Carol Ashey

ENGL 413
Dr. Parker
April 13, 2014
Gods and Godlessness in Shakespeare
Where is God when the world falls apart around you? Is He sitting by and watching
events unfold, or is He involved in the outcome? Is there a deity at all? Frightening as these
questions can be, they are in many of Shakespeares plays. Shakespeares take on God in general
is not easy to define, as in some plays God is invoked and sometimes rejected, but in others,
there are the pagan gods of Roman times. The key, then, is to look at the relationship between
God and Man, and how the interaction between them varies depending on the characters, the
setting, and the genre. The tragedies of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Richard III, and King Lear
all produce distinct views of the interaction between God and Man, and the lack thereof.
In Hamlet, the only interaction seen between God and Man is in the third act, when King
Claudius attempts to repent of his sins of murder through prayer, but concludes that he cannot
because of his greed and desire for the crown and to keep the life he has.
O, my offense in rank, it smells to heaven,
It hath the primal eldest curse upont,
A brothers murder. Pray can I not,
Though inclination be as sharp as will:
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent,
And like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect
Try what repentance can. What can it not?
Yet what can it, when one cannot repent...
Bow, stubborn knees, and heart with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe! (3.3.39-46; 68-69; 74)

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In this scene, Claudius prays directly to God; this is an interesting point because it marks

Claudius as a Protestant. At the beginning of the play, Hamlet has returned from Wittenberg, a
Protestant university, yet at the funeral of Ophelia, the priest suggested that she not have a
Christian burial because she committed suicide, which is a Catholic doctrine. Also, Hamlets
fathers ghost is supposedly in Purgatory, which is another doctrine of Catholicism.
Shakespeares view of accessibility to God in this case is conflicted, especially with
Englands history moving back and forth between Catholicism and Protestantism. Yet, when it
comes down to the deciding moments (in Hamlet at least), Catholicism is the route of choice.
This is evidenced in Hamlets decision not to kill Claudius when the opportunity arises. He will
not kill his uncle while he prays because he does not want to send him to heaven should he be
truly repentant.
Now might I do it pat, now he is praying:
And now Ill dot. And so he goes to heaven.
And so I am revenged. That would be scanned:
A villain kills my father, and for that,
I, his foul son, do this same villain send
To heaven.
O, this is hire and salary, not revenge. (3.3.76-82)
In this case, Hamlet represents the conflict between Protestant and Catholic; where the
accessibility of God is undecided, but it is clear that false repentance will not be heard. In the
case of Claudius, he knows if he does not answer with a true heart, he will not be forgiven, so he
continues to act as before.
In Richard III, the forces of good and evil are clear cut, in the characters of Richard and
Richmond. Because of his deformity, Richard declares himself the villain from the minute the
play opens, not caring that what he does is evil.

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I am determined to prove myself a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,
To set my brother Clarence and the king
In deadly hate the one against the other. (1.1.30-35)
Since Shakespeare wrote his plays for the ruling monarchs at the time, he knew there was

often corruption, which led to all manner of wrongs. Shakespeare himself never said whether or
not he believed in Evil, but given his Protestant upbringing and knowledge of Catholicism, the
acknowledgement of the existence of Evil was common among all classes. The case can be
made, then, that Richard has rejected God, and chosen the path of evil. Throughout most of this
play, God is referenced, but is not present; at least not until the very end.
In Richard III, the only interaction between God and Man is just before the last battle,
when the ghosts of the people he has murdered return to haunt him in his dreams. The
introduction before the play states, The Ghosts who appear to him in his dream the night before
the last battle make him realize that actions have consequences: murder will bring him to the
bar and the verdict of guilty will be pronounced (1301). Again, God is a judging God, as He
is in Hamlet, doling out the consequences for the breaking of the Sixth Commandment: Thou
shalt not murder. In this way, He is a Just God. In this case, the vessel for Gods justice is the
character of Richmond, who takes the crown of England after Richards death. Richmond is also
visited by the ghosts and told through them that God is on his side and will lead him to victory.
Richmond tells his soldiers this in his oration to them before the battle begins.
God and our good cause fight upon our side.
The prayers of holy saints and wronged souls,
Like high-reared bulwarks, stand before our faces
Then if you fight against Gods enemy,
God will in justice ward you as His soldiers:

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If you do swear to put a tyrant down,
You sleep in peace, the tyrant being slain.
(5.3.242-244; 255-258)
In the cases of Richard and Richmond, Gods interaction with Man came through

dreams. With Richard, God spoke to him through dreams telling him the consequences of his
actions. It could also be the last attempt for Richard to come clean and repent of his actions, but,
like Claudius, he will not. Thus, the consequence is death.
Indeed, death is still the consequence in King Lear, but in this play, God is not there.
Instead, Lear invokes nature and the pagan gods as a result of his falling from the grace of his
daughters. God is absent here, which can liken to the feeling of separate from God that many
people, Christian and non alike feel at one time or another in their lives.
I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness:
I never gave you kingdom, called you children;
You owe me no subscription. Then let fall
Your horrible pleasure: here I stand, your slave,
A poor, infirm, weak and despised old man
Let the great gods,
That keep this dreadful pudder oer out heads,
Find out their enemies now
That under covert and convenient seeming
Has practiced on mans life. (3.2.10-19; 46-48; 53-54)
In the case of Lear, what deities do exist have no concern for mankind, but are there to
simply play cruel tricks on simpering humans. The relationship between man and deity in King
Lear is non-existent. The relationship is similar in Shakespeares comedies in that the deities
exist to mess with the human race as a type of fun. The case of King Lear is also set in a time
that is supposedly before Christianity has come to England. As a whole, Shakespeares views of
God and/or deities seems consistent with many people today who struggle with religious

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questions. While he does not go so far as tp answer them, he does present them in a way that
causes people to question and think.

Works Cited
Complete Works. New
York: Modern Library, 2007. Print.