Sometimes the only way to describe something is to give their antithesis or archetype. We already learned from Polonius’s tautologous description of Hamlet’s antic behavior how not to define. He says, “Your noble son is mad./Mad I call I it, for to define true madness,/What is’t but to be nothing else but mad?” (II, ii). Although Shakespeare’s description on being human takes a whole play, he does a little better than Polonius. Shakespeare displays the sometimes murky relationship between God and man by showing God and Hamlet’s plans adjacent to each other. This relationship is put in real life terms for the audience to see. The Tragedy of Hamlet reveals what it is to be human is to not be God, to not be God is to not be perfect, and not to be perfect is to be flawed. Shakespeare even goes so far as to illustrate how humans should act using a conscience in light of their flaws.

These flaws arise in Hamlet’s deviation from God’s plan as brought to light by the Ghost. Whether or not those flaws are forgiven is a different question; a question we should not answer. In fact, this is where Hamlet goes wrong with God’s message from the ghost, [proved as being a “spirit of health” not “goblin damned” (I, iv), by Claudius’s reaction to the play that shall prick his conscience, “Lights!” (III, ii)] Hamlet is supposed to “Leave [mother] to Heaven” (I, v). Hamlet forgets this part of the plan as he erupts in a not so casual castigation, “You go not till I set you up a glass...And let me wring your heart” (III, iv) suggesting he’ll call her out on her actions himself. Hamlet also deviates from God’s plan when he doesn’t kill Claudius because he may send him to a place Hamlet thinks he does not deserve; Heaven. He waits to kill and says, “Then trip him, that his hells may kick at Heaven/And that his soul may be as damned and black/As Hell, whereto it goes” (III, iii). Hamlet shows us his flaws, how his plans of action are different from Gods, the differences humans have from God and in turn gives a small picture of what it is to be human.

The conscience is used in the play Hamlet for many important reasons. It is used to bring justice and to reveal failures and shortcomings. The fact that humans even have a conscience proves that they are doing something wrong. By definition, a conscience is the sense of rightness assuming there’s a wrong thing to do. The king is brought to justice by his conscience for doing the wrong thing. Hamlet says, “The play’s the thing /Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King” (II, ii). There is no problem in finding Claudius’s guilt, acting on this new found conviction, however, is tricky because Hamlet must justify killing him. His conscience is the battle between wills: God’s and Hamlet’s. This means Hamlet must consult his conscience before acting, and therein lies his genius. Most men, Claudius included, wait till sin until being accosted by conscience. He says after the mousetrap caught him, “My fault is past. But oh, what form of prayer/Can serve my turn? ‘Forgive me my foul murder’?” (III, iii). So Shakespeare is describing here how humans must act, realizing we’re all flawed. He is saying that the conscience is the key before acting as justly as possible.

If consulting one’s conscience is a prerequisite to acting, grace and forgiveness is the prerequisite for seeking the conscience. Grace and forgiveness is the boat by which Hamlet floats to action as he tells Ophelia in the ‘To be, or not to be’ speech, “Nymph, in thy orisons/Be all my sins remembered” (III, i). He realizes he has failures and shortcomings, and Hamlet sees this humanness at a different level than most people. This sense is heightened even more after his own life is threatened. He describes the fates of great men like Caesar and Alexander who will plug a beer barrel just as anyone else; “Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that loam, whereto he was converted, might they not stop a beer barrel?” (V, i). It is only after getting in touch with his humanness, humbling himself, and seeking God’s will can Hamlet return and kill Claudius. It is for these reasons that Hamlet dies with an air of grace. This is grace from God that fills the gap between Hamlet’s faults and what was right.

One sees a nice width of what it means to be human by observing the course of action of possibly the most human character of Shakespeare’s plays, Hamlet. The relationship between Heaven and Earth is illustrated in the plans God has for Hamlet. Shakespeare even tells us how to act as justly as possible being Humans: accepting flaws, accepting grace and forgiveness, seeking conscience, and then seeking the will of God. Just think, all of those steps are necessary to propriety just because we are imperfect!