Play Analysis Hamlet and Polonius

A great question to ask is: what killed Polonius?

Characters in plays are critically defined by one thing, what William Ball in a Sense of Direction calls the 'golden key' for actors: characters are defined by what they want all else follows.

Hamlet, when you come down to it, is a play about discovering the truth. This is almost every character's goal: it is what they spend a good part of their time doing. While they all have different ultimate objectives, they all seek out the truth as a means of archiving these ultimate objectives:

1) Claudius wants to know the truth behind Hamlet's recent strange behavior (because he fears Hamlet might have discovered his murder).
2) Gertrude and Ophelia want to know the truth about Hamlet's behavior (because they're concerned and want to help).
3) Hamlet wants to know the truth about Claudius (because he needs to be certain of Claudius' guilt before he can kill the King.)
4) Finally, Polonius wants to know the truth behind Hamlet's recent behavior in fact, he's almost desperate to find out . . . we'll get to the why in a moment.

'Ultimate objective', what the character wants, William Ball's 'golden key' this is where the actor first looks to find the heart and soul of a character. When preparing for a role, an actor can sometimes find insight into his character by understanding the wants of a character opposite of his. In "Hamlet", it's Polonius and Hamlet that makes the most interesting study in contrasts. Comparing Polonius with Hamlet helps draw out what is unique about Polonius:

Polonius and Hamlet are like night and day.

What is Polonius' ultimate objective? It's not easy to answer. However, a careful analysis of how Polonius goes about attempting to discover the truth (or in actor-speak, how he goes about "pursuing his main action") provides critical insight into his character, especially when comparing his main action with Hamlet's.

Around the time that Hamlet sees the ghost, Polonius has asked Ophelia to reject Hamlet's recent advances because he thinks Hamlet is trifling with her feelings. Hamlet then confronts Ophelia. His behavior alarms both her and Polonius. Polonius now fears that the rejection drove Hamlet mad. To Claudius and Gertrude, Polonius announces:

your noble son is mad:
Mad call I it; for, to define true madness,
What is't but to be nothing else but mad? (Polonius, 2.2).

Note that Polonius is not sure what "it" is, but whatever "it" is, Polonius is sure Hamlet has "it."

Hamlet, on the other hand, believes that Claudius may be guilty of fratricide, but this belief is only coming from the word of a . . . ghost.

They both have a problem: they have no proof, no hard evidence, to support their hypotheses. Both Polonius' and Hamlet's main action through most of the play is to acquire some sort of convincing support.

When one wants to find support for one's hypothesis, the thing to do is design a test, an experiment, if you will, where either the outcome of the experiment will provide support for the hypothesis or it will not. This is how scientists and researchers test their ideas. In this way, either one moves towards accepting the hypothesis or one moves towards dropping it.

This 'testing' sounds straightforward, even easy but it's not. This is where Polonius and Hamlet differ, and interestingly enough, this is where most of us resemble Polonius. Polonius seeks to CONFIRM his hypothesis; Hamlet seeks to TEST his.

What Shakespeare has amazingly dramatized in Polonius is a behavior that 21st century researchers call confirmation bias, a type of selective thinking whereby one tends to look for what confirms one's belief and to ignore or undervalue the relevance of what contradicts that belief.

A demonstration of this bias is the Wason Card Problem. Assume you have four cards lying on a table. You see each face printed with the following letters and numbers:

| A | | B | | 4 | | 7 |

There is also a letter or a number on the other side.

Now, imagine your hypothesis is: if a card has a vowel on one side, then it must have an even number on the other side. What cards or card would you turn over to 'test' this hypothesis? Decide now.

Most people turn over cards A and 4 presumably thinking, "I must turn over A to see if there is an even number and I must turn over the 4 to see if there is a vowel." However, if this were the case, would you believe your hypothesis?

In actual experiments, researchers have indeed put an even number on the other side of A and a vowel on the other side of 4. However, researchers always put a vowel on the other side of the 7 card making the hypothesis false. Only about 5% of us ever turn over the 7 card. This is because we seek to 'confirm' our hypothesis. Turning over the 7 card is a test to 'disconfirm' our hypothesis. If you turn over the A and 4 cards, you'll think you're right if you turn over the 7 card, you'll know you're wrong.

So how does Polonius attempt to find where truth is hid (Polonius, 2.2)? He confronts Hamlet and attempts by indirections, find directions out (Polonius, 2.1). In other words, he asks indirect questions looking for evidence that Hamlet is mad. What follows in 2.2 is a delicate and clever scene between Hamlet and Polonius where Hamlet does not come off 'crazy' rather he comes off as cleverly keeping Polonius off balance (presumably because he does not want to give anything away to the Claudius' closest adviser). However, while Polonius does seem to sense though this be madness, yet there is method in t. (Polonius, 2.2), the bizarre conversation 'confirms' Polonius' belief that Hamlet is mad. He has found Hamlet's "directions."

Contrast this with one of Hamlet's first reactions to the ghost. Hamlet entertains the possibly that he is wrong about Claudius:

The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil: and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me. (Hamlet, 2.2).

Polonius, on the other hand, further seeks to confirm his hypothesis by spying on Hamlet & Ophelia:

. . . I'll loose my daughter to him:
Be you [Claudius] and I behind an arras then;
Mark the encounter: if he love her not
And be not from his reason fall'n thereon,
Let me be no assistant for a state,
But keep a farm and carters. (Polonius, 2.2).

This is critical: much is at stake for Polonius. For Hamlet the stakes are clear: if he is wrong about Claudius, he kills an innocent man. For Polonius, it's almost as if it's his sense of self worth is at stake (at least in his role as assistant for a state) -- but there's no indication anywhere else in the play that anyone else perceives it this ways.

Contrary to Polonius's expectations, the exchange between Hamlet and Ophelia is enough to convince Claudius that:

Love! his affections do not that way tend;
Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little,
Was not like madness. (Claudius, 3.1).

And Polonius' response?

but yet do I believe
The origin and commencement of his grief
Sprung from neglected love. (Polonius, 3.1).

Compare this with Hamlet.

He does not to try to confirm his belief. Instead, remarkably, Shakespeare dramatizes the modern scientific method: he has Hamlet devise a test that will either support or contradict his hypothesis. Hamlet decides to stage a play that dramatizes a man who murders his brother, a king. Hamlet's 15th century logic was that a guilty conscience would give itself away if presented with a dramatization of its crime (i.e., if the King reacts he supports the ghost's claim. If he doesn't, then Hamlet reasons the spirit that I have seen may be the devil. In short, Hamlet devised 'The Mousetrap':

the play 's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king. (Hamlet, 2.2).

And catch a King he does, setting the stage for the final confrontation with Claudius.

Hamlet wanted 'the truth' and he achieved that objective.

And Polonius? After the exchange between Hamlet and Ophelia, Polonius doesn't reject his hypothesis, he fatally decides have Gertrude talk to Hamlet while he hides and listens - more indirections to find directions out, his last -- and final action.

Had Polonius only dropped his hypothesis after the exchange between Hamlet and Ophelia; had he for a moment seriously considered that he was wrong; had he only found and entertained an alternate hypothesis and devised some way to test between his hypotheses . . .

But of course, he didn't. He wouldn't be "Polonius" if he had.

So what killed Polonius? The thing Polonius most wanted in life:

. . . to be right.

(Originally published on "Helium").