Hamlet

"Shakespeare was really good at brother rivalry. Apart from Hamlet you can also see it in Twelfth Night and King Lear . A constant theme of Shakespeare’s plays is the falling out and coming together of brothers. Clearly, it was a relationship he understood and mistrusted in many ways. He certainly recognised the deep divisions and rivalries between brothers, and Hamlet is a marvellous example of the murderous impulse that can exist between brothers. I love the speech when Hamlet’s uncle Claudius admits to being inflicted with “the primal eldest curse” for killing his brother, and begs on his knees for forgiveness for this ultimate violation of the law of nature. “ Hamlet is a marvellous example of the murderous impulse that can exist between brothers.” The play also recognises jealousy, and what is a brother relationship without jealousy? You can’t get away from jealousy and rivalry when you’re brothers and that, taken to the extreme, is what happens in Hamlet . It’s about how brothers sometimes really fucking hate each other. I know there are times in my childhood when if I’d had a gun in my hand, I would have shot my brother dead. That dark impulse, although suppressed and effaced by what we want to believe about ourselves, is very deep and dark. That’s why I have included East of Eden and Hamlet – to acknowledge something that is not comfortable for us. Absolutely. In Hamlet it happens again in the death of Gonzago in the play-within-a-play. One reading of Hamlet is that the murder by Claudius of his brother is about ambition, about wanting to be king and his brother’s wife. But it may also be simple jealousy and hatred. In some ways that is the purest of emotions, and what brothers are reduced to when things go wrong. Shakespeare is not scared to look at these dark impulses. The idea that you could do something so cold blooded, not even in rage, as poison your brother, says something about the coldness and hatred that can exist between brothers. So I don’t think Hamlet is purely about ambition and power, I think it’s about the hatred of a brother for a brother. The phrases that we use about brothers – “brotherly love”, “brotherhood of man” – and the idea that it’s a very close and tender bond are also shot through, I think, with veins of real hatred. And that’s something Shakespeare is very clear-eyed about."