Ambiguity in HamletThe Shakespearean tragic drama Hamlet, although recognized as an unrivaled classic of tragedy by many literary critics, is nevertheless ambiguous in various words and actions. This problematic dimension of the drama will be examined in this essay. Howard Felperin, in his essay "Oerdoing Termagant", exposes the ambiguity of Hamlet's instructions to the plays ("Oh, it offends my soul..."): Yet, that Hamlet's explanation of the aim of the game is also that of Shakespeare'', the fact that it occupies a central place in the most theatrically conscious and complex of his plays makes it more problematic than is usually supposed, a text in some respects ambiguous in its statement and incompatible with the piece which forms its context. It is the general statement of the function of drama that primarily interests me here, both in its immediate application to Hamlet himself and in its broader implications for Shakespeare's work. work as a whole. In Hamlet's classic restatement of the commonplace – “to hold, as it were, the mirror of nature” – the aim of the game is twofold.[. . .] What Hamlet did, in effect, was to amalgamate under the general expression "holding the mirror before nature" two distinct notions of drama, each with a long tradition and each to some extent antagonistic to the other in its objective. and method. (100) The conflict between the "moral" notion and the "realistic" notion of drama is what makes the protagonist's above statement so ambiguous. Other examples of ambiguity are found in this tragedy of the Bard of Avon. DG James says in "The New Doubt" that the Bard has an ambiguous habit of giving a word multiple meanings in the middle of a sheet of paper...... Impulsive but serious young aristocrat. Readings on Hamlet. Ed. Don Nardo. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1999. Rpt. from The Masks of Hamlet. Newark, NJ: Univ. of Delaware P., 1992. Shakespeare, William. The tragedy of Hamlet, prince of Denmark. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1995. http://www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/hamlet/full.htmlWest, Rebecca. “A Court and a world infected by the disease of corruption.” Readings on Hamlet. Ed. Don Nardo. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1999. Rpt. of The Court and the Castle. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1957. Wright, Louis B., and Virginia A. LaMar. “Hamlet: a man who thinks before he acts.” Readings on Hamlet. Ed. Don Nardo. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1999. Rpt. from The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Ed. Louis B. Wright and Virginia A. LaMar. N.p. : Paperbacks, 1958.