Hamlet doesn't seem to fit in with the court in Act 1 Scene 2

I mentioned earlier that Hamlet doesn’t seem to want to stand out in the court scene and how that contrasts other versions of the performance, such as Kenneth Branagh’s and also the Bristol Old Vic (2022) version where Hamlet wears a literal mask for this scene. But while Abeysekara’s Hamlet tries to appear mostly inconspicuous in the crowd, that doesn’t mean he looks like he fits in.

He is the only one dressed in a funereal, all-black outfit.

Emphasis on the word ‘funereal’ here. Other men do wear dark colours. For example, Claudius is in mostly black. However, Claudius’s outfit looks more like it’s suited to a coronation or military parade than a funeral. It’s adorned with a baby blue sash, multiple medals, gold epaulettes, and red and gold trimmings. It’s luxurious and fit for a king; it doesn’t look like Claudius has just come from the funeral of his own brother – because he hasn’t. He’s already married his brother’s widow, Gertrude, at this point. Polonius also wears a dark suit, but it’s navy blue rather than black.

It seems to suggest that Hamlet is the only character still actively in mourning over the death of his father. Everyone has moved on; most of the characters wear vibrant colours that relate much more to Claudius’s marriage than the funeral that made it happen. The characters around Hamlet don’t display the contradiction that Claudius identifies when he says that everyone needs to display ‘mirth in funeral’ and ‘dirge in marriage’. They’re just all happy to continue with their lives.

To me, this is noteworthy. The fact that the people of the court are so quick to move on could suggest one (or more) of the following things:

1. They have decided that Claudius is a better king than Hamlet’s father.
2. The court is full of sycophants who are performing happiness to get in the good graces of the new king.
3. The court is celebrating the peaceful transfer of power. After all, Denmark was an elective monarchy at the time. The idea that anyone can be king introduces the instability of competition between eligible people (even if it often ended up being the previous ruler’s heir).
4. The person embodying the role of the king is insignificant to people’s daily lives and they’re just happy to have a party.

Let’s pause to take a look at the first possible interpretation of the court’s happiness: that Claudius was a better king than Old Hamlet (our protagonist’s father). There is actually quite a bit of evidence in Shakespeare’s writing to suggest that this may be the case!

For one, Claudius does seem to embody the Machiavellian ideal of a good king. Like Machiavelli suggests in The Prince, Claudius seizes power ruthlessly and

either the court of England or the rule of the Old King that came before. The fact that people are so quickly to move could be a sign that the court is full of sycophants who are performing happiness for the sake of the new king Claudius. On the other and his violence against his brother is, as Machiavelli advises, ‘so severe that his vengeance need not be feared’. Old Hamlet died, after all, so Claudius had no reason to fear any retaliation from him.

Claudius’s evil deeds fit into what Machiavelli argues is the more sustainable, less damaging form of violence:

…applied at one blow and are necessary to one’s security, and that are not persisted in afterwards unless they can be turned to the advantage of the subjects.

Niccoló Machiavelli, The Prince

Claudius does, indeed, perform his cruel act in ‘one blow’. He does an evil deed by killing his brother. After that, though, his actions are much more diplomatic than violent. He tries to get Denmark out of a war with Fortinbras by sending letters and communicating with people instead of ‘multiplying’ his cruelty – which Machiavelli has a problem with.

Then, when he continues evil deeds in the future, it’s easy to argue that they’re ‘turned to the advantage of the subjects’: if he dies, it will bring instability to Denmark in a time when Fortinbras is just waiting for an opportunity to pounce. And who is going to take over from him? Hamlet? The man who may or may not have gone mad? Who is misanthropic and melancholic? Does it seem like Hamlet would be a good king?

But also, let’s think back to what we know about Hamlet’s father. People recognise the Ghost at least in part because of his ‘armour’. Consider the semantic field of the words used to describe him:

1. usurp’st
2. warlike
3. march
4. stalks
5. armour
6. angry parle
7. smote
8. martial stalk
9. combat
10. valiant
11. seized
12. conqueror
13. vanquisher
14. armèd

These words fit quite firmly into the semantic field of war. A ‘parle’ (we spell it ‘parley’ now) is a truce that happens in the middle of a war so that negotiations can happen. The adjective ‘valiant’ is usuallt reserved to praise the bravery of people who enage in combat. And on top of that, the word ‘stalk’ is repeated, adding an element of zomorphism to descriptions of the Old King by alluding to a predatory animal.

Let’s look at the idea of the ‘angry parle’ again:

So frowned he once when, in an angry parle,

He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.

