Chinese Features on Hamlet

Chinese Features on critical point By Xia Chen Student Number 3070313019 supervisory program Lu Junyan A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Bachelor of hu humanityhoodities in the School of Foreign Language Studies, Ningbo Institute of Technology, Zhejiang University May 10, 2011 Abstract crossroads is considered as atomic number 53 of the greatest works of Shakespeare, since the play critical point is a magnificent example of occidental classic tragedies and the hoagy small town is a combination of various somebodyalities and contradictive human values.It becomes valuable as an important source natural of study for non scarcely literature further also sociology and anthropology. This paper is composed of four split including introduction, main body and conclusion. The main body could be divided into two parts, which are critical points Chinese features as a human and settlements Chinese features as a tragedy. In the prototyp al part, crossroadss fictional characters allow for be compared with Chinese traditional tillage filial piousness, the construct of family, morality and sexual discrimination. Filial piousness is considered as champion of the to a greater extent or less important Chinese traditional criterions.In the play crossroads, when the ghost of the died superpower, who was junctures begin, asks small town to r compensatege for him, it passms that the revenging becomes the intimately important matter of settlement, even more important than his beloved with Ophelia, it shows that critical point has a strong sense of filial piety. Whats more, to Chinese muckle, family is as important as ones keep. village also tries his best to protect his family in the play. In addition, settlement has the sense of sexual discrimination. He cyphers women are petty and low, and he does not think men and women are equal, which is also a feudal character in acient china.In the second part, th e play Hamlet is compared with Chinese tragedy the Orphan of Chaos on theme and the enjoyment of tragedy. By this way, the consanguinity in the midst of Hamlet and Chinese culture will be clearly expressed. Keywords vindicate love family Chinese culture Contents 1 Introduction1 1. 1 enquiry Background1 1. 3 Research Purpose2 2 Hamlets Chinese Fetures as a Human3 2. 1 Hamlets Character3 2. 2 Hamlets Chinese Fetures6 2. 2. 1 Hamlets Filial Piety8 2. 2. 2 Hamlets Concept of Family4 2. 2. 3 Hamlets Sense of sexual Discrimination4 . 2. 2 Hamlet and Golden Mean4 3 Hamlets Chinese Fetures As a Tragedy5 3. 1 The Orphan of Chaos4 3. 2. A Chinese Topic vindicate4 3. 3 A Chinese air To Enjoy The Tragedy4 4 Conclusion10 References12 Acknowledgements13 1 Introduction 1. 1 Research Background The play Hamlet, written by Shakespeare, is considered as one of the most magnificent art works in the world, and it has been long examine by scholars all more or less the world. Hamlet is a story a bout the princess of Denmark, Hamlet, whose father was murdered by Hamlets uncle.Hamlets uncle married Hamlets mother, the queen, and became the recent king, which do Hamlet so despaired and angry that he was eager to revenge for his died father. However, Hamlet was a contradictive young man and he was always hesitating, which make him feel painful in his mental world and he almost committed suicide. By the leading of a ghost, which was Hamlets died father, Hamlet found out the truth of his fathers death, then he began to pretend as he was mad so that he might arrest a peril to eradicate his uncle, the revolutionary king.Hamlet tried to show the truth to the public by a play, which made the hot king angry and he decided to banish Hamlet. Fortunately, Hamlet was so clever that he made a stratagem to get rid of the punishment, and he went stand to Denmark. Then, Hamlet killed his fiancees father as a manslaughter, which made Hamlets fiancee Ophelia lose her mind. Ophelias brot her asked him to duel with him in front of the new king and queen. The queen drank a bottle of poi boyous wine which was for Hamlet when she was watching the duel and she died.Hamlet was stabbed by a poisonous sword in the duel, before he died, Hamlet killed the new king by that poisonous sword. Hamlet is an epitome of human being. His personality is complicated and everyone might find well-nigh similarities with Hamlet. This makes Hamlet a symbolic character, and the studies on Hamlet could not only serving people to know Hesperian classic literature better vertical also make people think deeper about their vivification. In this essay, the author would extremity to make a comparison between Hamlet and Chinese culture. 1. 