To be OR not to be. That is Not the question, The Temptation is this To be OR not to be? That is Not the question, The Temptation is this! shamloo بودن یا نبودن. مسئله این نیست... وسوسه این است!!! شاملو

Traces of Deconstruction in Shakespear’s Hamlet Act 3 By: Aso Piri Saba Heidari

Deconstruction: Deconstruction is one of the most popular tendencies among the postmodernists within aesthetics. It was founded in reaction against formalism and structuralism , and derived mainly from French philosopher Jacque Derrida’s 1967 work of Grammatology. It is NOT destruction or reconstruction, but a kind of many constructions. Working entirely within the text to expose and undermine its frame of references, assumptions, and ideological foundations. Demonstrating multiple interpretations of a text, it is an attempt to open the text to a range of meaning and interpretations (it is also called alternative analysis).

Summary of Act 3: Scene 1: The King and Polonius want to listen to Hamlet and Ophelia’s words to find out the reason of his madness. Scene 2: Hamlet decides to prepare a play in order to see his uncle’s reaction, in the middle of the play the king leaves angrily. Scene 3: Claudius plots to get hamlet to England. In his loneliness, he repents because of his brother’s murder. Scene 4: Polonius decides to eavesdrop while Hamlet and his mother criticizing each other, and finally he is killed by hamlet.

Metaphysics of Presence: No entity is a fixed presence, but it is marked with the traces of the past and future. No entity is being understood with regarding just to a definite mode of time. Player Queen: No earth to me give food, nor heaven light, sport and repose lock from me day and night, to desperation turn my trust and hope, and anchor’s cheer in prison be my scope ! Each opposite that blanks the face of joy meet what I would have well and it destroy! Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife If, once a widow, ever I be wife.(Hamlet , Act 3, Scene 2) Suggestion: It should be noted that the circumstances could not exactly be the same in two happenings, so we should not talk surely about the future. There are always new worlds to come and the circumstances are not stable. In this situation the Queen should not had decided about her future.

Logocenterism: A logocentric idea is firmly accepted and acted out by majority of people. This idea could not be opposed. Depriving people from freedom of decision making. The meaning attributed to the object is created by human mind and does not exist within the object, so it is fallible and logocentrism is rejected. Player Queen: The instances that second marriage move are base respects of thrift, but none of love.(Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2) suggestion: Here we come across a social logo which commands women not to remarry after the death of their husbands. Women as human beings have the same rights as men, so they should continue their lives even if their husbands are DEAD!!!!! It could be love in the second marriage, and this is not necessarily for supplying the needs as the player queen states.

Messianism: Messianism is an element of metaphysics of presence which believes in new opportunities .to come A messianic idea is universally accepted. It has religious foundation and origins.(like redeemer in Christianity) Hamlet: Now might I do it pat, now ‘a is a-praying; and now I’ll do that( He draws his sword.) And so he goes to heaven, so am I revenged. That would be scanned: a villain kills my father, I , his soul son , do the same villain send to heaven……. And am I when revenged to take him in the purging of his sole, when he is fit and seasoned for his passage!

No! …… when he is drunk asleep, or in his rage, or in th’incestuous pleasure of his bed, at game, a-swearing, or about some act that has no relish of salvation in’t__ then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven, and that his soul may be as damned and black as hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays. This physic but prolongs thy sickly days. ( Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 3) Suggestion: Hamlet is afraid of the consequences of the after death's life, he hopes to kill his uncle in the moment of committing a crime to send him to hell. In fact this Messianic idea is based on a religious logo which believes that if a person dies when praying, will be sent to heaven.

Binary Opposition: Binary opposition is a term introduced in the world of structuralism. Doing comparison and contrast between two entities, one of them dominates over the other. While deconstruction does not believe in comparing and contrasting two individuals in order to declare one winner and the other one loser. It does not suppose that by degrading someone, the upgrading of the other gets the embossed legitimacy and authority.( Hooti, 2013) Hamlet: look here upon this picture, and on this, the counterfeit presentment of two brothers. See what a grace was seated on this brow-Hyperion’s curls, the front of Jove himself, an eye like Mars to threaten and command, a station like the herald Mercury, new-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill, a combination and a form indeed, Where every god did seem to set his seal to give the world assurance of a man. This was your husband-look you now what follows. Here is your husband, like a mildewed ear, blasting his wholesome brother.

Have you eyes? Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed, and batten on this moor? Ha! ....... (Hamlet, Act 3, scene 4) Suggestion: Hamlet in his conversation with his mother does his best to give a disgraceful picture of Claudius contrasting him with his late father. He does so to prove the infidelity of his mother. While based on deconstruction it is not an appropriate way comparing someone to another in order to prove one’s priority. It should be noted that the circumstances could not exactly be the same in two happenings (so we cannot create a metaphysics of presence).

Aporia: The definition of Aporia is that, when we come to a philosophical dead-end and make a decision at that moment. In an Aporitic decision we do not look for alternative choices and we do not postpone our decision (we do not use differance). Herbert Weir Smyth's Greek Grammar(1956) says: “An artifice by which a speaker feigns doubts as to where he shall begin or end or what he shall do or say." Hamlet: To be or not to be, that is the question. whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them. To die, to sleep - no more; and by a sleep to say we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to - 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.

To die, to sleep - To sleep, perchance to dream To die, to sleep - To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause. There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life, For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of disprized love, the law's delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns that patient merit of th'unworthy takes, when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns, puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of? (Hamlet, Act, 3, Scene, 2 ) Suggestion: He cannot make decision whether to commit suicide or keep struggling in this world (Aporitic Undecidability). He is also afraid of the consequences of the after death’s life (messianic). Besides all his problems and undecidabilities, he should had not come up with this dead-end situation to announce such words, for every moment of life is specific in itself and he could wait for a better future which may be totally different. In other words, a delay could lead him to difference.

Differance: It is used to kill Aporia. Considering the differences (possible alternative choices), and deferring (postponing) our decision. Hamlet: nay, do not think I flatter,…… and my imaginations are so foul and Vulcan’s stithy. Give him heedful note, fore I mine eyes rivet to his face, and after, we will both our judgment join in censure of his seeming. (Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2) Being an academic person, Hamlet not only does not trust the ghost completely and uses differance by watching Claudius’ reaction to the play, but also he wants to know the Horatio’s idea and not trusting only on his judgment.