The Prince of Denmark

While I was on maternity leave, one of my students came to visit me and my daughter. In discussing what she was up to, she mentioned that she was taking a literature class. Of course this piqued my interest. I asked her what she was reading and what else was on the syllabus. She mentioned that she would have to read Hamlet and write a paper on it. I was hooked. I told her that I’d be glad to read her paper and help her out.


A few weeks later she took me up on my offer. She sent me a text asking me if she could send me a draft. I told her to send away as well as when it was due and what the assignment asked. She said she needed to write about what made Hamlet a complex character.

As I read her paper I was carried away into the world of the play. Although Hamlet is not my favorite Shakespeare play, I have read it enough to know it very well. I immediately recalled scenes and soliloquies as if I were reading the play right then. My student decided to propose that Hamlet goes crazy in the course of the play and that’s what makes him complex and vice versa. Regardless of my thoughts on that, I found her arguments very compelling.

I sent back my comments and grammar corrections along with specific lines and acts that she should look at and delve into. Mainly I told her to focus on building upon a comment she made about how Hamlet is a misogynist. She made a comment about Gertrude and brushed it off when it came to Ophelia. Additionally I told her to look at the scene where Hamlet stages a play and to use that as proof that he was conniving and methodical. She sketched that whole scene out and built on it tremendously. However I thought that if she spent more time on the paper and developed it further, she’d have an even greater case in proving he was crazy.

Her next draft came a few days later and I thought it was much improved. I would have given her an A minus for such a paper. I didn’t tell her that but I did see a lot of improvement from the first draft. I told her if she had more time to work on it, there were certain other things she could develop and flush out. Unfortunately she didn’t have more time.

She got a B+ from her teacher. She was happy-ish with the result. She thought it was a better paper based on my feedback and her changes. The reason she didn’t get a better grade was because her professor didn’t think that Hamlet was crazy. I told her that regardless of whether the professor believed it or not, she did an amazing job convincing the reader that he was a complex character who goes insane, which is the point of the paper. I thought she deserved better. I mentioned that grading is subjective and that one professor might give a paper a B+ where another teacher may give the same paper an A. It all depended on the luck of the drawer when it came to professors.

After that brief interlude with the Prince of Denmark, I wanted to revisit all my favorite Shakespeare plays. I haven’t done it yet but I always find something in them that I didn’t see before or an aspect that applies to contemporary life. I know the Bard is annoying or boring for most people but I find him to be chock full of great discussions points and amazing characters. Alas dear reader, I place the plays back on my shelf for the time being. Perhaps the next time I revisit Hamlet or Romeo or Julius Caesar, I will read them with my little munchkin.