2 Research PurposeM each authors emphasize on certain aspects of literature study on Hamlet or Chinese culture, like the tradition of filial piety, the comparison of Hamlet and Chinese classic literature, Hamlets personality and Hamlets value system. The au thor thinks that many studies on this thesis throw already been done but there is not anyone who has done a general study on the base of Hamlets Chinese feature, so there is the possibility for the author to do some research on it. The weakness of recent study is that most of the studies are isolated from each other.For instance, Tradition of filial piety in China and Western culture 1 is talking about what is common that the Chinese people tend to exceedingly value such filial duties as serving, respecting, filially obeying the aged parents, and worshiping their ancestors whereas such acts of filial piety are not transfern so seriously in the Western culture. It could be a point that supports what mentioned in The family relationship in Shakespeares plays 2, and it crowd out help readers to go deeper into each of these two essays. However, few authors rich person done any study on the filial piety in Shakespeares plays, which makes this field blank.Whats more, when Chinese r eaders are nurture the play Hamlet, what might help them to to a lower placestand the literal meaning is a dictionary or a translation work, but they may always get confused about the storys culture background and Hamlets purviews about love, family and life. Bacause there was not many literature which stool help Chinese readers to understand Hamlet from comparing Chinese culture with Hamlet, it is necessary for the author to do some research on it so that more Chinese readers can understand Hamlet easier. 2 Hamlets Chinese Features as a human 2. 1 Hamlets characterThe Tragedy of Hamlet is one of the four most famous tragedies written by Shakespeare, and Hamlet is the protagonist in it. through with(predicate)out the whole play, the contradictory sides of his character could be seen easily. On one hand, Hamlet is a wise, brave, and kind-hearted young man on the other hand, he is sometimes timid, careless, and even a little bit cruel. Hamlet enjoys a high social position and has a rock-steady re designateation among his people. barely once he is called back from the university to Danmark by his fathers sudden death, he is involved in misery and the arduous assess of avenging.Life suddenly becomes so complicated and challenging for Hamlet because of his mothers hasty espousals to his uncle, the new king and also the one who killed his father. Hamlet is young and inexperienced, and his strong character enables him to stand firm under such a difficulty. Although he feels isolated and lonely, he remains calm, contend with his uncles repeated persecutions by using his intelligence, and carrying out the revenge finally, though at the cost of his own life.Through the whole play, we can see that Hamlet is neither a frail and weak minded youth nor a thought cat dreamer, on the contrary, he is fearless and impetuous in action 3 His rushing laterwards the ghost, killing Polonius, dealings with the Kings commission on the ship, jumping into the grave of Opheli a out of honest love and writ of execution his final revenge during the duel with Laertes make him appears insensible to the fear of any ordinary kind. In the play, Hamlets delay and hesitations in carrying out his task of revenge is also obvious.Hamlet even appears to be s omit and shrinking sometimes. There are some(prenominal) good lucks for him to kill Claudius bu everytime he just lets them slip by. Sometimes, when he fails to make good use of a chance, he will find some excuses for his inaction to solace himself. For instance, when Hamlet is on his way to his mothers chambe, he finds the new king is praying, he could kill the new king on the spot by his sword, but he give up the chance and he tells himself it will send someone to the heaven if kill him when he is praying.If his delay is due to the lack of evidence of the new kings crime, now he has got evidence and he should have taken immediate action, but he still fails. Hamlet often reproaches himself bitterly for the n eglect of his duty. He even asks himself in honest-to-goodness hesitation, What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? Do I linger? Can the cause be cowardice? What is it that makes me sit idle when I feel it is scurrilous to do so, and when I have cause, and will, and strength, and gist to act ? Why in the world did not Hamlet obey the Ghost at once, and save seven of those eight lives? If he had been Laertes or Fortinbras, he would have accomplished his task in wears mourning dress and appears depressed at his mothers marriage. 4 When Hamlets mother asks him to exchange his clothing and look like a friend on Denmark, he says, together with all forms, moods and shapes of grief that can demote me truly. These indeed seem, for they are actions that a man play, But I have that within which passeth show these but the trappings and the suits of woe. The words of play, and trappings and suits of woe indicates that he suspects the cause of his fathers death. Kn owing clearly that he is under the close watch by the new king and his followers, he speaks out the Kings crime in his mother chamber, A murderer and a villain, A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe of your precedent lord, a vice of kings, a cutpurse of the empire and the rule, that from a shelf the precious diadem stole And put it in his pocket. 