‘Shakespeare and the Human Condition’

BOOK REVIEW

Author: Dr. Siri Galhenage, Psychiatrist [Retd.]
Publisher: S. Godage & Brothers [Pvt] Ltd
Reviewed by: Sharad Sharma, Engineer [Retd.]

“The speech … encourages the reader to reflect … on issues regarding our existence … sanctity of life and the four noble truths about suffering as pronounced by the Enlightened One.”

This observation on Hamlet’s soliloquy is a connection not many would make, like many other reflections in ‘Shakespeare and the Human Condition’. The book, by Dr Siri Galhenage, was launched on 23^rd January this year, amidst thunderous applause by a large gathering of lay people, the medical fraternity, academics, family and friends.

If the aim of the book was to extract the essence of Shakespeare’s writing in relation to universal psychosocial phenomena,

while attempting to retain the Bard’s literary artistry, the author has done an excellent job of that. He has gently led us into some complex issues in human existence in a delicate manner. Moreover, in my view, he has been successful in his appraisal of the chosen characters, the situations they create and the behaviour and emotions they present with.

The book is a compilation of 14 essays. It includes essays on ‘Reading Shakespeare’ to ‘lure the young to reading Shakespeare’ and on ‘Shakespeare’s Literary Endowment’ providing insights into the life of the Bard, the context in which he wrote and his global appeal. The book is written for a general readership and is reader-friendly.

The following are some of the aspects of human experience highlighted in the book which attracted my interest. The Goddess of love, Venus, [in a role reversal] faces rejection in her attempt at seducing Adonis in the narrative poem ‘Venus and Adonis’, depicting the difference between love and lust. Two facets of love as portrayed in ‘Much Ado about Nothing’, brings into focus the question of maturity in courtship. Morbid jealousy in ‘Othello’: ‘love as ownership, alleged unfaithfulness as loss of possession, and its fellow travellers sadness and anger with a propensity for violence’ – ‘either I own you or destroy you’. Marital jealousy in ‘The Winter’s Tale’ and its contrast with ‘Fidelity as a free and willed exchange that cannot be guaranteed by forced compliance’. Loss of sanity in Ophelia in ‘Hamlet’ as a result of her experience of forbidden love, emotional abuse, and having to carry the burden of guilt.

The author shows his empathy towards ‘Lucrece’, a victim of rape, in Shakespeare’s narrative poem by the same name, describing her emotional turmoil in a sensitive manner. The discussion regarding the plight of old age in relation to ’King Lear’ is topical. ‘The Fool as a wise man holds up a mirror to Lear’s stupidity’. The observation regarding the stereotypical ‘wise old man’ – that many people grow old without being wise – is wise! It brings into focus, family relationships and the need to resolve our inner conflicts in old age rather than carry them to our grave.

The author offers interesting insights into the allegorical representation of social, political and philosophical issues in Shakespeare’s work: hybridisation of plants as a metaphor for mix-breeding of social classes blurring the boundary between Art, Nature and Humanity in ‘The Winter’s Tale’; animation of the statue of Hermoine, in the same play, signifying the resilience of the female soul subject to abuse; and Ophelia’s fate, a measure of the tragedy that beset her country, in ‘Hamlet’ – ‘Something rotten in the state of Denmark’.

The author carefully picks out scenes in the play and passages of the text for how they relate to broader society and politics, e.g., ‘misfortunes belonging to the common herd and not to royalty’ [in Hamlet’s soliloquy ‘To Be or Not to Be’]; Malcolm enumerates king-becoming graces, in ‘Macbeth’, but admits he has no relish of them; fragility and transience of power, possessions, and life itself [‘The Tempest’]; rational and respectful dialogue not finding a place in politics as a result of lack of sensibility.

Employing the polarities in characters set up by Shakespeare, the author demonstrates a ‘battle within the soul’ [in Freudian terms] in the protagonist, Prospero, finally bringing about a resolution: compassion and forgiveness, in ‘The Tempest’.

I loved the interpretation of the final scene in King Lear as a message to the audience for ‘the need to strive for the highest virtue of all – compassion – that binds mankind together’. And, of Don Pedro’s lyrics in ‘Much Ado about Nothing’ guiding us into a new life of peace and harmony with the promise of a new day.

The book, ‘Shakespeare and the Human Condition’, promises to achieve much more than its stated objective of examining the Bard’s writing from a psychological point of view. Among other things, it reminds the reader of what Ben Jonson, Shakespeare’s friend and colleague, asserted: ‘Shakespeare was not of an age but for all time’, and he belongs to the world.

The book will inspire many to read Shakespeare. The author invites the readers to master at least one of Shakespeare’s plays or poems, to reflect on them, and to make them a lifetime literary interest. And if inspiration, like charity, begins at home, I saw concrete evidence of that in the readings from Shakespeare by the author’s grandchildren at the book launch I attended, in Perth, Australia.