doubts. Consequently, for Hamlet, the philosophical blind-spot or 'unguarded back' is that which he experiences in relation to the Ghost. More specifically, Hamlet can't escape from having an unguarded philosophical back in terms of being "joint[ed]"(I.ii.20) to an ontological/metaphysical reality which he can neither understand nor control. And yet, the Ghost remains a mystery that Hamlet is "joint[ed]"(I.ii.20) to, so much so, even though Hamlet doubts the Ghost's veracity, he is still subject to the Ghost's will and intentionality. Consequently, Hamlet is terrorized by the mysterious and ambiguous Ghost and whether it "Abuses [him] to damn [him]"(I.v.580). Hamlet also harbors feelings of paranoia concerning hidden persecutors: "Who calls me villain, breaks my pate across.... Who does me this?"(II.ii.549-552). In this respect, Erikson notes that where shame is dependent on being exposed, doubt has much to do with having a back, especially a "behind" (17) for this area cannot be seen by the child, but can be dominated by the will of others. Thus, even as Hamlet has called the Ghost into question, he is left unguarded and exposed, and in this way, his philosophical doubt is intricately and inexorably linked with a sense of psychological shame.

It terms of this inter-connection, it is also important to bear in mind that before expressing his self-effacing, if not sadomasochistic attitude found in "Oh what a peasant slave am I"(II.ii.528), Hamlet has already finalized his plan to stage the play, so that his private thoughts shared with himself are more of a re-cap than a first impression of his concerns about the Ghost. Nonetheless, even after he has reasonably called the honesty of the Ghost into question, not unlike Horatio who urges him not to follow the "apparition" in Act I, scene iv, Hamlet questions and abuses himself: "Am I a coward?"(II.ii.548). In this respect, Erikson notes that the young person who is riddled with a sense of doubt, not unlike Hamlet's philosophical doubts, will experience a corresponding sense of shame, which Erikson notes is essentially rage-toward those who make us visible, when we wish to be invisible-turned against the self. (18)

Likewise, when Hamlet sees "the imminent death" of Fortinbras' army "to [his own sense of] shame" (IV.iv.9.49-50), Hamlet would, in effect, "like to destroy the eyes of the world" (19) who are judging him relative to Fortinbras and his troops. The question then arises: why is Hamlet feeling so "completely exposed and conscious of being looked at."? (20) It seems that Hamlet feels as if he is being watched by the kingdom who sees him as the prince: "[whose] greatness weighed, his will is not his own ... and on his choice depends the sanity and health of the whole state"(I.iii.17-21).There is also the Ghost/father figure who is expecting him "not [to allow] the royal bed of Denmark be/a couch for luxury and damned incest"(I.v.81-82), who Hamlet subsequently (in the Closet scene) feels has "come [his] tardy son to chide"(III.iv.97). Thus, rather than being an expression of self-observation and self-punishment related to Oedipal guilt, associated both with his refusal to abandon his own incestuous wishes, since the thought of killing his uncle would be equivalent to committing the original sin (as suggested by Jones (21)), Hamlet's self-reproaches seem to have a peculiar 'anal' quality to them in terms of the external social shame he feels for not pursuing the Ghost's commandment, both a result of, and inter-related to his unguarded philosophical doubts about the Ghost. (22)

Even more evidence that Hamlet is riddled with a sense of shame related to his philosophical doubts is seen, ironically, through his defiant shamelessness. Erikson notes that too much shaming does not lead to genuine propriety, but rather to a defiant shamelessness. This is particularly evident with Hamlet's verbal bawdiness with Ophelia: "That's a fair thought, to lie between a maid's legs"(III.ii.107). Moreover, Hamlet is "not shame[d] to tell [her] what it means"(III.ii.130-131) for he bluntly states: "It would cost you a groaning to take off mine edge"(III.ii.228). And just as Erikson notes that the child who is riddled with shame can also develop a defiant shamelessness, Ophelia appropriately observes that "[Hamlet is] naught, [Hamlet is] naught"(III.ii.132).

In sum, in addition to overlooking how Shakespeare implicitly pre-figures the philosophical form of the Cartesian Cogito, Eliot tends to underestimate how Hamlet's psychological disposition, also part of Shakespeare's dramatic art, is self-effacing, paranoid, and defiantly shameless, all indicative of Hamlet's sense of psychological shame as related to his unguarded philosophical doubts.

