Imprisoned Hamlets

Hearing the podcast on the Hamlet play put together by prisoners touched me on a very personal level. I was amazed by how the prisoners managed to pull it off together, but I also felt overwhelmed with profound reflections beyond the facts discussed.

I was curious to hear what was so interesting about prisoners putting together a Hamlet play. Of course it requires certain skills, but there had to be more to it than mere applauses to a blossoming group of criminal actors. It was interesting to hear about the paradigms within prison and the social pressures the actors went through while auditioning, it even made me proud to hear that some prisoners had to work hard and make sacrifices in order to accomplish the best performance they could; at least they were not wandering around. 

However, what really grasped my attention was the question asked by the narrator nearly half-way through the podcast, which said something like "How would a Hamlet play, one about a character's indecisive behavior about committing a crime because of the consequences he might face, be perceived and performed by a group of convicts who are currently suffering from those consequences?". This, to me, was the most basic yet fascinating question about the scenario. 

I started listening very gingerly to the outcome of this question and, to my surprise, I started feeling slightly sorry for the prisoners. I mean, here they were, putting together a beautiful play while attempting to comprehend what Shakespeare tried to deliver through his lines, all within four enclosed walls. Once they dissolved the dialogues, not only did they understand the message but also they were the message; these men were the men who Hamlet would have turned into had it not been for Shakespeare's tragic ending. The character's lines touched these men on a whole different level, one we can not even hope to comprehend. The inmate playing the ghost even felt it was the man he had killed who talked to him through this ghost. That, though disturbing, is incredibly touching. On the prisoners' side, it shows that the men are aware of what they did and felt attached to it. On the play's side, it demonstrates how timeless Shakespeare is. Just like the narrator said, even though the scenario is not literally relatable to, the theme and the struggle of the different characters is fit for all in an ageless way. 

As I continued to listen, I started liking the prisoners. I would have even forgotten they were criminals had the narrator not constantly reminded us of it. I felt the same way the narrator did once he found out about the prisoner's records; betrayed, almost to a point of denial. How could they seem so human, how could I have laughed at their comments? They had killed a man, maybe two. And now I was feeling sorry for them. Sorry that they had to perform in jail, sorry that they could not get decent props, even sorry about them not being able to perform for a bigger audience or about them not having a longer after-party. All this simply because I had heard them talk about their intimate connection to a character which I had also read about and had felt no relation to. 

All this reminded me of an inner struggle I have suffered from in the last decade. My sister and I were victims of a terrorist attack from which we fortunately survived without a scratch but in which we could have just as well died. In recent months, the Colombian government has been carrying out peace dialogues with the FARC, the authors of the attack my sister and I, along with hundreds of other civilians, suffered from years ago. The dialogues have not yet reached a conclusion but it appears to be that, regardless of the verdict, the FARC will leave with amnesty and be allowed to freely re-integrate into society. That, to me, is unbearable. I know it is the only possible solution at the moment and I know it will end a war in which thousands of innocent people have died, but the thought of me shopping for groceries beside one of the men responsible for the explosion I survived from is simply unacceptable. This is because I have not been able to forgive them. Meanwhile, after listening to an hour-long podcast about criminals who act, I was able to feel pity for them and, in a way, accept them. I am incapable of feeling the same way towards FARC members. I am incapable of realizing that they are human and that they perhaps regret many of the things they have done, just like the actors in the podcast. 

Listening to the way in which the prisoners attempt to make something new out of their lives by acting and how they seem more human than what the news may portray them to be, I feel encouraged to find it in my heart to forgive and forget. Not that I approve of what any of these men did, or that I would like to sit down and have lunch with them. But I have reached a point where I at least acknowledge that they are human too and that they feel regret. Maybe some day I will be able to forgive, or at least restore humanity back to, the FARC too. 

J. Alfred Prufrock and Hamlet

"The Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot, narrates the story of an overwhelmingly nostalgic man who dwells over making something out of his life but, at the end, is unable to make up his mind about it. Aside from directly comparing himself to Prince Hamlet, or rather comparing himself to what Prince Hamlet is not, Mr. Prufrock and Mr. Hamlet have a lot more in common than they are aware of.

On one side, Mr. Prufrock is, as previously stated, a sentimental man who suffers from a lack of self-confidence. He is submerged in a "hundred indecisions", questions himself about daring to "disturb the universe", and finally continually contemplates the possibility of acting but retracts himself from doing so; "In a minute there is time for decisions and recision which a minute will reverse" (Line 47). This proves Mr. Prufrock to be a man of contradicting thoughts, of need for self-assurance, and of great misery and struggle. His grief even becomes slightly funny, for it is simply ridiculous. Nevertheless, perhaps what is most worrying about Mr. Prufrock is not his annoying sadness but his incapability of actually doing something with his life instead of over-thinking everything over and over again.

An interesting thing about Prufrock, though, is the way in which he compares himself to Prince Hamlet. He says that he is not Prince Hamlet at all and goes on into explaining, rather, what he is. This includes being the prince's advisor, glad to be of use, cautious, unable to express himself eloquently, and, at times, "the Fool". This comparison has a lot more profoundness to it now than it did before reading Hamlet. However, I slightly disagree with the way in which Prufrock places Hamlet on a pedestal. Perhaps Prufrock does not know about it, but he and Hamlet are very much alike when it comes to their inability to act. 

Hamlet, although a prince, is actually a very indecisive guy who suffers, just like Prufrock, from lack of self-confidence and love. It takes Hamlet a whole play to make up his mind about avenging his father's murder and he becomes nearly mad when it came to Ophelia, his beloved crush. In most of Hamlet's soliloquies throughout the play, he shows signs of abysmal nostalgia and misery, to a point where the famous question is asked, "To be or not to be?". To act or not to act? To live or not to live? To disturb the universe or not to? This is something J. Alfred Prufrock would certainly ask himself, but unlike Hamlet, he would take this question as rhetorical and have "not to be" as an unquestionable answer. 

The only thing that saves Hamlet from falling into J. Alfred Prufrock's dark world is the fact that he was able to make up his mind at the end and acted, killing his father's murderer. He disturbed the universe in which he lived but was able to die with the satisfaction of having actually done something with his life. The struggle of not knowing what to do, whether to act or not, could potentially be a lot more suffocating than the act of doing something, whatever it is. If J. Alfred Prufrock found some inspiration, the way Hamlet did in Fortinbras' army, he could perhaps make up his mind about accomplishing something before time ran up. This would make him a lot less pathetic, for being forever indecisive is much more pitiful than failing in whatever you decide to do.