Mortality in Act V Video

While Shakespeare uses mortality as motivation in Act Three, these motivations are called into question in Act Five. In what is commonly referred to as the “gravedigger scene,” Hamlet encounters the skull of Yorick, a court jester from his childhood. Hamlet remembers Yorick fondly, and he is overcome with a sense of unease as he stares at the grim remains of his former friend.

Alas, poor
Yorick! I knew him, Horatio—a fellow of infinite
jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath bore me on his
back a thousand times, and now how abhorred in
my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung
those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft.
Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your
flashes of merriment that were wont to
set the table on a roar?

Hamlet begins to think about the unavoidable decay of the human body and the hollowness of life. He turns to his friend Horatio and asks if history’s most important figures, such as Alexander the Great, now resemble Yorick; skulls, buried in the earth.

Horatio’s response?

No matter who you are or what you have accomplished in life, your body will rot away… just like everyone else’s.

Yorick’s skull, like the ghost in Act Three, is a symbol of mortality. And Hamlet’s encounter with this skull sets the stage (quite literally) for the play’s concluding scene.

In the final moments of the tragedy, Gertrude is accidentally poisoned, Claudius is murdered by the protagonist, and Laertes and Hamlet meet the same unfortunate fate when they are both stabbed by a poison-bearing sword. As the audience is left to ponder this bloodbath, we are reminded of Hamlet’s struggle with mortality throughout the plot. What did Hamlet fight for (and what does it matter?) if himself, Claudius, and everyone around them met the same fate? The story’s ruinous conclusion is up to interpretation, but perhaps it can demonstrate that death is life’s true equalizer and vengeance can be frivolous.