The big gun of insight gained in Shakespeare's
Hamlet is, of course, Hamlet.
His
father's death and mother's hasty remarriage lead him to melancholy and depression, and
a sense that existence is not inherently meaningful. The revelation by the Ghost that
King Hamlet was assassinated by Claudius leads him to rage, but also to the weighing of
evidence against Claudius, and to the thought that evil can disguise itself in order to
do us harm. The speech by the 1 Player leads him to despair, when he compares his
inaction to the player's appearance of great emotion, but also leads him to a concrete
plan whereby he can determine Claudius's guilt with certainty. The discovery of
Yorick's skull leads him to long for the past, but also to once again contemplate
existence. The death of Ophelia leads him to proclaim his love for her for the first
time in the play.
Hamlet is a thinker, and suffering leads
him to thinking. He particularly is led to the contemplation of existence. And what is
his specific insight concerning existence? That existence isn't worth the trouble,
except for the fact that we don't know what lies on the other side of death; that, great
or small (figuratively speaking), we all end up rotting in the grave, eaten by
worms.
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