SHAKESPEARE AND CAMUS

SHAKESPEARE AND CAMUS

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury Signifying nothing. — Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-28)

This perhaps is the most profound soliloquy of all Shakespeare’s works. 

Back in school, Macbeth (the complete play) was part of our English literature curriculum. I was nicknamed Macbeth by my classmates, not that I had murdered someone or was villainous by nature but because I had the entire book by heart. I still remember most of the passages and would recite them even while working in the bank. Please do not conclude that I did not do any work. It was a way of getting the staff to work and sometimes it did have the desired effect. In fact I remember that the most effective one was –

 If it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well

It were done quickly. If th' assassination

Could trammel up the consequence, and catch

With his surcease success, that but this blow

Might be the be-all and the end-all here,

Most of them could not follow what I had said but they were left in awe at my ‘profound knowledge’. I did get the desired respect and the work was completed. I never let them in to a secret- that I seriously did not know what else to do to get them to work, after efforts at cajoling and threats had failed. Shakespeare I guess should get the credit for this. Of course I refrained from quoting this in my credit proposals for I knew that the response would be-

It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.

I remember back in school, the English literature class was taken by the Principal, a Patrician Brother (as they were called) himself. Apart from teaching us he used to enact the characters in the play with such conviction that we used to look forward to this period. Now looking back I can attribute my retentive capabilities as far as Macbeth is concerned, to him even to this day.

That of course was a light hearted banter. But coming back to the main purpose of this post is that soliloquy which I quoted in the beginning. After the passage of so many years this is no longer an attempt to pass an exam but an attempt to understand the underlying philosophy. We have our own views on what life is, from the experiences we have been through. But the thought process has not changed despite the advancements in science. The idea of God, redemption, punishment and ultimately the meaninglessness of life still predominates. We have hope and despair and we talk of good and evil and of a moral fabric that governs our lives. 

Macbeth is a good man, a brave warrior and a loyal subject, who gets corrupted by external forces in a quest for power and position. It is after the deed is done that he is slowly eaten away by the guilt of his actions and realizes his own folly and is killed in the end. It is through this passage that Shakespeare brings out Macbeth’s ultimate realization and in a way his redemption.

It was way back in the sixteenth century that Shakespeare wrote all this but we can see an echo of it in the thoughts of the subsequent modern day philosophers, especially Sartre and Camus and other existentialists and in the writings of Dostoevsky especially in his Crime and Punishment.

It is in ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’ that Camus examines the meaninglessness of life and the absurd condition of man. He likens our condition to Sisyphus who was condemned by the Gods to roll a rock up the hill for eternity. As soon as he reaches the top, it rolls down again and the entire process is repeated. We live every day in the hope of a better tomorrow. But every tomorrow gives rise to another tomorrow and slowly this brings us closer to death. This is what the first four lines of the soliloquy signify. In his book Camus says that the really tragic moment is when Sisyphus starts his trek down the hill when he realizes that he has undergo the exercise again and again. There is no hope. But when he recognises the futility of his condition and the certainty of his fate he is freed. Similarly in the play ‘Macbeth’ Shakespeare brings out the true redemption of Macbeth in this play where he acknowledges that all he had achieved was for nothing, as he was slowly moving towards his death. He equates our life to that of an actor who as long as he is on stage performs and then vanishes as soon as his act is finished.

In another of the famous soliloquy from ‘Hamlet’ Shakespeare examines the existential question ‘Why live? For death could be a worse condition’

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep
No more; 

The dread is that one does not return from the dead. Here Hamlet is contemplating suicide but ultimately decides against it in this passage-

But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?

Suicide is not an option. In, ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’ Camus says that the only philosophical question is prolongation of life or to end it. When man is faced with the meaninglessness of life and the absurd nature of his condition, he faces the question of suicide. Camus says that this should not be an option for one does not know death. He says that once the truth is acknowledged for that is the only way you can overcome it you should ‘revolt’. This in fact is the subject of his next book ‘The Rebel’

Though the underlying philosophy of two great literary figures separated by four centuries find an echo in each others thoughts, their way of getting the message across differs, Shakespeare the dramatist and Camus the philosopher novelist.