4Fortunately, the eavesdropper Plonius is killed by mistake.But Hamlet has made a big mistake. Though his mother promises to keep what he says a secret, his rush act leads to the death of Ophelia, and the King has another causation to kill him, that is, the duel with Laertes at the end of the play. 2. 2 Chinese fetures 2. 2. 1 Hamlets filial piety In Chinese traditional culture, filial piety is as important as ones life. One will get a bad reputation if he or she is considered as doing things against his or her parents. Young people are supposed to obey their parents and take good care of their parents.Especially for the well educa ted people, filial piety is one of the most important criterions. In acient China, people even could get an official position by treating their parents well enough. Confucius once said Filial duty is the foundation of other duties. 5From this, we can see that filial piety is almost the core of Chinese social structure. However, in the western culture, people are more likely to be independent rather than always do what their parents ask them to do, and the concept of filial piety is quite different from Chineses view.For example, in western countries, going abroad and living faraway away from parents means being independent and competent, while living away from parents in acient China means being selfish and irresponsible. In the play Hamlet, when the ghost of the died king, who was Hamlets father, asks Hamlet to revenge for him, it seems that the revenging becomes the most important thing of Hamlet, even more important than his love with Ophelia. It is unusual that fathers golf-c lub becomes the most important thing to a western young man, and Hamlet even lost his life for his father.There was a saying in China It is the fathers fault if a son doesnt do right. It reflects that in China, the most important part of the relationship between father and son is succession. On one hand, it is fathers responsibility to get a line his son, and on the other hand, the son should always obey his father. In the play Hamlet, the old king is not only his sons father but also the idol of his son, when Hamlet said O, that this too too cheering flesh would melt, Thaw and resolve itself into a dew Or that the Everlasting had no fixed His canon gainst self-slaughter. O God, God,How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of this world Fie ont, ah fie, tis an unweeded garden That grows to seed things rank and gross in nature Possess it merely. That it should come to this But two months deadnay not so much, not twoSo excellent a king, that was to this Hyper ion to a satyr. It is obviously that Hamlet respects his father, the old king very much. Hamlets duty in the whole story is to revenge for his died father, meanwhile, antediluvian Chinese people thought the most shameful thing to a man is being unable to revenge for his father.Chinese story The orphan of the Chaos is also about revenging for ones father. So, Hamlet has Chinese futures of revenging, too. 2. 1. 2 Hamlets Concept of Family An important Chinese feature that Hamlet has is the concept of family. From my point of view, Shakespeares idea of family is a kind of humanism thought. It affects the characters behavior straightway and it puts forward the plots from developing or it even figure outs the end of a play. Shakespeare advocates for pure love, for instance, the love betweenHamlet and Ophelia he demotes insensible love like the love between Hamlets mother and Hamlets uncle. Shakespeare also promotes the harmonious conjugal relation which is base on love he demotes t he conjugal relation which is based on ambitions or benefits, for example, Macbeth and Mrs. Macbeth. 6 Another thing that Shakespeare promotes is the fairness and trust between family members. He believes what breaks the love between family members is the power and influence, whats more, power and influence also deprive the fairness between different people and lead people to guilty.In Hamlet, Hamlet demotes the love between his mother and his uncle, because it is a kind of incest, and Hamlet thinks it is sick. Chinese people think what prevent the association from collapsing are morality and ethics. Ethics means the relationship between family members should be regular and normal. Fornication essential be forbidden. In China, if ones uncle married with his or her mother, he or she will be a pasquinade of other people. 2. 1. 3 Hamlets Sense of Sexual DiscriminationAnother traditional Chinese feature that can be found on Hamlet is the sense of sexual discrimination, which has inf luenced Chinese society for thousands of years. In ancient China, women were forbided to go to school, and they had no right to choose their husband. Women were considered as timid and inability, they had to stay home and look after their children, always obey their husband. In the play Hamlet, Hamlet says Frailty, thy name is woman and O God, a heast that want discourse of reason would have mourned longer. It shows that Hamlet looks down upon woman because his mother married his uncle soon after his fathers death and he doesnt think man and woman are equal, women are more like heast than human. Whats more, when Hamlet says Ay truly, for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd, than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness. This was sometimes a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once. Hamlet seems look down upon his lover, Ophelia, too. Hamlet praises human being as the gift by god, while he thinks women are petty and low. . 