Throughout generations of families around the world, honor has become a constant driving force between family relations. Although less common in society today, decades ago honor was amongst one of the many ways to show one’s loyalty to their family. Honor is usually seen as the proper thing to do, but sometimes this view can get skewed because people use honor for the wrong reasons. A perfect example of the dangers of honor is in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet in which Shakespeare presents the audience with three different examples of how characters respond to the duty of honor. Honor is the motivating force behind the motives of Hamlet, Laertes, and Fortinbras in the play.
The way honor is viewed changes drastically from one generation to another because the meaning of honor changes. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, according to Reta A. Terry, honor is interchangeable with promise, “Yet, integral to the early modern honor code was, and is, the word, and Shakespeare’s use of the word of honor – of promise – can be examined in order to discern the shifting concept of honor itself.” Terry goes on to explain how Shakespeare used honor in Hamlet by stating, “Shakespeare’s characters’ concepts of honor can be perceived in the ways in which they use, and respond to, promise.” The three characters that exemplify honor in the play attempt to make promises to their families. Hamlet, Laertes, and Fortinbras want to avenge their fathers but all three characters react in different ways to their duty of honor.
Hamlet spends most of the play stalling in his promise to avenge his father. Hamlet is stuck in an unfortunate paradox—if he chooses to murder his uncle then he will be able to honor his father, but if he does commit murder then he is killing the king which defies the honor code of his time. Even when he has the chance to kill his uncle, he does not take action because Claudius is praying and he would have gone to heaven if he was killed during prayer. In reality, Claudius could not complete his prayer, so Hamlet missed an opportune chance. In the end, the only reason why Hamlet decides to take action is because he is inspired by Fortinbras and his army. Hamlet respects the honor that Fortinbras has for his family, for example, he states:
Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honor’s at stake. How stand I then,
That have a father killed, a mother stained,
Excitements of my reason and my blood, (4.4. 56-61).
Fortinbras’s actions make Hamlet realize his situation is similar to Fortinbras but he has yet to take action. When Hamlet finally decides to kill his uncle, it is almost too late for him and his delayed action causes unforeseen consequences.
In contrast, Laertes has some differing opinions on the duty of honor. Laertes believes that if he does not murder his father’s killer than it will dishonor him and his family:
That drop of blood that’s calm proclaims me
bastard
Cries “cuckold” to my father, brands the harlot
Even here between the chaste unsmirchèd brow
Of my true mother (4.5. 130-134).
Richard Levin states that “It indicates notonly that Laertes has no deep feelings for his father, who is seen here as simply as the source of sperm that produced him, but also that he is governed by an external and conventional conception of honor that seems to depend on public opinion…” Laertes basically uses honor for the wrong reasons instead of using it for his family. Laertes wants to look good in the eyes of the people around him. Unlike Hamlet, Laertes reacts right away when he hears that his father has been killed. He returns from France right away in order to achieve revenge for his father and he states:
How came he dead? I’ll not be juggled with:
To hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devil!
Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!
I dare damnation. To this point I stand,
That both the worlds I give to negligence,
Let come what comes; only I’ll be revenged
Most thoroughly for my father (4.5. 148-154).
Laertes vows to avenge his father’s death, and he somewhat completes this task when he stabs Hamlet later in the play.
At the beginning of the play, Fortinbras is quickly ready to go and avenge his father. Horatio describes Fortinbras’s scenario and he basically says that Fortinbras is quick to act and he has the nerve to go through with the murder:
Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
Of unimproved mettle hot and full,
Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there
Shark’d up a list of lawless resolutes,
For food and diet, to some enterprise
That hath a stomach in’t; which is no other—
As it doth well appear unto our state—
But to recover of us, by strong hand
And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands
So by his father lost (1.1. 107-116).
Harold Skulsky explains Fortinbras’s duty, “His “enterprise,” we are clearly informed, has no legal or moral basis; it is purely an affair of honor.” Fortinbras only cares about the honor for himself and his family, and he has not ulterior motives through the duration of the play. He knows that honor is important, and he desperately wants to accomplish his duty. Although Fortinbras wants to take action that does not mean he is able to accomplish the task. Fortinbras wants to take action against his father’s murderer, but he unable to do so because his uncle will not allow him. Instead, Fortinbras goes off to accomplish other business with his army since he cannot avenge his father. Due to Fortinbras’s inaction, he is able to claim Denmark’s throne after several of the other characters are killed. In the end, Fortinbras is the winner in the fight for honor. He gets the best of both worlds by being able to have the façade of wanting to be honorable for his family as well as not having to act on the murder.
Overall, Hamlet shows three different cases of honor with the characters Hamlet, Laertes, and Fortinbras. Hamlet’s inaction and untimely action lead to his unfortunate demise. Laertes’s immediate action and his skewed view of honor lead to his death. Whereas Fortinbras who chose honor for the sake of honor survived in the end and he now controls Denmark. Shakespeare wants to show that it is actually the idea behind the honor rather than the actual act of honor itself. Fortinbras’s desire for honor and his inaction actually allowed him to come out on top by the end of the play. Fortinbras is the new ruler of Denmark; whereas, Hamlet and Laertes are dead due to the consequences of their actions. Fortinbras is the true hero of Hamlet because he uses honor in a moral and just way.
Works Cited
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. New York: Washington Square Press, 1992. Print.
Terry, Reta A. “Vows to the Blackest Devil”: Hamlet and the Evolving Code of Honor in Early Modern England. Renaissance Quarterly. Vol. 52, No. 4 (Winter, 1999), pp. 1070-1086.
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