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In 'Hamlet', imagery performs three important functions. Firstly, it helps to individualise the major characters of the drama. Secondly, it announces and elaborates major themes. And thirdly, reiterated images establish the distinctive atmosphere of the tragedy and keep the underlying mood of a scene, or of a succession of scenes, before the audience's mind.
The crucial dramatic event on which the plot of 'Hamlet' hinges - the murder of King Hamlet by his brother Claudius - takes place in the pre-history of the tragedy, but it is vividly recalled for Hamlet (and for the audience) by the ghost in 1.5. The old king describes in vivid detail how the poison attacked his body as he slept, and how that healthy organism was destroyed from within, not having a chance to defend itself.
The leperous distilment, whose effect
Holds such an emnity with blood of man,
That swift as quicksilver it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body,
And with a sudden vigour it doth posset
And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
The thin and wholesome blood; so did it mine,
And a most instant tetter barked about
Most lazar-like with vile and loathsome crust
All my smooth body.
At two further points in the play's action physical poisoning visually recurs - the poisoning of Old Hamlet is re-enacted in 3.2 by Lucianus and the Player King; and in the final scene of the drama all of the major characters, including the arch-poisoner Claudius himself, meet their deaths by poison.
Poisoning also becomes a distinctive recurring pattern in the play's imagery. The individual occurrence in the palace garden is expanded into a symbol for the central problem of the drama. The poisoning of Hamlet's father functions as a major symbol for the moral condition of Denmark. Just as the 'leperous distilment' which Claudius poured into his sleeping brother's ear spread through the latter's body and destroyed the healthy organism from within, in the same way the 'serpent' Claudius morally poisons Gertrude, seducing her with 'witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts'. Polonius succumbs to the king's moral poison and is even prepared to lose his daughter Ophelia to Hamlet in order to please his evil master. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are morally poisoned and seduced into betraying their friend by the promise of
such thanks
As fits a king's remembrance.
Fittingly Hamlet describes them to Horatio as 'adders fang'd. The morally unstable Laertes is unable to resist Claudius' moral poison and loses his life as a result, ironically by the very 'unction' with which he had just treacherously poisoned the unsuspecting Hamlet. Consequently it is ironic that the king should diagnose Ophelia's madness as the 'poison of deep grief'. There is further irony in Claudius' words to Gertrude describing how the grieving Laertes does not lack rumour-mongers to
infect his ear
With pestilent speeches of his father's death
Considering that he himself killed his own brother by pouring real poison into his ear and will soon morally poison the ears of the same Laertes against Hamlet. And there is supreme irony in the treacherous Claudius' description to the grieving son of Polonius of the effect the Frenchman Lamord's 'masterly report' of Laertes' skill in swordsmanship had upon Hamlet.
sir, this report of his
Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy,
That he could nothing do but wish and beg
Your immediate coming oe'r to play with him
At that very point the king himself is morally poisoning the young man's mind against the prince.
Images of sickness & disease are closely associated with those of poison. The ghastly, visible effect which the poison had upon his body is vividly described by the ghost of Old Hamlet.
And a most instant tetter bark'd about
Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust
All my smooth body.
Significantly Hamlet (speaking to Horatio) describes his uncle as 'this canker of our nature'. When he comes upon Claudius at prayer, the prince decides not to take his revenge at that point, instead he declares threateningly
This physic but prolongs these sickly days
And at the end of the emotional closet-scene with his mother, Hamlet implores her not to console herself with the belief that the apparition of her dead husband is due to her son's mad hallucination, and not to her own 'trespass'. That self-deception, he warns her, will have a fatal moral effect, will in fact only
skin and film the ulcerous place,
Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen
Through these images Hamlet focuses attention upon the guilt of his uncle and his mother. Later when he observes Fortinbras and his army en route to war in Poland, the Prince declares sadly
This is th'imposthume of much wealth and peace,
That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
Why the man dies
For Hamlet this unnecessary war between Poland and Norway is a form of sickness, a tumour which grows out of too much prosperity and which will have fatal consequences for the body politic of both countries. Many of the images used by Claudius are also associated with sickness and disease, but they have a very different implication. Ironically, the King equates the health of his kingdom with his own physical well-being and with that of his rule. Like Hamlet, he believes the body politic is suffering from a disease, but he identifies Hamlet, not himself as the source of the moral infection. When Claudius hears of Polonius' death, he says that he should have had his mentally unstable nephew locked up earlier; and in the Queen's presence he hypocritically maintains
so much was our love
We would not understand what was most fit,
But like the owner of a foul disease,
To keep it from divulging, let it feed
Even on the pith of life.
The King justifies his decision to send his son to England by means of a medical aphorism
Diseases desperate grown
By desperate appliance are relieved,
Or not at all
When he is apostrophising the English king and ordering him to execute Hamlet, the frantic Claudius uses the language of a man suffering from a fever
Do it England For like the hectic in my blood he rages,
And thou must cure me.
And he sums up the danger presented to himself by Hamlet's unexpected return through yet another sickness image
but to the quick of th'ulcer
Hamlet comes back.
Significantly too, the Queen speaks of her 'sick soul' and Laertes refers to his grief over his father's death as 'the very sickness in my heart'.Closely related to images of disease and sickness is a third group relating to rottenness and decay. This pattern of images is introduced by Marcellus when he declares
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
In his opening soliloquy Hamlet describes the moral condition of Denmark under the degenerate Claudius' rule as like a garden whose plants have been choked by ugly, repulsive weeds.
Fie, on't, ah fie, 'tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed, things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely.
This image recurs when the ghost of his dead father declares approvingly to his son
I find thee apt,
And duller shouldst thou be than the far weed
That rots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,
Wouldst thou not stir in this.
And when Hamlet in the closet-scene urges his mother not to continue her relationship with Claudius, he uses an image which vividly reflects his disgust
do not spread comport on the weeds
To make them ranker.
Claudius is imaged by the prince as a
Mildewed ear,
Blasting his wholesome brother
And he cannot understand how his mother could have left the 'celestial bed' of his father to 'prey on garbage'. Even Claudius himself admits when he is attempting to repent his fratricide/regicide
O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven
These reiterated visual images of rottenness and decay are powerfully reinforced by visual symbols. Hamlet unfeelingly drags the 'guts' of the dead Polonius from his mother's closet into the lobby. And the skull of the court-jester Yorick, which the gravedigger casually tosses up out of the grave, makes Hamlet's stomach heave when he holds it in his hands and philosophises on life and death.
Images of animal lust and sensual appetite highlight Hamlet's feeling of revulsion at the adulterous, incestuous relationship between his mother and his uncle. The carnal nature of their relationship is emphasised through a pattern of animal images. In his opening soliloquy the grieving Prince declares his disgust that even an animal lacking reasoning power would have mourned longer for its mate than Gertrude did for her dead husband.
O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason
Would have mourn'd longer
And the pair are imaged by him as pigs in their lovemaking
Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed
Stewed in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty
Finally, the bloat king is variously described by Hamlet as a 'satyr', 'beast', 'paddock', 'bat', 'gib'
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