The Dilemma of Shakespearean Sonship: An Analysis of Paternal Models of Authority and Filial Duty in Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Abstract

The aim of the proposed thesis will be to examine the complex and compelling relationship between fathers and sons in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. This study will investigate the difficult and challenging process of forming one’s own identity with its social and psychological conflicts. It will also examine how the transformation of the son challenges the traditional family model in concert or in discord with the predominant philosophy of the time. I will assess three father-son relationships in the play – King Hamlet and Hamlet, Polonius and Laertes, and Old Fortinbras and Fortinbras – which thematize and explore filial ambivalence and paternal authority through the act of revenge and mourning the death of fathers. In Chapter Two, I provide an overview of the historical context, as well as the political, religious, and social conventions of the father and son relationship. The central discussion consists of three chapters which focus on the character transformations of Hamlet, Laertes, and Fortinbras to support my claim of the son’s emerging voice and independence. I cite substantial evidence from major literary critics, as well as offer my own textual analysis of the dramatic complexities and ambiguities in each father-son relationship. In Chapter Five, I expand my argument to include questions about the evolution of feminine identity in Elizabethan culture – by examining the relationship between fathers and daughters in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and King Lear. I offer a comparative analysis of the relationships between Polonius and Ophelia, and King Lear and Cordelia, by illustrating what it means for a Shakespearean daughter to become self-empowered by her own defiance, and the implications this suggests about the shifting paradigm of masculine identity in the father and son relationship. I conclude by demonstrating that Shakespeare’s daughters ultimately echo the same sentiments as Shakespeare’s sons – a strong desire to embrace a new social order that will accommodate the emergence of “silent” voices in the Elizabethan Age.