Abstract
This article examines Shakespeare's dramatic secret of a “Ghost” in Hamlet. The idea of a “Ghost,” a being of uncertain existence, whether an idea or an event or the soul of a deceased person, is effectively used in this work to create a world of doubt into which Hamlet is drawn by the words of what seems to be the ghost of King Hamlet. Through Hamlet's words and behavior, Claudius is drawn into this world, which I call the world of SEEMING. It is in this world that Hamlet utters the famous phrase “To be, or not to be.” Finally, Hamlet kills his uncle without obtaining evidence of Claudius's crime and himself dies without knowing whether Claudius actually killed his father. In this circumstance, Hamlet cannot be said to have taken vengeance, which even in Elizabethan times was not allowed by law or religion; and yet vengeance is seemingly created in the audience's belief world.
© 2010 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/New York