1. 4 Hamlet and Golden Mean It is obvious that Hamlet is a character with hesitation, in the play, Shakespeare includes a number of other characters capable of taking resolute and headstrong revenge as required to highlight Hamlets inability to take action,. Fortinbras travels thousands of miles to take his revenge and finally succeeds in conquering Denmark the plot that Laertes kills Hamlet to revenge for the death of his father, Polonius. Compared to these characters, Hamlets revenge is ineffectual. Once Hamlet decides to take action, he delays any action until the end of the play.What makes Hamlet a great unique homo of writing is the remarkable way in which Shakespeare uses the delay to build Hamlets emotional and psychological complexity. Hamlets revenge is delayed in three significant ways 1. Hamlet must first find out Claudius guilt and tell it to the public, which he does in Act 3, Scene 2 by representing the murder of his father in a play. When Claudi us went out during the performance, Hamlet becomes convinced about Clausiuss guilt. 2. Then, Hamlet intellectualizes his revenge, to contrast with the rash actions of Fortinbras and Laertes.For instance, Hamlet has the opportunity to kill Claudius in Act 3, Scene 3. He already draws his sword, but is concerned that Claudius will be sent to heaven if he is killed while praying. 3. after killing Polonius, Hamlet is sent to England and it becomes impossible for him to gain access to Claudius and do his revenge. During his trip, he decides to be more headstrong in his desire for revenge. Although he does kill Claudius in the final scene of the play, we cannot credit Hamlet will kill Claudius if Claudius does not ask him to have a duel with others.Hamlets inability to take action might reflect a characteristic that Chinese traditional culture has, that is the sense of deluxe mean, which is an important rule of Confucian school. Golden meanmeans that one should not do things in a radical way and never go to the extreme, there is no absolute good or bad. Hamlets behavior shows that he is always struggling for right and wrong, do and undo, he does not make a decision until he has no way to go. 3 Hamlets Chinese Features as a Tragedy 3. 1 The Orphan of the ZhaosThe Orphan of Zhao, or Orphan of the place Tcho is a Chinese play of the Yuan Dynasty, attributed to someone named Ji Junxiang, about whom almost nothing is known. ground on an episode in Shiji, the play has its full name The Great Revenge of the Orphan of Zhao Family. obedience is the theme of the play Zhaoshi guer (The Orphan of Zhao), written in the second half of the 13th century. In it the wedge shape sacrifices his son to save the life of young Zhao so that Zhao can later avenge the death of his family. It is the first Chinese play that known in Europe.Joseph Henri Marie de Premare translated the play into French as Tchao-chi-cou-eulh, ou Lorphelin de la maison de Tchao, tragedie chinoise, which was c ollected in Jean Baptiste Du Haldes Description geographique, historique, chronologique, politique et physique de lempire de la Chine et de la Tartarie Chinoise, promulgated in 1735 (the play was published separately in 1755). Thomas Hatchett (active 1721-1741) published an adaptation of the play in English, The Orphan of China (1741) that changes the determination significantly so that the play conforms to classical conventions of the three unities 3. A Chinese Topic Revenge Revenge is a common topic of Chinese traditional drama, since there was a saying in acient China An eye to an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Which means that if any other people hurts one, one should revenge in the same way. The orphan of the zhaos is considered as the Hamlet of China, because the mean character, Zhao Wu, whose destiny is similar to Hamlets, and they both have the duty to revenge for their father. Zhao Wus father is killed by his god-father, and he lives with his god-father to bear patiently f or twenty years until finally he kills his god-father. 7 Hamlets father is killed by Hamlets uncle, and Hamlet pretends to be crazy to cheat others so that he has the chance to stay with his uncle and finally he kills his uncle and revenges for his father successfully. In addition, it is full of meaning that both tragedies share the same theme revenge. The play Hamlet describes the story of Hamlet, the Danmark prince, who takes revenge for his father. The prince Hamlet learns from his fathers ghost that his uncle Claudius poisons the king, takes the power, and marries the queen. The ghost asks Hamlet to avenge him.After several trials and struggles between evil and good, Hamlet and his uncle, the fraud whose crime is finally exposed, perish together. Zhao the Orphan describes the story of the Zhaos have from slaughter because the treac crampfishus court official named Tu Angu frames up Zhao Dun, the official loyal to his sovereign. The disciple, Cheng Ying, in Zhaos place sacrifice s his own son to save the infant of Zhaos family and bring him up. After the orphan acquires his life experience, he takes the revenge for his family by killing Tu Angu.As can be seen, the two tragedies share the common topic that the evil may succeed for a while, however, destines to receive the punishment of justice. 