Our Experiences Affect How We Perceive Things

How can a prisoner relate to Hamlet? One may not think about it very much because this is a comparison not many would do, but it indeed is correct. Prisoners can relate to Hamlet in countless different ways, and believe it or not, it helps some of them for the best. After listening to the podcast by This American Life in which Jack Hitt, the man who studied the process of staging Hamlet in the Missouri Eastern Correctional Center was interviewed due to his observations. He saw men living hell in prison due to their guilt stage a play that portrays a man pondering the about consequences of a crime and change their attitudes through the development of the acting.

After listening to the podcast I realized how each prisoner made a personal connection to Hamlet. Their experiences, what they had been through and their crimes influenced them to analyze Hamlet differently. Their different kinds of emotions and guilts led them to connect to Hamlet in ways that would help each of them as individuals. They associated Hamlet with what they wanted and with what they chose, but each varied on each individual  There is no such thing as a common interpretation.

The effects Hamlet had on the inmates were infinite. I recall two men who were completely changed by this experience: Dany Waller and Brad Jones. Waller interpreted the Ghost of the deceased king Hamlet and he spoke on how acting him pulled him closer to the person he murdered. The lines he recited as the Ghost put him in the positon a victim of murder would be, and they talked to him. He was explicit when saying he "felt he [Waller's victim] was talking to me through that. That he wanted me to know what I put him through." Waller could understand his victim's pain, surprise and anguish when the murder took place, and through this he was able to manage his guilt easier. On the other hand, Jones played Hamlet for the first time after 13 years in prison.  He said that jail had changed him, and that he wasn't the same person he was before. He had reached his low point before, but now he was ready to keep going higher each time. The play had taken part in that transformation, he said, playing Hamlet and “exercising his mind kept him from losing it”.  How is it possible for a man condemned to prison for more than 13 years be able to have a transformation as such? A condemnation like that has to be due a very serious crime such as murder, rape or worse: both.


Various characters relate to the play in different ways, but they connect to it specially emotionally and personally. It goes farther away than setting a relationship. It helps the inmates connect and share their pain or regret. They find it as a way to flee from their worries. For instance, one of the inmates had said that while he interpreted Hamlet he felt human again. Due to this violent play that includes murder, and betrayal they can relate to it. Inmates are able to connect to it, and their revelations exhibit their human and humble side.