A primary theme of _Hamlet_ is anguish, that most horrible emotion.  It
is anguish which drives the unfortunate to seemingly odious acts such as
suicide, the most complete expression of despair.  As anguish utterly overwhelms
the senses, it somehow creates an alternate reality in the mind of the
afflicted.  Shakespeare, true to the nature of this sort of total suffering,
manages to create for his audience the internal world of pain.
	The obvious example of an internal issue taking on the life of an
external one is the soliloquy, Hamlet's suicidal musings in particular.  His
wandering through a morass of emotion is very much like wandering through a dank
dungeon--the reader struggles to keep up, can only see the moment, and never
knows the next turn of twisted logic until after it has passed.  With famous
lines such as "to sleep--perchance to dream" Shakespeare jostles the audience
time and again.  And as the dungeon wanderer's pulse quickens as he thinks he
sees light (or perhaps realizes that he's starving to death), so does
Shakespeare's prose.  In this same "To be, or not to be" speech, the frequency
of pauses, questions, and logic twists increases until it is feverishly
dismissed with Ophelia's appearance, a climactic moment anticipated and averted.
	Anguish aside, one of the most terrible feelings in human existence is
the sense of being naked in one's sin.  King Claudius experiences this terror as
he witnesses his treachery made light of onstage.  Surely the guilty memories
have plagued him ever since the act, growing ever more gruesome and grave.  But
thoughts on a feedback loop can never reach a climax; it takes an external
stimulus to spark it.  Witnessing his crime sets Claudius's mind and memory
ablaze.  For the reader, the dumb show and the events leading up to it offer a
glimpse into Claudius's endless recollection, and then his outburst proves his
rage, the rage which had been building and seeking a vent.  For Hamlet, the
engineer of the event, the suspense lay in what, exactly, Claudius would do if
he saw a murder much like the one the ghost described.  To an extent, the
audience--the readers--share in Hamlet's suspense, and perhaps Claudius's
suspense as to how his crimes shall come to light.
	Ah, yes, there is excitement in these internal events, but it is never
good.  It is a dread perverted fearful excitement, like adrenaline to flee a
beast.  And, yes, it builds.  It builds to a climax, but the climax never comes
unless it can be externalized.  In this case, all of Hamlet's woe manifests
itself as a final suicidal bloodbath.

-- Andy Goth <unununium@openverse.org>