D) The Objective Correlative

As initially noted, T.S. Eliot conceived Hamlet as an artistic failure, pointing at the inexplicable manner in which Hamlet is obsessed with his mother's behavior; and how in terms of an objective correlative, Gertrude is not only an inadequate object for the emotions generated in the play, but also unable to support them. In contrast, "to have heightened the criminality of Gertrude would have been to provide the formula for a totally different emotion in Hamlet." (23) In other words, the problem of the play lies not in the character of Hamlet, but in the author's treatment of "the effect of a mother's guilt upon her son." (24)

In regard to the dramatic form, Eliot notes that "the only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an '"objective correlative"; in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion," 25 which in this case is Hamlet's initial disgust with his mother and his eventual violent outburst against her. With this in mind, while a more intensive examination of the explosive Closet scene will be offered in the next section of this paper, a sequential review of Hamlet's emotional responses to his mother's behavior, from his opening soliloquy to the staging of the play within the play, is initially in order.

On face value, Hamlet is shocked and deeply dismayed by his mother's lack of respect for his father, as demonstrated by her lack of mourning: "a beast that wants discourse of reason would have mourned longer!"(I.ii.150-151). After being coldly quizzed by his mother regarding his own state of mourning: "Why seems it so particular with you?" and paternally chided by his uncle: "tis unmanly grief"(I.ii.73&94), Hamlet reflectively notes, "It is not, nor it cannot come to good"(I.ii.158). But why must Hamlet "hold [his] tongue"(I.ii.158)? Is it only because of the royal court's potential judgment of him, or might he already be sensing what type of aggression he might uncontrollably express in relation to his mother? Correspondingly, is his anger and rage really what will "break, [his] heart"(I.ii.159)?

Jones argues that Hamlet already knows that the king is guilty, well before the staging of the play, as revealed by his comment: "Oh my prophetic soul!" (I.v.41). (26) This also implies that Hamlet "doubt[ed] some foul play"(I.ii.255) even before Horatio reported to him that his "father's spirit [was] in arms"(252). Consequently, can one rule out that Hamlet already suspects that his mother was somehow involved in his father's death? With his caustic remark that he is "too much in the sun"(I.ii.67), one wonders what intimation has come upon him that he wishes not to fully allow into his conscious mind. Is it, as Jones maintains that his childish Oedipal wish has been stirred from the repressed content of his unconscious by the royal marriage; or has Hamlet intimated that his mother played out her own fantasy: "... kill a king and marry with his brother" (III.iv.28), so that at some level, Hamlet understands how she was able "to post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets!"(I.ii.156-157).

In any case, Hamlet's private encounter with the Ghost, whose revelations fold back to Hamlet's perception of his mother's previously senseless behavior, offers new and disturbing insights, culminating in Hamlet's exclamation: "O most pernicious woman!"(I.v.105). Now Hamlet is confronted not only with the fact of her committing adultery, which explains her lack of mourning and hasty re-marriage, but also with the irrational specter of murderous action in terms of her being complicit in the murder.

Hamlet's mindset then folds back to what he perceives as his mother's "unrighteous" (I.ii.154) tears at his father's funeral, for in the speech delivered by the player Hecuba's reaction to the vicious slaughter of her husband's limbs takes center stage. As the player notes, even the gods who rarely are moved by the human drama would have been affected by the cries of Hecuba. One can indirectly infer that just as Hamlet, who has directed the player to recite the speech of "Priam's slaughter"(II.ii.428), would like to inflict similar physical pain on Claudius, the mental anguish incurred by his mother as she looked on would be even more gratifying to him, for this time, her eyes would really be "flush[ed]"and galled" (I.ii.155).

Although the Ghost's reasoning is ambiguous about why Hamlet should leave his mother "to heaven, and to those thorns that in her bosom lodge to prick and sting her"(I.v.86-88), suggesting either the "seeming-virtuous queen" was truly seduced beyond her control, or that her behavior is best left to the judgment of heaven, it is clear and definitive about what Hamlet should-not do: "nor let your soul contrive against your mother aught(I.v.85-86). Correspondingly, Hamlet does not speak with his mother directly until the Play scene. He then immediately displays both an aversion and a phallic shamelessness toward her: "No dear mother, there's metal more attractive here"(III.ii.99). Moreover, Hamlet's thoughts and feelings turn to not only his perception of his mother's shameful behavior, but also her shameless attitude about those same actions. As noted in his response to her comment "The Lady doth protest too much"(III.ii.210), which is meant as a deflection of the rebuke to her own behavior by the Player Queen's vows of undying devotion to her husband, Hamlet indicts his mother relative to the Player Queen. Unlike his mother, he notes that the Player Queen will "keep her word"(III.ii.211), implying that she will not only not re-marry with "most wicked speed"(I.ii.156), but will not remarry at all since "a second time [one] kill[s] [one's] husband dead/when second husband kisses [one] in bed"(III.ii.166-167).