Hamlet, Act One Scene One

So according to Marcellus, the Old King was in the middle of a truce with Poland and killed (‘smote’) them because he was angry? Not only does that go against Machiavelli’s suggestion that violence should decrease over time, but it is also just immoral for most audiences – both now and at the time when Shakespeare was writing.

It holds up, doesn’t it? Since Claudius did inherit a conflict with Fortinbras of Poland that was started by his brother, the Old King. Fortinbras is seeking revenge precisely because Hamlet’s father ‘smote’ him when they were supposed to be negotiating, not because of anything Claudius did. So the Old King’s actions plunged the country into conflict. His legacy is one of war, not stability.

Hamlet doesn’t even paint a different picture of his father. He doesn’t suggest that the Ghost is a good king. Yes, he does say his father was an ‘excellent’ king, but all his praise for the Old King centres on his behaviour as a man, not as a ruler:

so loving to my mother

That he might not beteem the winds of heaving

Visit her face too roughly.

Hamlet, Act One Scene Two

In other words, Hamlet is more focused on the goodness of the king’s body natural, rather than whether or not his body politic acted as a king should.

The Ghost also does suggest that he was prone to taking regular naps during the day in the garden, which some perceive as a sense of laziness. I’m not sure I buy that, but it could be something you argue based on the idea of the Protestant Work Ethic that was starting to rear its head during Shakespeare’s time.

Bringing this all back to the National Theatre (2025) version of Hamlet, I think that by making Hamlet the only person not enthusiastic about the coronation of Claudius, they’re saying interesting things about how skewed Hamlet’s view of the court really is. Perhaps he’s the only one who saw his father as a good man.

It’s important to remember that Hamlet has just returned from his studies in Wittenberg, so he wasn’t really around recently to see the how his father ruled. We don’t know how long Hamlet has been out there studying, but arguably, he has quite a childish view of his father.

And why should we believe Hamlet that his parents’ relationship was a successful one, anyway? What young person truly knows about the marriage strains of their families until it blows up in fights or divorce, anyway? He’s been away from court for a while! So why should we listen to a son about whether or not his father made his mother happy? Especially when he’s mourning his father? Most people exaggerate the good qualities of loved ones in grief!

If you consider all of that, it makes a lot more sense why Hamlet is the only one not singing the jovial St Valentines song in this performance of the play. To me, it signifies that Hamlet is viewing his father through rose-tinted glasses, and that he is the odd one out in thinking that the death of the Old King – who threw Denmark into conflict – was a tragedy.

For everyone else, one of the first things Claudius announces as the new king is that he is going to try to find a diplomatic solution to the confict with Fortinbras. He displays kindness and wisdom towards Laertes, and seems to honour the Old King in his speech. What would the problem be? Is that why Gertrude is so surprised by Hamlet’s grief? Is it because she has no reason to mourn her late husband? If Hamlet’s father really was so good to his mother, why is Hamlet the only one questioning her marrying so quickly? Were they expecting her to remarry because they saw things in he previous marriage that Hamlet, as a son, was blind to?

Well, there is one other person who questions the quick marriage: Hamlet’s ally in the court, Horatio. However, he, like Hamlet, hasn’t lived in the court of Elsinore recently. So, there’s no way for him to know if Hamlet’s father had been a good king up until his death. So, unlike Hamlet, Horatio focuses more on how quickly Gertrude got married, rather than comparing Claudius to the Old King.

But there is another aspect to Hamlet standing out compared to everyone else: the countercultural aspect. Hiran Abeysekara’s Hamlet has black nail polish on his nails, which is still not typical of men in our soceity. As things stand in the Western world in the 21st century, a man painting his nails is associated with two different things: blurring the boundaries of gender expectations or being a member of a subculture such as emos or goths that are specifically supposed to stand out and be different to the norm. It could be both!

For people who belong to these kinds of subcultures such as emos and goths, it is often a political thing as well as a means of self-expression. They are saying something by dressing in a way that’s not typical of their societies. Often, they’re not trying to draw attention to themselves. It’s not as simple as performance or wanting people to notice you and direct their attention to you. Rather, it’s more about signifying that you’re different silently – in a way that doesn’t need you to communicate or be at the centre of attention for people to notice.

And I would argue it’s similar for this version of Hamlet. His mannerisms and quietness suggest that he doesn’t want to be addressed publicly, but his choice to paint his nails and (later) dress differently from the rest of the court suggests that he wants people to know that he feels like an outsider to the court mentality. He’s signifying his mental isolation from the rest of Elsinore through his fashion.