Imagery: Healing, Performance & Costume
English Lit: OCR A Level - Hamlet, topic 5.3.2
Imagery of Healing, Performing, Costume & Make-Up
Accompanying the imagery of disease and corruption are metaphors of healing. Shakespeare uses the imagery of performance/play-acting throughout Hamlet. Imagery of costume/makeup is used on several occasions in A3S1.
Metaphors of healing
- Claudius hopes that the English will execute Hamlet and, by doing so, “cure” him.
- In A2S2, once Hamlet has come up with the idea of using ‘The Mousetrap’ to prove Claudius’ guilt, Hamlet describes himself as a surgeon who will probe Claudius’ wound (“I’ll tent him to the quick”).
- Some critics see the blood-strewn stage at the end of the play as a metaphorical blood-letting; the Elizabethan cure for many diseases. The state of Denmark has been bled to restore it to health.
Imagery of performance/play-acting
- This imagery tends to be used when a character has something to say about deception.
- Hamlet’s uses the phrase “antic disposition” to describe his feigned madness. This term derives from the theatre, in particular to clownish behaviour.
- Later, Hamlet reassures his mother that he is “not in madness, but mad in craft”, describing his show of madness as a cunning performance.
Imagery of costume/makeup
- The imagery of costume and makeup is used on several occasions in A3S1 (the nunnery scene).
- Claudius refers to “The harlot’s cheek beautied with plastering art” which is “ugly” under her makeup.
- The misogynistic assumption that women use makeup to trick and deceive men is later made by Hamlet, who accuses Ophelia (and all womankind) of using “paintings” (e.g. makeup) to hide her “wantonness” (sexual promiscuousness).
Test yourself on Imagery: Healing, Performance & Costume
What does Claudius say the English will do by executing Hamlet?