Cultural Studies in Practice - Hamlet and To His Coy Mistress

Hello Readers!

In the previous blog of cultural studies we have seen five type of cultural studies. Here we will see that how cultural studies is executed in practice. A tragedy by Shakespeare, Hamlet and a poem by Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress, both are taken as an example.

Explain following examples with contemporary illustrations

1. If these two characters were marginalized in Hamlet, they are even more so in Stoppard's handling. If Shakespeare marginalized the powerless in his own version of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Stoppard has marginalized us all in an era when - in the eyes of some - all of us are caught up in forces beyond our control.

Ans - While doing a general reading of the question it comes at spark that the way Tom Stoppard has portrayed the two nearly unnoticed characters in the play "Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead", it gets clear that it is the reflection of the current culture and society also. The play highlights people's incapability to raise voice against power structure which works undercurrent in society. Democracy, for example, defines the transparent governance by the people, for the people and to the people. But the people who are in power, see the democracy as BUY the people, FOUR the people, and TWO the people. In corporate sector, one finds the power structure is deeply rooted in the system. When money crisis happens in a private firm, the company fires makes many employees free from the jobs, and when the company is on the top in terms of capital turnover, it starts hiring more and more employees. This hire and fire, agenda is not considered by the public sector at all. Similarly, when telecom giant companies tie up with other small telecom firms, they expand their power to control the end users of the telecom services. The lesser the competent companies, the more powerful the telecom giant company will be. At the end, under the single rule of that company, people will have no choice, to change the service, rather to tolerate the high tariff rates and high cost network charges.
This way, one can compare the larger structure of society while looking at Tom Stoppard's play.

2. The poem 'To His Coy Mistress' tells us a lot about the speaker, the listener and also the audience for whom it is written. But what does he not show? As he selects these rich and multifarious allusions, what does he ignore from his culture?

Ans - It can be said that the poem represents the bourgeois class. The speaker of this poem seems to have a background of leisure class and rich class society, that's why he takes much liberty in providing time duration to love the beloved. On the other hand the listener also seems to have the same elitist social and cultural background. What he doesn't show is the unnoticed threat of diseases like Plague and Syphilis. It does not think of poverty, the demographics and socio-economic details of which would show how fortunate his circumstances are. It does not think of disease as a daily reality that he might face. 

We can see Karan Johar's films as example because many of the films by this director highlights only elite or leisure class love and romance which sprouts gets nurtured and decayed in the particular high class. Karan Johar's Ae Dil Hai Mushkil can be taken as contemporary example. The film majorly ignores the basic ground realities. Just the way the poem To His Coy Mistress shows only elitist romance which can be enjoyed by only high society or leisure class.

References

(1) Guerin, Wilfred L. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature Fifth Edition. Oxford University Press, 2005.

Thank You!