did you cryHamnet“?
On social mediaMany viewers shared the overwhelming emotion evoked by the film, It was nominated for eight Academy Awards.
One viewer commented on Reddit that the movie is a “Out of body experience” Another posted In X that it had them “crying” and “ugly crying the whole drive home.” New York Times columnist Sarah Wildman wrote that the film left her “Crying in my seat“
In “Hamnet,” which is adapted from director Chloe Zhao 2020 novel by Maggie O’Farrell eponymous, William Shakespeare’s youngest son, Hamnet, died of bubonic plague at age 11. The film traces the profound impact of this loss on his family, while also suggesting that Hamnet’s death influenced the birth of Shakespeare’s tragic masterpiece “Hamlet”.
But critics dispute whether “Hamnet” constitutes “Sadness is vulgar” or instead a brilliant field guide to how to get through it The dark forest of sorrowWhat I found so compelling about the film is how the characters themselves grieve.
Much like Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” “Hamnet” criticizes the idea that grieving is somehow inhuman.
A mother is grieving
“Hamnet” provides an intimate portrait of Shakespeare’s personal life, though the sides of the story Very fictional.
Shakespeare and his wife, commonly known as Anne, are pictured Name changed to Agnes In “Hamnet,” falls in love, bears three children, and suffers through the tragic death of 11-year-old Hamnet.
The couple’s marriage is tested in the opposite way they mourn Hamnet’s death. Agnes believes that Shakespeare, who was in London writing the play when Hamnet died, failed to properly mourn their son due to his desire to return to London shortly after Hamnet’s death. At the same time, the film suggests that Agnes would prefer to stay in the family’s dilapidated home forever because it connects her more closely to Hamnet’s memories.
A Feminist actionFilm significantly Center Agneswho is an afterthought in popular memory: he is best known for his “will” to ShakespeareSecond best bed“
His perfect love for his children is made clear by his watchful care for them – in health, sickness and death.
And yet, “Hamnet” would not be “Hamnet” without Shakespeare and his failure to mourn affects Agnes. Agnes losing her son is the central tragedy of the film. But the second tragedy is her loss of faith in her husband, who strikes her as suddenly cold and overly career-driven.
How could a man capable of writing poetry with such depth of emotion be so clueless about mourning their dead son? For Agnes, it’s not a man.
then and now, Sadness is often gendered.
In his 1996 study “Speaking of Tears in the English Renaissance,” Literary Scholar Marjorie E. Lange Explain how In Shakespeare’s timeMen who cried could be considered dramatic and weak to appropriate female forms of expression; Those who shed tears in public – to borrow a contemporary term – could be accused of “Sadfishing” for attention, even if they are truly overcome with emotion.
And in his monograph “Masculinity and Passion in Early Modern English Literature,” literary scholar Dr. Jennifer Bhatt Also noted that during Shakespeare’s lifetime men were expected to be restless in their grief.
But Vaught complicates the idea that male crying was universally frowned upon then. He points out how passion regularly serves as a springboard for virtue in the literature of the age. For example, in Shakespeare’s tragicomic romance “The Winter’s Tale” King Leontes’ tears facilitate his evolution from a jealous, abusive king to a loving husband and father. Without this grief-induced transformation, the reunion with his wife and daughter—whom he believed to be dead—would never have been possible.
To mourn or not to mourn?
Zhao’s “Hamnet” and Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” each explore the angst men can express. But they also find ways to show how that grief can be beautiful and rewarding.
In “Hamlet,” Hamlet’s uncle, Claudius, challenges his masculinity because of his overly mournful style.
Hamlet’s grief is the polar opposite of how it is originally portrayed in Shakespeare’s “Hamnet”: When Hamlet enters the stage, he is wearing an inky black coat, symbolizing his ongoing mourning for his dead father. Her mother, Gertrude, left just two months later and married Claudius, her dead husband’s brother.
Claudius is quick to chastise Hamlet for his “Manless sorrow” He admits that “it is sweet and admirable” that Hamlet mourns his father, but to hold back grief is tantamount to weakness of heart, reason, and faith. Why mourn death when it is so common and even God’s will? Instead of weeping, Claudius advises Hamlet, “It must be.”
“Hamlet” reveals how grieving men are held to different standards than women, and that these fluctuating standards can be contradictory and confusing.
It is not that Zhao’s Shakespeare does not feel Hamnet’s loss with the same depth as Agnes; He just can’t express it in the same way. In the same way that Claudius suggests that Hamlet must move on because the kingdom needs to be ruled, Shakespeare insists on returning to work to fulfill his artistic calling, for his family and, in a surprising twist, to grieve his son.
‘Hamlet’ is a vehicle of grief
The film’s satisfying resolution reveals Shakespeare living in deplorable conditions in London.
Agnes believed she was enjoying the trappings of her budding celebrity. But the small, sparse room above the theater where he sleeps and writes suggests that he is grieving privately. He channels his personal grief into his very public play “Hamlet,” which, when performed in front of Agnes, reads as a coded statement of his love for her, their dead son, and the playwright’s boundless grief.
The play cleverly allows the dead Hamnet to live on forever through the character of Hamlet.
At the beginning of the film, Zhao quotes the literary scholar By Stephen Greenblatt Hamnet and Hamlet are the same name and completely interchangeable, which makes the death of Hamnet and the birth of “Hamlet” seem inevitable. Zhao invites the audience to imagine that Hamlet’s character openly grieves in a way that Shakespeare neither has the courage nor the ability to do. Although Claudius mocks Hamlet for his mental weakness, his grief drives him to avenge his father and emerge as a hero.
Even the most open-minded reader can fall into the trap of eliminating Hamlet, as he begins the play visibly grieving.
I sometimes ask my students or colleagues what they think Hamlet looks like, and their descriptions often play into anti-masculine stereotypes: their imagined Hamlet is usually slim, light and a bit vapid, much like the actor David Tennant, who played Hamlet at the Royal Shakespeare Company. 2008 production. Franco Zeffirelli’s casting of Mel Gibson as Hamlet Its 1990 film adaptation Shakespeare’s play caused a stir because it did Definitely against type.
Now I hope that reading Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” alongside Zhao’s “Hamnet” can instill an appreciation for male sadness, expanding the possibilities of who Hamlet can be.
It has become trendy to say Real men cry. But Zhao’s film suggests that they can also create emotionally devastating art that invites viewers to cry with and for them.
Jeanette TranAssociate Professor of English, Drake University
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