In adopting such an attitude of defiant shamelessness, righteous condemnation, and scandalous subversion, Hamlet let's go of his inhibitions and tells all regarding his evaluations of his mother's hasty re-marriage and his suspicion of her conspiracy in the murder of his father by his uncle. Moreover, unlike his uncle, for whom he has apparently suspended judgment until he has verified the veracity of the Ghost's word via the staging of the play and "the talk of the pois'ning"(III.ii.266), Hamlet holds a relatively firm judgment of his mother. In fact, considering Hamlet's aside: "Wormwood, wormwood!"(III.ii.163) one can also infer that the Player Queen's words: "None wed the second but who killed the first"(III.ii.162) are part of the "some dozen, or sixteen lines"(II.ii.518) that have been inserted into the play by Hamlet, reflective of his inexplicable pre-judgment of his mother.

However, having explored Hamlet's pre-Cartesian philosophical doubt, and how Hamlet's form of madness both embodies and complicates the dynamic of a determined reason and determined madness implicit in the Cartesian cogito, and the sense of shame Hamlet experiences when he does not immediately pursue the Ghost's command, which is expressed via his self-effacing indictments, his paranoia, his defiant shamelessness, and his secret determination to get away with things unseen, it is understandable how he negatively displaces his own sense of shame onto his mother's behavior.

E) The Final Split: A Return to the Cartesian Cogito

Hamlet's distemper is certainly evident as he heads for his mother's closet. Convinced of her involvement in the murder, Hamlet is afraid that he will not only persecute but, like Nero, kill his mother; thus he reminds himself to be "cruel, not unnatural" and that he "will speak daggers. . .but use none"(III.ii.365-366), which also reflects that his own nature is splitting in two. Likewise, after leading his mother to "see the inmost parts of [herself]"(III.iv.20) by "[cleaving her] heart in twain"(III.iv.147) Hamlet notes the ambiguity he sees in himself, for he is "scourge and minister" and "cruel only to be kind" (III.iv.159-162).

As Gertrude initially scolds Hamlet for offending his father, Hamlet scolds her for offending his natural father, and while he has an "idle tongue," she has a "wicked tongue"(III.iv.11-12), and just as his stabbing of Polonius is a "bloody deed," it is "almost as bad ... to kill a king and marry with his brother"(III.iv.26-28). Moreover, Hamlet proceeds to set up the binary opposites of his uncle and his deceased father: "look here upon this picture, and on this, the counterfeit presentment of two brothers"(III.iv.52-53). In a sense the contrast between the old and new husbands reflects the schism between Gertrude's true self and her false ego, the latter being "an act that blurs the grace and blush of modesty" (III.iv.39- 40). In this respect, it should be reiterated that although it seems ironic to say that reason will be more reasonable, when and only if, it makes a clean break with madness by pitting itself against madness more freely, to the point that it gets closer and closer to it, Hamlet does just this with his mother. She must confront the determined reason of her old husband in relation to the determined madness of her new husband. Hamlet also invokes the Cartesian notion of reason and madness in questioning "what judgment would step from this [the first husband] to this [the second husband]" (III.iv.69-70). Hamlet even states that such a movement suggests that a "devil ... hath cozened [her] at hood-man blind" (III.iv.70.6-7).

It is also imperative that his mother acknowledge her behavior as shameful, thus curing Hamlet's curiosity: "Oh shame, where is thy blush?"(III.iv.72). Like Hamlet who has been plagued by his own sense of personal shame, caused by his philosophical doubts, his mother should feel shame for both her marriage to Claudius and her intimacy with him. Fully intent on evoking such a response from her, the indictment intensifies and culminates with Gertrude sequentially exclaiming: "speak no more!"; "O, speak to me no more!"; and "No more, sweet Hamlet"; "No more."(III.iv.78-92); until she adds, "Oh Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain"(III.iv.147)). At this point, Hamlet elicits the painful epiphany that she has married the man who killed her husband; and in Hamlet's mind, she can no longer make her "wantonness" the basis of her "ignorance"(III.i.145).

Speaking of her own emotional state and her dependence on the structural split implicit in her relationship with Claudius, Gertrude asks how she could possibly operate outside of it: "What shall I do?"(III.iv.164). In response to her inquiry, and in keeping with the Cartesian notion of a determined reason and a determined madness existing both together and yet separate, Hamlet suggests that she "throw away the worser part of it"(III.iv.148). At the same time, he advises her to "live the purer with the other half (III.iv.149), suggesting that a new state of wholeness is possible as a new pattern of care and responsibility. Consequently, Hamlet brings an end to her divided self by illuminating the sense and non-sense of her behavior, to the degree that he splits the structure of splitting, encouraging her to consciously take hold of her shameful attachment to Claudius, and at the same time, to let it go. In this respect, Hamlet submits the concept of the determined reason and determined madness to its own type of splitting, calling into question the system in which the initial splitting functioned-so that what each other lacked was the lack of a nonstructuring structure.

