Hesitance- Hamlet's "Hakuna Matata?"

Disney's hit-film The Lion King undoubtedly got a lot of its original inspiration from Hamlet. Examining the comparisons between both, some people realize that a certain young lion was stuck in a situation much similar to the one Hamlet was stuck in.

To provide a brief synopsis, a young lion blames himself for the death of his father (who was actually killed by the young lion's uncle), flees from his home, and then adapts to a laid-back, carefree life with a self-absorbed meerkat and a flatulent warthog as his "adoptive parents." In the time spent in his days free from worry, the lion acts as if his troubles were nonexistent, that is, until the stars bring back some remembrance of his father to him. Then a primate witch-doctor comes to knock some sense into him (metaphorically and literally speaking), show him the continued existence of his father in his heart, then sends him running towards home (and most people know what happens after that).

Hamlet is trapped by the same fate as Simba was, however in a way that haunts him more than nags at his righteous conscience. Think his friends as the witch-doctor monkey, someone who knows that one way or the other, his father still lives. His friends take him to the apparition, who pleads with Hamlet to fulfill his revenge, as was the custom of the time, a task that leaves Hamlet pale with fright, although strengthened with resolve upon the revelation of his uncle's schemes. Hamlet, however, refused to kill Claudius in an immediate manner as most would expect of a noble hero, biding his time in his cowardice.

Here is the irony of Hamlet's comparison to Simba's story: Hamlet's "Hakuna Matata," or the ideal that is holding him back from rectifying the situation, is his conscience nagging at him, insistently dragging him away from murdering his uncle. His uncertainty about the apparition being a demon or his father's noble spirit further supports this, because somewhere in the back of his mind, he know that murder clashes with his moral truths, and yet he still wants to heed his father's wishes. If he chooses the path of vengeance, however, he risks losing himself and his belief in what is right. Simba, on the other hand, found himself when he decided to heed his father's wishes that continued to call out from the stars above.

Sad, is it not? Something that is meant to dispel a plague of injustice (Pride Land's famine and Denmark's hasty wedding) becomes something that a person either loses or gains from. In some ways, however, it is as if Hamlet is losing an innocence reminiscent to that of a child and walking towards his adulthood, similar to how Simba finally decides to grow up to be the king his father wants him to be.

As Simba leaves his "Hakuna Matata" behind, so does Hamlet when he leaves his "hesitance" behind.

And thus, two kings of injustice fall while two kings rise from children who decided to stop running away.

Ticking Towards a Courageous Center

Hesitance works much like a pendulum does with an old grandfather clock: it swings one direction, then swings to the next, and then repeats itself. While this happens, however, it always passes a center that it never stops at. It's there for a brief, immeasurable moment, but then swings outward once more. In the same way, hesitance is a feeling deep inside that takes root in a desire for something, and yet, its root is also in the fear of it as well. It continues to closely get towards the "center," but then moves away from it. In the moments where people believe they will do something, that confidence, the center, is quickly dashed to pieces by fear of the unknown. Like the pendulum on a clock, the hesitance that moves away from the center always continues to allow time to pass, forever bound to the gears that form the flow of time.

As time wears on, however, some clocks run to the end of their ropes, where the pendulum finally stops in the center. That is because the clock has already been worn old enough to keep the pendulum from swinging. In the same way, when people finally reach closure with themselves, they stop letting hesitance become the measure of their time. Every second counted is a second wasted because people are so caught up in how time passes in their idleness when they should really be focused on what to do with their time. Even if the clock stops moving, time still progresses. The sooner people realize that, the sooner that they will finally stop focusing on how quickly or slowly time moves and focus more on what to do with their time.

Applied to Hamlet in Shakespeare's play Hamlet, there will be a time in the course of the play where he will decide when to take action and when to stop letting hesitance waste his time. Until then, the audience of the great stage can anticipate that climatic moment where the pendulum ceases to move, when Hamlet finally begins to take action against his grievances. His contempt for Claudius, his disdain for his mother's foolishness, all of them simply gears that tick closer and closer to the triumphant moment of his courage. Until then, time passes on, delaying that moment, letting everyone know that moment approaches, but never telling when it will happen.

Therefore, when do you believe the pendulum will stop swinging?

The Fall of the "Pure Woman"

The subtitle of Thomas Hardy's novel, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, "A Pure Woman," fits in the novel title perfectly because her tragic story is almost indeed a direct parallel of Eve's downfall into sin. The serpent tempted, the woman ate of the forbidden fruit, and was therefore cast out of her "Garden of Eden" respectively. It was God that then said that "in pain [she] shall give childbirth. From manual labor, [she] shall strive to make a living. I have made [her] from dust, and [she] shall surely return to dust." God created Tess and Eve alike with different kinds of purity. Tess's, in the end, was her eternal sense of diligence and duty to support her family, and a relentless attitude that refused to give in to the burdens of the world. However, she gave way to the serpent's temptation, thus beginning her tragedy, and her eventual fall into death. Just as Eve was "outcasted" from Eden, Tess was ridiculed in Victorian society, thereby ostracizing her from the pleasures she once knew, all given up to flee her past.

Tess's title of "A Pure Woman" might not have lasted throughout the novel, but the very idea that her heart was pure to begin with is practically the main foundation of Hardy's novel. It became her character, her resourcefulness, her naivety to the serpent, her reason to flee her past, her tragic separation from her "Adam," and then finally (and inevitably), her death.