Page 1 of 8
European Journal of Business &
Social Sciences
Available at https://ejbss.org/
ISSN: 2235-767X
Volume 07 Issue 03
March 2019
Available online: https://ejbss.org/ P a g e | 141
The Ghost in the Hamlet: A Puzzle
BHAJAN LAL
Karnal (Haryana)
ABSTRACT:
The Ghost is a puzzle right from the beginning to the end of the play
namely the Hamlet. Shakespeare uses the ghost of Senior-Hamlet for dramatic
purpose. Shakespeare uses the ghost to create mystery, pity and fear. The ghost
is not true to his looks as Horatio doubts him and compares him to Senior Hamlet
saying that it looks the most like Senior Hamlet.. The Ghost repeats the words
imagined or spoken by Hamlet. It, being the ghost of Hamlet's father, instigates
Hamlet to murder King Claudius. Queen Gertrude though the wife of Elder
Hamlet is neither able to see him nor hear him. The supernatural power affects
only those who believe in them. Hamlet believes, and is ultimately ruined;
Macbeth believes in the withes and the ghost and is destroyed in the end. Philip
Edwards king Alfred says:
Keywords : Mystery, Fear, Religion, Supernatural Power, Dramatic Purpose
Paper
William Shakespeare uses the ghost of Senior Hamlet as the Supernatural agent
the Hamlet. The ghost of Hamlet's father becomes a puzzle which, at first glance,
looks like a ghost though it is really something completely different. Actually
Page 2 of 8
European Journal of Business &
Social Sciences
Available at https://ejbss.org/
ISSN: 2235-767X
Volume 07 Issue 03
March 2019
Available online: https://ejbss.org/ P a g e | 142
"Shakespeare intends to introduce the ghost for dramatic purpose to create
mystery and fear".
Shakespeare produces an atmosphere of mystery and fear in the
very opening scene when Marcellus asks “what has this thing appeared again
to - night”? In the first Act Horatio repeatedly’ asks the ghost:
“What art thou, ‘that usurp’ at this time.
Together with that fair warlike form
In which the majesty of buried Denmark
Did some times March? By heaven
I charge thee speak!”
But just then the cock crowing, the ghost makes its exit. Horatio is the
skeptical scholar who will not believe in the existence of a ghost unless he sees it
with his own eyes. But when the ghost appears, Horatio says that it harrows him
with fear and wonder.
In fact, by introducing the ghost of Hamlet’s father Shakespeare wants us
to peep into the innermost thoughts of the characters of the play. First of all,
Shakespeare shows us the working of the minds of Barnardo, Marcellus and
Horation. They imagine the former king and feel influenced by the image in their
mind. So we can say that the ghost is a mere hallucination and nothing
else.Shakespeare wants to show us that the supernatural powers affect only
those who believe in them. In all mythologies people believe that the
Page 3 of 8
European Journal of Business &
Social Sciences
Available at https://ejbss.org/
ISSN: 2235-767X
Volume 07 Issue 03
March 2019
Available online: https://ejbss.org/ P a g e | 143
supernatural agencies appear at the mid-night. Francisco, as he is alone at his
post, is “sick at heart” in the darkness. His terror takes the form of the ghost.
Horatio calls it an “illusion”. Again when the cock crows, the ghost vanishes.
Then Horatio tells us about the popular belief that at cock-crow all spirits
and ghosts go back to their proper places. Bernardo is also not certain
whether the ghost is genuine or not. He asks Horatio it does not look like the
former king. Horatio answers that it looks most like the king. Now the fact is that
they are not certain whether the ghost is real or illusion. If it were the ghost of
Hamlet’s father, Horatio must not have said “most like”. Grigori Kozintsev also
has the same opinion when he says: “The ghost thrusts a mote into ‘the mind’s
eye’ of Horatio and of everyone who tries to measure the play with the help of the
usual yardsticks of realism... Later in our century they proved that the ghost was
not a ghost at all, but something else....”2
On learning that his late father’s ghost has been seen by Horatio and his
friends, Hamlet takes a conference with the ghost and the latter reveals the
secret of his murder. We know that Hamlet is a very speculative person and
takes hallucination.
Hamlet is in doubt about the death of his father right from the beginning.
He speaks of Claudius "Weary, state, flat and unprofitable.” He deplores the fact
that his mother has remarried, barely two months after the death of her husband.
Shakespeare wrote both for connoisseurs and for the crowd, but since the
apprentices and sailors only paid their money for ghost and melodrama, a