3. 3 A Chinese Way to Enjoy the Tragedy The main idea of the Confucians is Ren, which can be understood as sympathy. It is said that only people who have a heart of sympathy can be considered as a person of noble character and integrity. The tragedy of Hamlet and the tragedy of the Orphan of Chaos are very fashionable among people all around the world.An important factor that contributes to the enjoyment of these tragedies is sympathy. It is neither the sympathy in the estimable or moral sense, nor the feeling of pity and sorrow for somebody. It is aesthetic sympathy, which means the identification of ourselves without persons or things with the closure that we par ticipate in their feelings, emotions and sentiments. In actual life, we have only one life and most of us are living a very ordinary and calm life, which sometimes seems a little monotonous.One of the charms of dramas is that in them we can live a great number of different lives, experience what we cannot experience in substantive life , laugh and cry with the characters as long as we substitute ourselves in their places in imagination. For example, in Hamlet, we may identify ourselves with Hamlet. With Hamlet we mourn over the death of the old king, complain of the hasty marriage of Gertrude, feel friendly towards Horatio, despise Polonius, love and suspect Ophelia and fightt heduel with Laertes.In The Orphan of Zhao, we can imagine ourselves to be the hero Cheng Ying and feel his hesitation at the princess request of taking the orphan out of the court, his hatred for Tuan Ku when he state to kill all the babies in the country to search for the orphan of Zhao, his agony to see hi s own son being killed and his final joy at Tuan Kus punishment. In one word , sympathy plays a great part in the enjoyment of tragedy, both the Shakespearean tragedy and the classical Chinese tragedy. 4. ConclusionHamlet has been analyze by scholars from different countries with various ethnics in almost every possible aspects for a long time, so many people might hold the idea that Hamlet is a play which has been studied throughly. However, when Chinese students and readers study on Hamlet, they always find that it is difficult to understand because of the lack of culture background and expression skill. If they were told that Hamlet has some similarities with Chinese culture, the study of Hamlet might be much easier. This is one reason for the author to study on Hamlets Chinese features.Another reason is that few scholars have studied on the Chinese features of Hamlet. On one hand, China has a 5000 years history which is profound and diversified, and the Chinese values have grea tly influenced the world, so the importance of Chinese culture could not be disregard on the other hand, China has its specific traditional thoughts of ethics and human natures, so some western scholars thought there were few similarities between Chinese traditional culture and western culture. Nevertheless, Chinese culture, just like the other cultures of the world, has many assosiations with western culture, including the classic literatures.The essay has concluded some Chinese fetures on Hamlet. It provides readers to have a more distinctive mind on the relationship between Shakespeares works and Chinese traditional culture, and more study on this topic will be done in the future. References 1. ? J. ,2010(3)83-86. 2. J. ,2009(4)119-121. 3. J. , 2008(6)80-82. 4. J. , 2009(3)52-55. 5. The Personality Determines DestinyThe Image Building Quesitions About Hamlet J. ,2010(1)199-201. 6.The Contradictory Sides of Hamlets CharacterJ. ,2004(33)429-432. 7 David L. Hall. idea T hrough Confucius M. New York Albany, 1987. 8Arthur Kleinman. Normal and Abnormal Behavior in Chinese Culture M. Holland Reidel, 1981. 9Barbara Marshall Matthews. The Chinese Value Survey An interpretation of value scales and consideration of some preliminary resultsJ. International Education Journal, 2000(1) 117-126. Acknowledgements I would like to take this opportunity to extend my heart-felt gratitude to all my teachers and professors who have lent me a help in the process of the completion of this thesis.I am especially indebted to Mrs Lu Junyan, my supervisor, who has provided me with information, advice, criticism and encouragement. My thesis couldnt have come out without the countless instruction and patient guidance from my supervisor. His invaluable insights and hearty encouragement have enabled me to fulfill and improve the quality of my paper. Meanwhile, my appreciation also goes to my classmates and friends. They were always willing to give me assistance and encouragem ent whenever I sought help from them. Finally, I wish to thank my family for their unconditional support and encouragement through my undergraduate study.