Lastly, Hamlet, who has let go of his divisive 'mask' of madness, informing Gertrude that he "essentially [is] not in madness, but mad in craft" (171-172), now embodies the uneasy relationship between the "scourge" and "minister"(III.iv.159). At the same time, his mother is the good mother/wife trying to reconcile herself to her darkest shadows; and accordingly, he assures his mother that he has her Cartesian 'back' and she has his: "And when you are desirous to be blest, I'll blessing beg of you" (155-156). But despite their unstable and precarious status, it is at this moment, as Derrida would suggest, that Hamlet and his mother are still poised at the point where they are operating "within a logos that preced[es] the split of reason and madness, a logos which permit[s] dialogue between reason and madness"-as found in the pristine state of the Cogito. (27)

Conclusion

Contrary to Eliot's charge that Hamlet is lacking in literary form, the philosophical form of the Cartesian Cogito, which Shakespeare implicitly pre-figures in the play, reveals how Hamlet not only embodies but complicates the form in terms of not having the immediate theological backing that is offered to the Cogito's philosophical "blind spot." While Elliot overlooks this philosophical form, the Freudian school overlooks Erikson's insight that doubt is the brother of shame, and how Hamlet, the poet of doubt, is so burdened by his unguarded philosophical doubts about the ontological and moral nature of the Ghost that his corresponding sense of shame results in his self-effacing indictments, paranoia, defiant shamelessness, and secret determination to get away with things unseen. Moreover, Hamlet, in turn, negatively projects his overbearing sense of shame into his perception of his mother's shameful behavior and her shameless attitude toward it, thus filling the gap of the objective correlative that Elliot addresses. As Hamlet holds onto his harsh judgment of his mother's behavior, culminating in his aggressive confrontation of her in the Closet scene, Hamlet brings closure to their divided selves by subjecting the good and bad spilt to its own type of splitting. In doing so, he calls into question the system in which the splitting functions; thus restoring the pristine state of the Cogito, in which a determined reason and a determined madness co-exist, both separated and yet integrated. In sum, contrary to Eliot's final assertion that an understanding of Hamlet's behavior remains elusive since "we should have to understand things which Shakespeare did not understand himself" (28)-Shakespeare's understanding of the link between philosophical doubt and psychological shame is deeply illuminating as displayed via the thought and behavior of Hamlet.

(1) T.S. Eliot, "Hamlet and His Problems," The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism, (London: Methune, 1920), p. 57.

(2) In "Tradition and the Individual Talent"(1919) Eliot provides a compliment to his concept of aesthetic form.

(3) Eliot, "Hamlet and his Problems," p. 55.

(4) Ibid., p. 58.

(5) Ibid., p. 56.

(6) Ibid., p. 56.

(7) Tomas MacCary, Hamlet: A Guide To The Play (Greenwood Press, 1998), p. 17.

(8) Eliot, "Hamlet and his Problems," p. 56.

(9) All subsequent quotations are from The Norton based on the Oxford Edition, Second Edition.

(10) George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought (New York: Basic Books, 1999), p. 263.

(11) Gabriel Marcel, The Mystery of Being, Volume I: Reflection and Mystery (London: The Harvill Press, 1950), p. 60.

(12) Eliot, "Hamlet and His Problems," p. 59.

(13) Jacques Derrida, "Cogito and History of Madness," Writing And Difference trans. Alan Bass (University of Chicago Press, 1978), pp. 55-58.

(14) Ibid., p. 59.

(15) Ibid., p. 56.

(16) Erik Erikson, Childhood and Society (New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 1950), p. 253.

(17) Ibid., p. 253.

(18) Ibid., p. 252.

(19) Ibid., pp. 252-253.

(20) Ibid., p. 253.

(21) Earnest Jones, "Tragedy and the Mind of the Infant," Hamlet and Oedipus, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.1949), p. 112.

(22) In contrast to the classical Freudian psychoanalytic model, Erikson conceives of the phases of libido organization as social-cultural modalities. For additional exposition, see: Lawrence Friedman's Identity's Architect: A Biography of Erik H. Erikson (New York: Scribner, 1999).

(23) Eliot, "Hamlet and his Problems," p. 58.

(24) Ibid., p. 57.

(25) Ibid., p. 58.

(26) Jones, "Tragedy and the Mind of the Infant," p. 110.

(27) Derrida, "Cogito and History of Madness," p. 56.

(28) Eliot, "Hamlet and his Problems," p. 59.

John Decarlo, Hofstra University