This myth also shows the way man uses animals and plants, to
the detriment of the animals. They hold a council when man has become too
greedy and numerous. The bears decide to try and make bows and arrows, but are
unable to shoot the bow without cutting off their claws. They disband, making
no solution. The deer vow that any man who takes a deer’s life without asking
for forgiveness will suffer rheumatism. The reptiles and snakes and fish make
man dream of them, causing them to be sick. The other animals all get together
and come up with lists of diseases to cause to man, but the plants hearing this
vow to help man. Every plant is supposed to have a cure for some ill if only
man will find it.
“Man’s Dependence on Animals” (Anishinaabe Ojibway)
This starts as a flood myth, which is then shown as the
birth of man and man’s reliance on animals. The spirit-woman is called from the
sky because she contains man within her and she lives on the back of the
turtle. Then, a weasel goes and grabs soil from the bottom of the water which
the spirit-woman spreads around her to create all the land. The animals are
very helpful for man, who would have died numerous times over without the
animals, but man begins to take advantage of the animals. The animals finally
get tired of this, and call together a meeting where they talk it out. But many
of the animals are angry and want to kill man or make him suffer. Dog, however,
feels very loyal and goes to warn man, but wolf sees him sneak off and drags
him back after he’s told man. The animals then want to kill all dogs, but
instead he’s punished by always being subservient to man. The other animals all
disband, speaking different languages from there on.
Hamlet
Hamlet sees the ghost of his father who shows him that Hamlet’s
uncle killed him by pouring poison in his ear. Driven mad by the murder of his
father by his uncle, Claudius, and his uncle’s subsequent marriage to his
mother, Gertrude, Hamlet spends most of the play contemplating the nature of
revenge, how to achieve it and at what cost. It’s only through the accidental killing
of his love interest, Ophelia’s father, that he comes to recognize some of the
problems with revenge when Laertes comes to seek it out. Claudius steers
Laertes in the direction he wants, showing Laertes that Hamlet killed his
father Polonius in his madness. Laertes goes mad with grief too, when his
sister drowns in the river, after having been driven mad by the loss of her
father. Laertes proposes that they fight with foils, the one that he is supposed
to use will be poisoned. Claudius suggests that in case Hamlet wins, he will
also poison a cup of wine that he will give to Hamlet to celebrate his good
fortune in winning the duel. Hamlet takes the poisoned foil and kills Laertes
unknowingly, and Gertrude drinks the win that was supposed to be for Hamlet. Laertes
and Gertrude die, and Hamlet kills Claudius, then himself.
In reading it this time, I was really focused on how the
play utilizes images of nature. The poisons that course throughout the play are
all of natural origin. There are multiple indications of the dividing line
between heaven and earth, and man is considered a natural beast.
I’m interested in the ways nature wins in this play, over
all political and personal considerations. No particular religion plays much of
a role (although there is a fish-monger reference) but heaven, God and other
religious motifs are mentioned or called upon.
There’s something interesting in the ghost too, if we consider this a play of natural/unnatural dichotomies. Does the ghost count as a natural occurrence? Or is he a manifestation of Hamlet’s rage and mourning? The old question about whether the ghost is real or not seems particularly relevant here. There’s a lot of talk about “matter” and “stuff” in the play… does the ghost have a material presence?
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